RESOURCES & SERVICES in Psychology Blog

Greetings, Psychology Scholars!

Do you find yourself in need of a little library research assistance, but can't seem to squeeze in another appointment?

Well, assuming many of you are nodding and saying "YES"...I thought establishing a new blog service would help you with your research endeavors. Here you will find periodic announcements, e-lessons and news about research resources and services of interest and use to you. More specifically, the intermittent series of messages posted here will provide notices of new (or overlooked) databases or resources, quick tips & instructions on their use, information on library workshops, the collections and other library services. This blog will replace most emailed updates I have sent to your listserv in the past. And, the best part is that the blog entries will be archived so that you can easily retrieve information I have previously posted---searching by category or date.

I aim to assist, not to annoy and have no plans to overload your brain. It is my hope that these messages will help you to make the most of the library's vast resources and services. More often than not, the information, descriptions and explanations will be customized to suit your needs as a graduate student or member of the faculty in the Department of Psychology. The next blog entry (Monday, Feb. 5th) will be about RefWorks---a popular citation management tool. Stay tuned!

One final note about personalized service---it is still an option. You may, at any time during the semester, send along an email or call with a question. As always, I am also available if you wish to schedule an individual research consultation. To do so please complete the following online form.

Feel free to let me know how I can best help you with your research endeavors.

Best Regards,

Allison

Allison M. Sutton, Assistant Professor
Psychology & Social Work Subject Specialist/Librarian
Education & Social Science Library
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1408 West Gregory Drive
Urbana, Illinois 61801
Email: asutton@uiuc.edu
Voice: 217-244-1866
Fax: 217-333-2214

What exactly is RefWorks?
and
How can RefWorks make my research and writing process easier?

RefWorks gathers, and stores citations from books, articles and websites organizing them into bibliographies using common styles like APA, MLA and many others.

A few specifics...
• Export records from databases to Refworks seamlessly—takes the tedium out of reference tracking
• Access your personal citation database from anywhere—on campus, at home, or abroad—via the Web
• Insert references directly into Word, using citation style of your choice, with Write N Cite feature
• NEW! All citations in RefWorks have a UIUC "Discover" link, allowing you quick access to the e-version
of journal articles, and more.

Learn more about RefWorks:
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/refworks/

The Library is offering a series of basic workshops on using RefWorks.
For information on workshop dates, times, and registration refer to the library's event calendar at: http://130.126.32.16/evanced/lib0/eventcalendar.asp

No time to attend a workshop?
There is also an excellent online tutorial for RefWorks:
http://www.refworks.com/tutor

Questions?
Please contact me...

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Allison M. Sutton, Assistant Professor
Psychology & Social Work Subject Specialist/Librarian
Education & Social Science Library
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1408 West Gregory Drive
Urbana, Illinois 61801
Email: asutton@uiuc.edu

Voice: 217-244-1866
Fax: 217-333-2214
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A new partnership has been formed to provide better data-related services!

The University Library and ATLAS are experimenting with ways to collaborate in providing robust support for faculty and students who are using numeric data sets for research and teaching.

Pilot projects launched in Spring 2008 include Data Services Office Hours (Wednesday 1:30-4:30 pm, 200-D Main Library), where staff from ATLAS and librarians with a wide range of expertise will work together to provide reference and technical consultation to help users identify and use data.

Services offered include: acquiring data sets needed for teaching and research; locating, downloading and preparing data for secondary analysis; identifying and creating course materials and teaching tools (including customized data sets drawn from various data repositories) and consulting about software problems. No appointment necessary!

If the Spring 2008 pilot is successful, these hours and services will be expanded.

MORE INFORMATION: (217) 244-6445 or atlas-consult@uiuc.edu
Web site: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/research/dataservices.html

Self-help Options:
*Online Tutorials: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/research/data_tutorials.html

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Allison Sutton
Psychology & Social Work Subject Specialist
Education & Social Science Library
asutton@uiuc.edu
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The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) has recently launched an APA style online tutorial.

The tutorial, a collaboration between Gutman Library's Writing Services and the Learning Technologies Center (HGSE IT), is based on a highly regarded and well-attended workshop entitled, "APA EXPOSED : Everything You Always Wanted to Know About APA Format But Were Afraid to Ask!" Wendy Mages, an HGSE doctoral student, developed the content and taught the workshop for the past several years under the auspices of the Gutman Library Writing Services. In collaboration with Allison Harrington, Instructional Technology Designer for the Learning Technologies Center, Wendy Mages transferred the content of the in-person workshop to an online version.

The online APA tutorial has been designed to supplement the HGSE in-person workshop, but will serve any student well as a stand-alone resource. It provides... point-of-need assistance, and to facilitate student access to citation "how-to" information for APA format. Additionally, the tutorial has self-checks and additional resources for APA citation information.

NOTE: Please keep in mind that this resource is geared toward Harvard students and will at times refer to their library and campus resources. The tutorial, however, is very well done and useful to anyone using the APA citation style.

If you're interested, please take a look at the APA tutorial, which is currently undergoing beta testing.

APA tutorial URL: http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~instruct/articulate/APA/player.html

Carla Lillvik, Research and Distance Services Librarian at Harvard Graduate School of Education welcomes your feedback at: http://poll.icommons.harvard.edu/poll/taker/pollTakerOpen.jsp?poll=1-6134-12670