Librarian Response, Mount Holyoke College
1. Resources include, PsycInfo: This
is the major database of
Psychology literature. MH provides it through the Ovid interface
from 1887
through the present. It includes a sophisticated indexing system
based
on the terminology used in the field so will help students think
about
appropriate vocabulary, combining of terms, refining searches.
Web of Science: This interdisciplinary database is unique among
indexing
services. While it does not provide the specialized indexing of
other services,
it allows for searching of cited references which many faculty
find a very
powerful tool. It allows students to see how pieces of scholarship
inform
and respond to one another, how scholarship develops and shifts.
With access
to the backfiles (sciences back to 1945, social sciences back
to 1950's)
it opens up a part of the literature that may have been neglected
in favor
of materials more readily cited electronically.
JSTOR: Provides searchable fulltext of the backfiles of over 100
key
scholarly journals. Although Psychology journals are not yet included,
other disciplines in the social sciences are well represented.
It may be
interesting to see if and how topics in Psychology have crossed
into other
discplines.
2. We currently offer about 75 course
integrated workshops each year.
Many of these are at the request of faculty, though sometimes
we see a
need and offer to conduct a workshop. We also offer general workshops
on
searching the Internet through the LITS training program. In addition,
we do much instruction in one-on-one encounters at the Reference
desk.
The majority of our questions now require some instruction in
use and choice
of resource (appropriate discipline, good quality, paper vs. electronic,
full-text vs. index, timeliness, etc).
3. More! We would like to offer more
course integrated instruction as
those seem to be the most successful in reaching students when
they have
a need to know. We would also like to work more closely with faculty
in
developing assignments that will achieve their goals for the students
and
will be manageable and interesting for the students. We have some
success
with that in the Sciences and would like to expand that success.
Kathleen Norton