In the previous tutorial, you learned how to find biographical articles about your psychologist. Now, look in those biographical articles for names of your psychologist's major works. It's important to realize that some psychologists wrote mostly books and some wrote mostly articles. The biographical articles should help give you a sense of whether your psychologist was primarily a book-writer or an article-writer.
Here's an example of the Publications section of a biographical article (from the Wikipedia article "George Kelly, psychologist.")
- If you know the title of the book you're looking for, you can enter it in the basic search box of the TLU Library Catalog.
If you find a book, write down the call number, check the location (Circulating Collection is most common - these are the books on the second floor), and check the status (Not Charged means not checked out).
If you know the title of the article you're looking for, you can enter the full title, in quotation marks, into the PsycINFO database. Make sure to put quotation marks around the title to indicate that you want the database to find those exact words in that order. You can choose TI Title in the dropdown menu, although your search will usually succeed even if you don't do this.
If your PsycINFO search isn't successful, you can search for the article title, in quotation marks, in QuickSearch or Google Scholar, which go beyond the discipline of psychology. When using QuickSearch, make sure to un-check the "Full Text" box.
If your psychologist has written a major work that TLU doesn't have full-text access to, submit an Interlibrary Loan request.
Above, we talked about how to search for a particular book when you know the title. But you can also search by author when you aren't looking for a specific title.
- Go to the TLU library catalog
- Click on the Author tab
- Search by LAST name first
- Sometimes the catalog lists birth and death dates - this can help you confirm that you've found the right person. If you find a book, write down the call number, check the location (Circulating Collection is most common - these are the books on the second floor), and check the status (Not Charged means not checked out).
- Some psychologists will not have any works in the TLU library catalog. Remember that you can also rely on articles or request a book using Interlibrary Loan. Sometimes you can read excerpts on Google Books, although you can't download from there.
- Go to PsycINFO
- Enter your psychologist's name in the search box
- Use the drop-down menu to choose AU Author
- In your results list, you might find authors who share your psychologist's name but are actually different people. Use what you've learned about your psychologist's interests, institutional affiliation, and timeframe to figure out whether you're looking at the right person.
Sometimes, you may want to search beyond the discipline of Psychology. For example, three of Paul Broca's neurology articles can be found in PsycINFO, but more can be found in MEDLINE, a medical database. If you want to venture beyond PsycINFO, you can try the QuickSearch tool. QuickSearch searches a huge amount of content, including disciplines other than psychology, so be sure to use the filters available.
Contact a librarian to get help using QuickSearch.
One important thing to know about QuickSearch is that by default, it only shows articles that are available immediately in full-text. To see the full universe of resources, including articles available through Interlibrary Loan, UNCHECK the Full Text box
You will often find it useful to narrow your search by limiting to Academic Journals.
