PsycINFO Volume 28

•

ISSUE 1 • 2009

Our Plans for 2009 — What to Expect With APA Databases By Linda Beebe

O

ver the past few years, we have had record-breaking production across the databases. In 2008, once again new PsycINFO records exceeded 150,000. We have continued to add backfiles to PsycARTICLES, and we have been working on a very extensive digitization project for PsycBOOKS and PsycEXTRA in collaboration with the Archives of the History of American Psychology in Akron. In 2008 one of the goals for PsycCRITIQUES was to publish reviews of current movies while they were still in the theaters (a challenge given how quickly some disappear). For 2009, we have plans for further expansion.

In this issue 1 Our Plans for 2009

— What to Expect With APA Databases

4

Library Resource

5

Call for Nominations

6

In Search of:

7

Center Close-Up

for the American Psychological Association's Excellence in Librarianship Award Grant Information for Organizations Supporting Research on Helping People With Acquired Brain Injury Through Cognitive Rehabilitation

PsycINFO Webinars

Pre-Publication Coverage in PsycINFO Many of the journals we cover are now releasing articles before the entire publishing process is completed. Publishers vary widely in how they are handling these pre-publication articles. At one end of the spectrum, some are released as soon as they are accepted; at the other end, the articles may be copy edited and approved by the authors, but not fully composed. Or perhaps not all the articles in an issue are ready for release. The pressure on primary publishers is to get articles into the literature as soon as possible; therefore, we think it is important to make them findable as soon as we can. We will be marking these records as “Pre-Publication” because they will be quite different from our standard records. To get them into the database as quickly as possible (and as cost effectively as possible), we must take full advantage of extensive automation. Consequently, the following requirements will apply: ■ We must receive the data in an electronic feed in the NLM format.  e will cover pre-publication articles only in the journals we cover ■ W comprehensively, as selecting articles one by one cannot be accomplished without human intervention.  hen the fully published article arrives, we will complete a stan■ W dard PsycINFO record and delete the Pre-Publication one. continued on page 2

2

PsycINFO

Issue 1

•

2009

Our Plans for 2009 — What to Expect With APA Databases continued from page 1 Articles will vary widely in the content they contain at this stage. We will capture whatever metadata the publisher supplies, realizing that many will be missing pagination, volume, issue, and other data. Several new fields are required to make this work. Some will be visible to the user, and others are simply markers within the underlying database to help us manage the workflow and history. The fields that will be visible are these:  ublication Status field ■ P — For the initial entry, the value will be PrePublication; for the final entry, the field will be vacant. ■ F  irst Posting Date — this will be full date such as January 20, 2009. ■ P  ublication History field — This one includes four possible subfields: • First Posting Date: Month, Day, Year • Accepted Date: Month, Day, Year • Revised Date: Month, Day, Year (may be multiple occurrences) • Submitted Date: Month, Day, Year Going forward, this field will appear in all records for journals that provide the data. Even if they do not provide anything beyond the First Posting Date, that date will be moved from the Pre-Publication field to the Publication History field so that users will be able to track the history of postings. These changes will take place with the 2009 reload, which we will release to vendors by mid-2009.

Other Reload Changes We are adding a Copyright field, which will represent a snapshot of the rights to the article as it was when it was published. We think it is useful for the researcher to know who owns the copyright when an article is first published, particularly given how many potential variations there may be. However, like emails, correspondence addresses, and affiliations, it is not a field that can be maintained over time. Another new field is the Book Series ISBN. We will also be updating the Country Authority File to keep

up with changes across the world. Finally, we expect to be adding new terms to the Thesaurus. The reload offers us an opportunity to make global corrections. For example, we are continuing to research and change the “et al.” designations that were in use between 1967 and 1996 to include all of the authors. There is some clean-up in cited references, and corrections for special character coding are required in some records.

Ongoing Neuroscience Expansion In 2008, we embarked on a major expansion in our coverage of neuroscience. Working with scientists, we reviewed the top ranked neuroscience journals. We classified these journals according to specialization in the hopes that we could parcel out some areas that we would not cover. In the end, we determined that we could not ignore any categories. Our coverage has risen from around 100 journals from which we selected only purely psychological content to more than 200 journals that include highly biological content, neuro-imaging, computational modeling, and so on. The amount of coverage has increased not just from the number of journals, but from the fact that we were covering neuroscience selectively and are now covering all neuroscience journals comprehensively. In 2009, we will add a few more neuroscience journals, in part because we still need to acquire a few important ones and in part because new journals will emerge. To augment the new language that went into the Thesaurus in 2008, we have continued to work on the controlled vocabulary. There will be more neuroscience terms in the 2009 Thesaurus update.

PubMed/Medline on APA PsycNET We have heard from users that they want access to the PubMed data, but they want our interface. And that is what we’re doing. At this writing, sample data are in our Mark Logic repository, and we’re matching fields and reviewing MeSH terms to enable crossdatabase searching. Stay tuned for an implementation date. continued on page 3

Issue 1

•

2009

PsycINFO

3

Our Plans for 2009 — What to Expect With APA Databases continued from page 2

New HTML and Branding on APA PsycNET Over the next few months, users will find a new look and greatly improved functionalities in PsycARTICLES and PsycCRITIQUES. The HTML will be much more interesting and useful than the static PDF. Exporting content to social networking sites such as de.licio.us and digg will take as little as one click. Users will be able to view tables and figures full size, within the page, or as a preview, and they will have the ability to export them to PowerPoint. Tools will enable them to easily print or email an article, export the citation, or add to MyList. Many other options will be available.

PsycTESTS We began planning for a database of tests and measures in 2008. As 2009 begins, we have a number of pilot projects underway, and our IT department is designing the production system. We expect to begin work on production later in the year. PsycTESTS will cover tests and measures used in applied research. The tests may be achievement and aptitude tests, intelligence tests, tests of cognitive functioning, occupational tests, personality traits, handedness, speed of responsiveness, error detection, eye dominance, and so on. Each record includes a description of the test, validity and/or reliability measures, links to the journal article that included or described the development of the test, and links to related literature, as well as indexing and other fields. The major content in the database will be the full text of unpublished psychological tests and measures. In addition, a much smaller portion will include descriptive summaries of commercially available tests with links to the publisher and of reviews of commercially available tests with links to Buros. For inclusion in the database, unpublished tests must have been described in a peer reviewed journal article. Watch for more announcements on what we think will be an exciting new product.

Production System Enhancements Although you cannot see any of these when you use our databases, ongoing enhancements to our production systems greatly improve the quality of the data you do see. For example, coding special

characters has been particularly difficult and the source of the majority of errors we find. Our new process will eliminate most errors. We will be greatly streamlining our workflow, using sophisticated new tools to tag cited references. The new workflow will speed up production and enable to us to correct references with errors, thereby improving our presentation of cited references. Icons will indicate references that have been corrected. The new pre-publication coverage depends on significant changes to our production system, and some of these will improve the processing of other articles, as well. For example, we may be able to import more content directly into the correct fields, thereby reducing the need to copy content. Wherever we can, we are reducing key strokes and giving indexing staff the ability to edit and make changes on all screens. We also will be retraining the knowledge base used for our machine-aided indexing (MAI) to assure that the new terms added recently will be available to indexers. Currently, they must add the new terms by pulling from the Thesaurus, rather than seeing them come up automatically in the MAI processing. When the retraining is completed later this year, we will see an improvement in performance time as well as an increase in accuracy.

PsycINFO PsycINFO News is published bimonthly by PsycINFO American Psychological Association 750 First Street, NE • Washington, DC 20002-4242 Telephone: 800.374.2722 • 202.336.5650 • Fax: 202.336.5633 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.apa.org/psycinfo Printed in the United States of America. All organization, product, or service names mentioned are ­trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Graphical software interfaces appearing in illustrations herein are copyright © by their manufacturers.

4

PsycINFO

Library Resource Center Close-Up http://www.apa.org/librarians/

Issue 1

•

2009

Issue 1

•

PsycINFO

2009

5

Call for Nominations for the American Psychological Association’s Excellence in Librarianship Award The American Psychological Association’s Excellence in Librarianship Award was created to recognize an outstanding contribution to psychology and behavioral sciences librarianship. The award, which consists of a plaque and $2,500, will be presented at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago in July 2009. This award is open to both librarians and allied professionals with at least 5 years of professional experience who have demonstrated significant achievement in librarianship in psychology or the behavioral sciences. APA employees are not eligible.

Award Criteria This award recognizes an outstanding contribution to psychology and behavioral sciences librarianship focusing on work completed within the most recent 5 years, including instruction, project development, publications, research, or service.

Examples of outstanding contributions include these:

 Development and implementation of new curricula or instructional programs or innovative teaching methods or materials



 Outstanding research contribution (published or unpublished)



 Demonstrated service in an organization that supports research



 Development of a collection, access tool, or innovative reference



 Publication(s) such as books, journal articles, websites, or multimedia products

To nominate a candidate or to self-nominate, please submit the following by March 6, 2009: a. Nomination statement (describe the contribution and its significance within and outside of your institution) b. Letters of support (no more than three; at least one letter from outside the nominee’s library or organization by a direct beneficiary of the services provided by the nominee is strongly encouraged) c. Contact information for the nominee We will contact the nominee, who will be responsible for providing the following supporting materials by April 6, 2009: a. Examples of work (photocopies, CDs, URL links, etc.) b. Resume or CV

Send application materials by mail to

Or send via email

Customer Relations APA Library Award American Psychological Association/PsycINFO Third Floor

Anne Breitenbach at [email protected] or Lisa Sick at [email protected] with a subject line of APA Librarianship Award

750 First Street, NE Washington, DC 20002-4242 The recipient will be selected by a committee of peers and will receive the award at the EBSS Research Forum at the July 2009 meeting of the American Library Association.

January 2009

Please direct questions to [email protected].

PsycINFO

6

Issue 1

•

2009

We feature all the different PsycINFO vendors in our In Search of Section of the Newsletter. Watch for yours!

In Search of:

Grant Information for Organizations Supporting Research on Helping People With Acquired Brain Injury Through Cognitive Rehabilitation Situation: Research suggests that cognitive rehabilitation after a stroke or other serious brain injury can help restore the mind much as physical therapy helps to restore the body. If a researcher is involved in this vital area of research and interested in finding out what organizations are helping to fund it, he or she could search the APA database Grant fields to find that information.

Using Advanced Search, search for the term “brain injury.” By selecting the Keyword field, your search will include Title, Abstract, and Descriptors.

Build your search: In CSA Illumina, first select the APA databases you would like to search from those available at the Specific Databases link. For a complex search in CSA Illumina, it is often most effective to run components of the search individually and then combine the searches. To begin your search, access the PsycINFO Thesaurus from the Thesaurus tab on the Search Tools menu. Look for the term “rehabilitation” using the rotated index. The search produces an exact match. By checking the box by the term, the index search term “Cognitive Rehabilitation” is added to the search box on the page:

Still in the Advanced Search screen, enter an asterisk in the first box and select Grant in the field box. The asterisk is a wildcard and will bring up any record that has content in the Grant field.

Last, return to the Search Tools menu, select History/ Combined searches, and combine all three of your searches by checking the boxes by each search and selecting the AND Boolean operator.

continued on page 7

Issue 1

•

PsycINFO

2009

7

In Search of... continued from page 6

PsycINFO Webinars

Your search returns 20 results of research from the APA databases that include grant information for what organizations are funding this important research. Here is a sampling of titles:

PsycINFO Webinars

I

n 2008 the American Psychological Association began an ongoing series of PsycINFO webinars. These 30-minute webinars on the various vendor platforms offer an ideal way to learn more about PsycINFO. The webinars discuss how to build a precise search with index terms, explore the database field structure, and show how to effectively use available limits. Library staff and faculty members who are interested in learning more about creating efficient search strategies to obtain scholarly resources are invited to attend an upcoming session. Webinars are conducted via Live Meeting, and there are a limited number of spaces for each session. If a session you are interested in has reached its limit, we’ll add your name to the waiting list and contact you about additional sessions. Additional sessions are added at the rate of about two a month, and will be posted to our website at http://www.apa.org/databases/ training/webinars.html as they become available. Here is the current schedule through May of sessions for which space is available. Please note that all times are Eastern Standard. PsycINFO on APA PsycNET

March 25, 2009

PsycINFO on EBSCOhost

April 8, 2009

2:00 pm 12:00 pm

PsycINFO on Proquest's CSA Illumina April 16, 2009

1:00 pm

PsycINFO on OvidSP

April 23, 2009

1:00 pm

PsycINFO on EBSCOhost

May 7, 2009

11:00 am

PsycINFO on APA PsycNET

May 28, 2009

12:00 pm

To register, please email PsycINFO Webinars at psycinfowebinars@apa. org with your name, contact information and the session you’d like to attend. Prior to the webinar, you will receive an email confirmation with instructions on joining the conference.