RESOURCES & SERVICES in Social Work Blog

Fall has arrived and will soon be in full swing! As you begin to get into gear please note that the U of I Library has expanded its offerings of instructional assistance. The workshops, videos, web pages and tutorials are meant to provide options for learning how to use the Library's vast resources.

NOTE: The workshops and other instructional options listed below will *not* replace the basic, mandatory, library research session which is required of all MSW students.

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WORKSHOPS:

The Savvy Researcher Workshop Series are drop-in workshops geared toward graduate students and cover a myriad of topics including RefWorks, RSS feeds and current awareness tools, how to find grant money, statistical research, IDEALS and finding the tough stuff e.g. conference proceedings.

You can access the schedule off the Library Gateway under "Get Help" --> Workshops.
or here is the direct link...
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/instruction/workshops.html

Note: These sessions are suggested as an option to help you with more in-depth coverage of many research resources the library offers.

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NO TIME to attend a workshop on campus?
CHECK OUT the OTHER OPTIONS to help you learn how to use the library...

INSTRUCTIONAL WEB PAGE:

HOW DO I FIND...?
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/rex/find/

This portal will provide step-by-step text and visual instructions on how to locate, request or more use several services available to help you locate books, articles and journals, dissertations, reserves, or items in particular locations.

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/ondemand/index.html

These videos will provide step-by-step visual and voice instructions on how to locate, request or more use several services available to help you locate books, articles and journals, dissertations, reserves, or items in particular locations. It also includes instructions on a variety of other topics not included as a part of the "How do I find...?" web page.

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Data Service Office Hours
continue through June 11, 2008

Wednesdays 1:30-4:30 pm
Government Documents Library (2nd floor of the Main Library)

Get help finding opinion polls, election studies, social surveys, census, education, and health data; and preparing datasets for analysis in SPSS, SAS, STATA and ArcGIS.

No Appointment Necessary!
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For more information about using digital survey data sources, see:
Data Services @ The University Library
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/research/dataservices.html

Jointly sponsored by the University Library and Applied Technologies for Learning in the Arts & Sciences (ATLAS)
Enhance and expand your research, writing, and teaching with data

Health, Economic, Social & Political Data for Secondary Analysis

WHEN: Thursday, April 10th

WHERE: Undergrad Library 291

TIME: 3:30-4:30pm

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
is the world's largest archive of digital social science data. Learn to search
ICPSR's catalog of holdings, download data, and read it into a statistics
program (SPSS) to make tables. Our examples will focus on topics
suggested by the audience. Some prior experience with SPSS may be
helpful, but is not necessary.

Register now (preferred, but NOT required)
OR Find out about upcoming and past workshops:
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/instruction/workshops.html

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

NEW Spring 2008

The University of Illinois Library and the Applied Technologies for Learning
in the Arts & Sciences (ATLAS) are now Data Service Partners!

DATA SERVICES Office Hours:
Wednesdays: 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Government Documents Library (2nd Floor Main Library)

Get help finding opinion polls, election studies, social surveys, census, education,
and health data; and preparing datasets for analysis in SPSS, SAS, STATA and ArcGIS.

No Appointment Necessary!

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

Future Events: Data and Statistical Workshops (Date and Times TBA)

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Allison Sutton
Psychology & Social Work Subject Specialist
Education & Social Science Library
asutton@uiuc.edu
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For a variety of reasons, the UIUC Library is switching access to the PsycINFO w/ PsycArticles databases from one vendor (OVID) to another (CSA/Cambridge Scientific). There are some functions that will be enhanced through CSA, such as searching across multiple databases by using the drop-down menu on the search page to select the "social sciences" or by selecting specific databases from that same page. If you have questions about searching these databases through this vendor, please contact us using one of the methods described on our Ask-A-Librarian page.

To set up an alert system to let you know when new materials in your area of interest are added to the database, please see the directions at Alerts in CSA (Cambridge) Databases. Access to these databases via OVID will end June 30, 2007. CSA access is available now.

Self-Managed Current Awareness Defined:
The art of saving searches and setting up auto-alerts using databases and journals.

Need to be kept up to date on a particular topic or research area?
Learn how to use current awareness features in several popular social science databases.

What will current awareness features allow me to do?
*set up permanent searches.
*save a search you have created and run it manually whenever you wish.
*receive email updates (auto-alerts) when new research matching your search criteria is added to the database.
*set up table of contents (TOC) alerts.

Which databases allow me to use current awareness features?

The short answer is Several!! However, you are likely using many social science databases powered by either OVID or Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA).

The Ovid group of databases includes PsycINFO/PsycARTICLES, ERIC, Social Work Abstracts, ERIC, MedLine, Health and Psycho-Social Instruments, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, Current Contents and more.

The CSA databases include Social Services Abstracts, ERIC, Sociological Abstracts, Communication Abstracts and Worldwide Political Abstracts.

Instructions are available at the Education and Social Science Library’s
Self-Managed Current Awareness page.

Are Current Awareness and Auto-Alert features available for journals or other databases?

YES!
The Funk (ACES) Library has compiled an extensive list of instructions on
setting up Table of Contents (TOC) alerts in various databases. Of particular interest to Education and Social Science Library users may be the Web of Science TOC alert instructions

Ready to get started? Need to learn more?
See the Education and Social Science Library’s
Self-Managed Current Awareness page.
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Questions?
Please contact me...
Allison Sutton, Psychology & Social Work Subject Specialist
Email: asutton@uiuc.edu
Voice: 217-244-1866
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The UIUC Library has been granted an EXTENSION of the trial of PsychiatryOnline!
Access will be available until May 6, 2007!

This powerful web-based portal features DSM-IV-TR (R)-the most widely used psychiatric reference in the world and American Journal of Psychiatry as the cornerstones of a collection of psychiatric references from American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. The journal collection also includes the Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences Additionally, PsychiatryOnline also provides access to textbooks, self-assessment tools and clinical & research news from Psychiatric News. In addition, unlimited downloads to your PDA are available! Find out more at http://www.psychiatryonline.com or link from the Library's ORR.

To assist the library in determining whether to obtain full subscriptions to this resource, please send feedback to
Allison Sutton, Psychology and Social Work Librarian at asutton@uiuc.edu

Hope you are enjoying the Spring break!

Allison

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 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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Greetings, Social Work 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 School of Social Work. The next blog entry (on 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