RESOURCES & SERVICES in Social Work Blog

Self-Managed Current Awareness Defined:
The art of saving searches and setting up auto-alerts using databases and journals.

Need to be kept up to date on a particular topic or research area?
Learn how to use current awareness features in several popular social science databases.

What will current awareness features allow me to do?
*set up permanent searches.
*save a search you have created and run it manually whenever you wish.
*receive email updates (auto-alerts) when new research matching your search criteria is added to the database.
*set up table of contents (TOC) alerts.

Which databases allow me to use current awareness features?

The short answer is several!! However, you are likely using many social science databases powered by Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA).

Instructions for setting up auto-alerts are available at the Education and Social Science Library’s Self-Managed Current Awareness page.

Current Awareness and Auto-Alert features are also available for journals and many other databases

The Funk (ACES) Library has compiled an extensive list of instructions on
setting up Table of Contents (TOC) alerts listed by publisher or alerting service (e.g. SAGE, Haworth, Elsevier, etc.).

Ready to get started? Need to learn more?
See the Education and Social Science Library’s Self-Managed Current Awareness page.
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Questions?
Please contact me...
Allison Sutton, Psychology & Social Work Subject Specialist
Email: asutton@illinois.edu
Voice: 217-244-1866
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Student and Faculty Introductory APA Research Databases Training Webinars

The American Psychological Association is pleased to invite you to attend a free webinar designed specifically to introduce you to the APA Research Databases on various vendor platforms. Led by PsycINFO Customer Relations trainers, these 50-minute sessions are intended for students, faculty, or library staff unfamiliar with APA databases or who are accessing APA databases on a platform that is new to them.

Learning Objectives
* become familiar with the APA research databases and the platform
features
* manage your results
* create alerts
* set up personal accounts
* craft searches that make use of controlled vocabulary and natural language
* use database fields and limits

Audience:

This session is designed primarily for students but is also suitable for faculty or library staff unfamiliar with APA databases or who are accessing APA databases on a platform that is new to them.

Schedule and Registration:

Webinars are hosted on Adobe Connect and all times listed are Eastern Time.
Note: The University Library subscribes via CSA, but some of you may have access via your individual APA subscription.

APA Research Databases on CSA Illumina March 25, 2010=092:00 pm
APA Research Databases on CSA Illumina April 26, 2010=099:00 am
APA Research Databases on CSA Illumina May 19, 2010=09=092:00 pm

APA Research Databases on APA PsycNET March 16, 2010=0911:00 am
APA Research Databases on APA PsycNET April 13, 2010=096:00 pm
APA Research Databases on APA PsycNET May 6, 2010=09=094:00 pm

To register, visit our Webinars registration page for Students and Faculty
at http://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/training/webinars-students.aspx and
click on the link for the session you'd like to attend.

Questions?

Please feel free to send any questions or comments to
psycinfowebinars@apa.org with "Student Training" in the subject line.

You can find information on and support for all of APAs research
databases on
YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/PsycINFO),
Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/apapsycnet),
or Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/apapsycnet).

Or visit us at our dedicated search
help/training center at
http://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/training/index.aspx

The Education and Social Science Library (ESSL) offers many services and resources to assist you with your class work, research and other projects.

I have posted several handy links listed here...

Education and Social Science Library

Education and Social Science Library Hours

Resources in Social Work web page

Library Guide to Social Work Resources

Learn to use the Library (videos, tutorials and more)

Library Workshops

Data Services Help
Get help finding opinion polls, election studies, social surveys, census, education, and health data; and preparing datasets for analysis in SPSS, SAS, STATA and ArcGIS.
No Appointment Necessary!

Ask-a-Librarian
(For online chat and IM reference assistance)

Please contact me using the online instruction request form, by phone or via email if you are a TA and would like to schedule a library orientation/database instruction session for your class group. I am also happy to meet with you individually to discuss library services and collections to support your research needs.

The Education & Social Science Library continues to expand our Web and electronic resources to assist you in locating the materials that you need, while still providing trained staff to assist you at our reference desk from 9am until we close on weekdays, and during all open hours on weekends.

I look forward to working with you!

UNITED STATES:

I. How does a bill become a law?

A. Member of the House or Senate drafts a bill, it is introduced in the relevant chamber, and it is assigned a number.
B. Bill goes to Committee (where it can die!)
C. The Committee may request comments from government agencies, hold hearings, or assign a bill to a sub-committee which produces a report. The Committee votes and produces a report and a dissenting report for the full chamber. (If a lot of changes were made to the bill, it is assigned a new number and becomes a "clean bill.")
D. Bill is debated and voted on by full body.
E. If it passes, it goes to the next chamber where it is debated and voted on by the full body.
F. If a different version is passed, the two versions go to a "conference committee" made up of members from each chamber, who come to a compromise, and write a report submitted and voted on by both chambers.
G. If that passes, it goes to the President to sign into law or not.
H. If he signs it into law, it is assigned an official number and becomes a public law.

II. How do I find all of this stuff?

A. Thomas: Legislative Information Online (http://thomas.loc.gov):

1. Find full-text of bills back to 101st Congress (1989/1990) and summary of bills back to 93rd Congress (1973/1974). May search by keyword, subject term, sponsor, and combine terms, etc. Also includes summary, where it is in process, amendments, related bills, timeline of legislation, etc.
2. Must search one legislative session at a time.
3. Find the corresponding public law for the bill you are interested in.
4. Find Committee reports and homepages of Committees.
5. Search Congressional Record back to 1989 for voting history.

NOTE: Thomas includes:
House Floor This Week
House Floor Now (current day)
Quick Search of Text of Bills
Bill Summary & Status, Bill Text
Public Laws by Law Number
Votes (House and Senate Roll Call Votes)
Congressional Record and Congressional Record Index
Days-in-Session Calendars
Committee Reports, Committee Home Pages; House and Senate Committees
(Please see About Thomas and use the FAQ to find basic instructions on finding
bills, coverage information about congress, etc.)

III. GPO Access (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html) includes: the Federal Register, the Congressional Record, Congressional Bills and other Federal Government information.

The Legislative section of GPO Access:
A. Find full text of bills back to 103rd Congress (1993/1994). Search by keyword.
B. Find full text of Hearings and Committee Prints back to 105th Congress (1997/1998)
C. Find history of bills (but not full text) back to 1983.
D. Allows searching across legislative session.

The following is a favorite resource of mine…
IV. LEXIS-NEXIS --Congressional Universe (http://web.lexis-nexis.com/congcomp), a database which provides comprehensive legislative information and analysis. Most coverage begins in the 1989, but some information, such as Legislative Histories, are available from 1970 onwards.

With this database you can…
A. …do keyword searches, or a subject search with the INDEX, and also more advanced searching for full text of bills, voting records, Congressional Record text, hearings, committee reports, voting history, Congressional publications, etc.
B. …search Congressional indexes back to 1789 (not full-text)
C. …search across legislative sessions.
D. …find “hot bills”, links to news items and tracking feature.

NOTE: The GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS LIBRARY (http://www.library.illinois.edu/doc/) has lots of links to resources that will be very helpful in researching policy issues.
Be sure to see this Gov Docs Library page for a better understanding of government information: http://www.library.illinois.edu/doc/researchtools/guides/general/introduction.html

Fall has arrived and will soon be in full swing! As you begin to get into gear please note that the U of I Library has expanded its offerings of instructional assistance. The workshops, videos, web pages and tutorials are meant to provide options for learning how to use the Library's vast resources.

NOTE: The workshops and other instructional options listed below will *not* replace the basic, mandatory, library research session which is required of all MSW students.

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WORKSHOPS:

The Savvy Researcher Workshop Series are drop-in workshops geared toward graduate students and cover a myriad of topics including RefWorks, RSS feeds and current awareness tools, how to find grant money, statistical research, IDEALS and finding the tough stuff e.g. conference proceedings.

You can access the schedule off the Library Gateway under "Get Help" --> Workshops.
or here is the direct link...
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/instruction/workshops.html

Note: These sessions are suggested as an option to help you with more in-depth coverage of many research resources the library offers.

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NO TIME to attend a workshop on campus?
CHECK OUT the OTHER OPTIONS to help you learn how to use the library...

INSTRUCTIONAL WEB PAGE:

HOW DO I FIND...?
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/rex/find/

This portal will provide step-by-step text and visual instructions on how to locate, request or more use several services available to help you locate books, articles and journals, dissertations, reserves, or items in particular locations.

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/ondemand/index.html

These videos will provide step-by-step visual and voice instructions on how to locate, request or more use several services available to help you locate books, articles and journals, dissertations, reserves, or items in particular locations. It also includes instructions on a variety of other topics not included as a part of the "How do I find...?" web page.

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Data Service Office Hours
continue through June 11, 2008

Wednesdays 1:30-4:30 pm
Government Documents Library (2nd floor of the Main Library)

Get help finding opinion polls, election studies, social surveys, census, education, and health data; and preparing datasets for analysis in SPSS, SAS, STATA and ArcGIS.

No Appointment Necessary!
________________
For more information about using digital survey data sources, see:
Data Services @ The University Library
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/research/dataservices.html

Jointly sponsored by the University Library and Applied Technologies for Learning in the Arts & Sciences (ATLAS)
Enhance and expand your research, writing, and teaching with data

Health, Economic, Social & Political Data for Secondary Analysis

WHEN: Thursday, April 10th

WHERE: Undergrad Library 291

TIME: 3:30-4:30pm

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
is the world's largest archive of digital social science data. Learn to search
ICPSR's catalog of holdings, download data, and read it into a statistics
program (SPSS) to make tables. Our examples will focus on topics
suggested by the audience. Some prior experience with SPSS may be
helpful, but is not necessary.

Register now (preferred, but NOT required)
OR Find out about upcoming and past workshops:
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/instruction/workshops.html

The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) has recently launched an APA style online tutorial.

The tutorial, a collaboration between Gutman Library's Writing Services and the Learning Technologies Center (HGSE IT), is based on a highly regarded and well-attended workshop entitled, "APA EXPOSED : Everything You Always Wanted to Know About APA Format But Were Afraid to Ask!" Wendy Mages, an HGSE doctoral student, developed the content and taught the workshop for the past several years under the auspices of the Gutman Library Writing Services. In collaboration with Allison Harrington, Instructional Technology Designer for the Learning Technologies Center, Wendy Mages transferred the content of the in-person workshop to an online version.

The online APA tutorial has been designed to supplement the HGSE in-person workshop, but will serve any student well as a stand-alone resource. It provides... point-of-need assistance, and to facilitate student access to citation "how-to" information for APA format. Additionally, the tutorial has self-checks and additional resources for APA citation information.

NOTE: Please keep in mind that this resource is geared toward Harvard students and will at times refer to their library and campus resources. The tutorial, however, is very well done and useful to anyone using the APA citation style.

If you're interested, please take a look at the APA tutorial, which is currently undergoing beta testing.

APA tutorial URL: http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~instruct/articulate/APA/player.html

Carla Lillvik, Research and Distance Services Librarian at Harvard Graduate School of Education welcomes your feedback at: http://poll.icommons.harvard.edu/poll/taker/pollTakerOpen.jsp?poll=1-6134-12670

NEW Spring 2008

The University of Illinois Library and the Applied Technologies for Learning
in the Arts & Sciences (ATLAS) are now Data Service Partners!

DATA SERVICES Office Hours:
Wednesdays: 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Government Documents Library (2nd Floor Main Library)

Get help finding opinion polls, election studies, social surveys, census, education,
and health data; and preparing datasets for analysis in SPSS, SAS, STATA and ArcGIS.

No Appointment Necessary!

MORE INFORMATION: (217) 244-6445 or atlas-consult@uiuc.edu
Web site: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/research/dataservices.html
Online Tutorials: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/research/data_tutorials.html

Future Events: Data and Statistical Workshops (Date and Times TBA)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Allison Sutton
Psychology & Social Work Subject Specialist
Education & Social Science Library
asutton@uiuc.edu
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For a variety of reasons, the UIUC Library is switching access to the PsycINFO w/ PsycArticles databases from one vendor (OVID) to another (CSA/Cambridge Scientific). There are some functions that will be enhanced through CSA, such as searching across multiple databases by using the drop-down menu on the search page to select the "social sciences" or by selecting specific databases from that same page. If you have questions about searching these databases through this vendor, please contact us using one of the methods described on our Ask-A-Librarian page.

To set up an alert system to let you know when new materials in your area of interest are added to the database, please see the directions at Alerts in CSA (Cambridge) Databases. Access to these databases via OVID will end June 30, 2007. CSA access is available now.