The Dewey Library Blog

UA Libraries now offer online access to the Mental Measurements Yearbook. This authoritative guide describes over 2,000 testing and assessment instruments, and has long been important resource for Social Welfare researchers. The database provides the same information in the print Mental Measurements Yearbook from 1985 to the present.

Our subscription is accompanied by Tests in Print, which provides bibliographic information on commercially available tests, including the publisher and purchase price.

To access these resources, go to the library's Databases and Indexes page, and click on "M" to locate Mental Measurements Yearbook. On the database's main search page (which is the familiar Ebsco interface), click the "Choose Databases" link at the top of the search page and select Tests in Print to search the two resources simultaneously.

A brief session with a librarian can help you more effectively learn how to use the Mental Measurements Yearbook and Tests in Print -- remember to Ask-A-Librarian!

Blog post created by Michael V. Daly

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New MSW students may sign up for one of three Social Welfare Research Seminar sessions held in June. The Social Welfare Research Seminar is part of the MSW program’s information literacy requirement and is mandatory for all students pursuing the Masters' degree in Social Welfare.

The June schedule is as follows:

• June 9 (Monday): 11:00am
• June 18 (Wednesday): 4:30pm
• June 25 (Wednesday): 4:00pm

You may sign up one of three ways: stop by the Dewey Library Reference Desk, call us at 442-3691, or register online.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dewey will be offering the final two informational workshops for graduate students this week. If you are a Social Welfare student needing to fulfill the information literacy requirement, you may want to use this opportunity to complete the workshop before the end of the semester. Sign up in person at the Dewey reference desk, call 442-3691, or register online.

This weeks classes:

Thursday:
2:00 PM: Introduction to Online Research Databases

Friday:
11:00 AM: Conducting Research from Home

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many Social Welfare students come to us with questions about which library seminars they must take in order to graduate.

We recommend that all Social Welfare students first take the Social Welfare Research Seminar. In this class we cover: library services, the library website, encyclopedias and dictionaries, basics of searching the
MINERVA library catalog, which databases to use, introduction to database searching, Internet sources for social welfare including test and measurement resources and statistics, evaluating information, finding APA Style information.

After you have taken the Social Welfare Resarch Seminar, you will likely need to take an advanced or more specialized seminar. The topic may differ, depending on your academic concentration. Here is some assistance in making this choice:

Recommended for all students:

• MINERVA, UA Libraries' Online Catalog : advanced skills in using the Library Catalog and locating and accessing library materials


• Introduction to Research Databases: learn how to effectively search for articles using databases


• Conducting Research from Home : an overview of research resources that can be accessed from outside the libraries


• Using EndNote: EndNote software helps organize sources and produce bibliographies
• Using the Web to Communication and Collaborate: Learn about blogs, wikis, RSS and more

Recommended particularly for direct practice students:

• Library Resources for Evidence-Based Practice: learn how to find and evaluate research information for clinical social work practice

Recommended particularly for MACRO students:

• Introduction to Federal Public Policy Research: resources for finding the legal authority for polices, constructing a legislative history and evaluating federal public policies


• IIntroduction to Westlaw Campus: how to find statutes, regulations, cases, and other legal information


• Non-Profit Organizations: Information Sources: print, online and Internet sources for information regarding non-profit organizations

We encourage you to attend one or more of these seminars as soon as practiable -- you will get the most benefit out of the material covered if you attend the seminars early in your course of study. You can view the full schedule of seminars online. In addition, each week's offerings are posted on this blog each Monday. In addition to the online registration, you may also register in person at the Dewey Reference Desk or call us at 442-3691.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LIbrarians who are Subject Specialsts here at UAlbany have created online guides, to help you get the "lay of the land" with regard to key library resources for your academic discipline. These guides are found on the sidebar of our Dewey pages, under the heading: My Research Subject . You will also find them in the pull-down menu of the UA Libraries' main page .

Bibliographer (also the Head of Dewey) Mary Jane Brustman has updated the Subject Guides for Social Welfare and Criminal Justice.

The guides now include information about resources relevant resources in our Special Collections Department. For example, Special Collections has an archive of materials from Neighborhood and Community Associations, which may be useful for Social Welfare researchers; and The National Death Penalty Archive, of interest to some Criminal Justice researchers.

In addition to a slightly redesigned format (e.g., the guides now display an image of a recently published work by departmental faculty), the Social Welfare and Criminal Justice Subject Guides also have a "mini-update" at the bottom listing upcoming classes and library events that pertain to the subject.

We hope you'll take a look at the Subject Guides and provide us wiith feedback -- how helpful are these guides? What can we do to make them more useful? Our purpose is to make the library easier for you to use, so we welcome your opinions.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The University at Albany Libraries now offer two new databases that may be of particular interest to the downtown campus community.

Public Administration Abstracts provides bibliographic information for a wide variety of topics related to the disciplne of public administration, for example: administration and economy; law, politics and society; administrative structures and organization; international relations, organizations and policy; national government; public and social services; taxation, budgeting and finance; and theory and methods. Coverage runs from 1974 to the present.

Abstracts in Social Gerontology provides bibliographic information on topics such as: elder abuse, services and advocacy for the elderly, mental and physical health issues affecting the elderly, caregiving, death and bereavement, family issues concerning the elderly, and legislation and policies affecting the elderly.

Both of these databases are replacing their print counterparts and are available from the Database and Indexes page on the UA Libraries' main web page.

Don't forget to contact us if you have questions about these new resources, or if we can help you with any other request.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Mental Measurements Yearbook, an authoritative guide to over 2,000 testing and assessment instruments, has long been important resource for Social Welfare researchers. We currently only offer this reference in it's print format; however, we are currently testing an online version. To access the online version, go to the library's Databases and Indexes page. Click on the Ebsco link in the middle of the page. When you get to the Ebsco search screen, click on the blue "Choose Databases" tab at the top of the page.

Check the box next to the Mental Measurements Yearbook and click "Continue."

Please let us know what you think of the online format. Feel free to comment below, or contact Mary Jane Brustman, the Bibliographer for Social Welfare.

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Many Social Welfare researchers and students are required to locate various assessment instruments, tests, and measures; either to utilize or to analyze and evaluate. However, many times, the keyword searches we commonly use in Google, the Research Databases or Minerva do not provide us with the instrument itself. This can pose quite a research challenge. The Dewey Library has many resources at your disposal which can help. A good starting point is the Social Welfare “My Research Subject” page -- it has several sources to help you. Under the subcategory "Internet Resources in Social Welfare" you will find a section of websites specifically dealing with tests and measures, here are some examples:

• A website known as Tests and Measures in the Social Sciences lists the 10,000 measures found in full in 97 books.


• A complementary site, SDSU (San Diego State University)TestFinder lists more books with tests and measures and many citations to those included in journal articles.


• Testlink from Educational Testing Service offers more than 20,000 educational and psychological tests and measurements. Some tests can be downloaded free or for a fee from the site; others must be ordered.

These are only a sample of what may be found under this category of the Internet Resources in Social Welfare page. Check to see if there is anything useful to you.

In addition to Internet sites, University at Albany has its own School of EducationTest Library (from the Division of Educational Psychology and Methodology). This website lists tests, books, hours for the library and more. The Test Library is located in Education B-11 on the Uptown Campus.

In the Dewey print collections,we also have Tests in Print [Dewey Library Reference LB 1131.5 B8], a guide to tests including how they may be ordered/purchased.

Librarians are happy to help you with any of these sources or any other research issues. Contact the Reference Desk and we will be glad to be of assistance. If you have questions specific to Social Welfare, please contact Mary Jane Brustman to set up an appointment. You may e-mail her or call her (442-3517).

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Elaine Lasda Bergman, currently the Reference Bibliographer at Dewey Library, is taking on a new role as Gerontology Subject Specialist starting this week.

Elaine has several years of experience as a reference librarian and bibliographer at University at Albany. She also has expertise in health care information from her work as manager of the library at the Healthcare Association of New York State. Elaine will be purchasing gerontology materials for the library as well as assisting researchers and doing presentations.

Elaine is available at ebergman@uamail.albany.edu phone: 442-3695

Posted by at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Q: I am a returning grad student in Social Work who has been out of school for some time. I have been assigned a paper in my first class that asks for at least 12 "peer reviewed articles." How would I go about finding articles that are peer-reviewed?

A: When you go to search for articles through our "Database Finder" at http://library.albany.edu/databases/search.asp you can narrow the databases down by subject on the menu at the bottom of the screen. You can select Social Welfare from that list and it will provide you with a list of databases that are strong in your subject area.

To find peer reviewed articles, you will need to narrow down the search in the databases. For most Social Welfare topics the best place to start is in Social Work Abstracts. This database includes the 100 most important journals in the social welfare field. You can supplement this search with Social Services Abstracts (for human services literature generally) and PsycINFO (for psychology and psychiatry literature.)

Most databases have a feature to limit your search to Peer Reviewed (i.e. scholarly or research) articles. In Social Services Abstracts you can limit your search to Peer Reviewed after you complete your initial search. Just click on the green menu bar above your search results. In PsycINFO look for the “Limit Search” feature. Limiting to Peer Reviewed is especially important when using general databases like EBSCO Academic Search Premier. There you can “Refine Search” to retrieve only peer reviewed articles.

For further reference, we have a subject guide for social welfare that may be of help to you: http://library.albany.edu/subject/social_main.html .

Also, if you have any in depth questions about research, our Social Welfare Librarian would be happy to help.
Her contact information is as follows:
Mary Jane Brustman
Dewey Library 442-3517
mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For all the new Social Welfare masters students: Be sure to sign up for your first required workshop soon at http://library.albany.edu/dewey/classschedule.htm .

The class will provide you with information about library services (such as ERes, free article delivery service, wireless access, etc.), basic reference sources, using the University Libraries website, what databases are available, how to search databases, what is a research article, using the Internet for research, citing sources and more. Undergraduates, doctoral students, and faculty are welcome as well.

A similar class is available with information and resources for Criminal Justice students. If you take these classes early in the semester you will be prepared to do efficient research.

Questions? E-mail Mary Jane Brustman, Librarian for Social Welfare and Criminal Justice, at mbrustman@uamail.albany.edu .

Posted by Elaine Lasda Bergman at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)