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Don’t be concerned if many of the books that have been recommended in specialized dictionaries, encyclopedias, and indexes don’t appear in your library’s online catalog. The reference librarian can direct you to WorldCat, where you can request on interlibrary loan any book to be sent to you from another library for your perusal. This is a valuable service, as it makes available to you the research collections of large universities, all with the stroke of a key.

Journal articles are likely to be the next step in your research. You will need to find which articles are available in-house, online or in print, and which you will need to submit an interlibrary loan request for (in this case, unlike with books, you will receive a photocopy of the interlibrary loaned article to keep—no need to return it to the lending library). Your library’s online catalog will generally—though not always—provide you with a complete list of journals available electronically or in print. Just title search on the journal name, not the article title, in order to locate the journal. Ask a reference librarian for assistance in locating journals. He or she can also assist you in requesting on interlibrary loan any articles from journals your library does not have.

Finding Quality Sources: Two Professors Speak

In the following Voices from Across the Curriculum, a business professor and a psychology professor offer useful tips for searching under more than one heading in order to find more information.

Voices from Across the Curriculum

A critical part of the bibliographic effort is to find a topic on which materials are available. Most topics can be researched. The key is to choose a flexible keyword/phrase and then try out different versions of it. For example, a bibliography on “women in management” might lead you to look up women, females, business (women in), business (females in), gender in the workplace, sexism and the workplace, careers (of men, of women, in business), women and CEOs, women in management, affirmative action and women, women in corporations, female accountants, and so forth. Be imaginative and flexible. A little bit of time with some of the indexes will provide you with a wealth of sources.

Here is a sampling of indexes heavily used in the social sciences, for instance: Social Science Index, SocAbs, Wall Street Journal Index (for WSJ stories), New York Times Index (for NYT stories), Business Source Elite, and the Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS).

—Frederick Norling, Professor of Business

Use quality psychological references, that is, use references that professional psychologists use and regard highly. Psychology Today is not a good reference; Newsweek and Reader’s Digest are worse. APA journals, such as the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, on the other hand, are excellent.

In looking for reference material, be sure to search under several headings. For example, look under depression, affective disorders, and mood disorders. Books (e.g., The Handbook of Affective Disorders) are oft en very helpful, especially for giving a general overview of a topic. Books addressing a professional audience are generally preferable to those addressing a general, popular audience.

Finally, references should be reasonably current. In general, the newer, the better. For example, with rare exceptions (classic articles), articles from before 1970 are outdated and so should not be used.

—Alan Tjeltveit, Professor of Psychology

FINDING QUALITY ON THE WEB

Imagine a megalibrary to which anyone has access any time of day or night and to which anyone can contribute material, to inform, but perhaps more so to sell and to promote, no matter how questionable the cause or idea. So it is with the web. A general caveat to this “library of the Internet” might well be User Beware.

Take as an example the website Martin Luther King: A True Historical Examination (www.martinlutherking.org). This site appears prominently in