Off The Shelf

I often get questions from learners asking what libraries they can use in their area. Like your courses, the Library for Capella learners is online and we do our best to have all the resources to support your research needs.  Getting used to using an online library (like taking a online course) may take some time and practice. After all the most individuals experience with a library is a physical building with books.  

If you are not finding what you need at the Capella Library, try calling or emailing before you try another library. We will be able to suggestion different databases (we have over 30 of them) or keywords which will help you.  If we don’t have what you need, we can get resources from another library for you through interlibrary loan. Interlibrary loan allows us to email an article or mail the book to you (with a prepaid mailer to return it).  However, interlibrary loan can take 3-10 business days, depending on if you are requesting articles or books. So if you have a need quick need and it is not in our library, sometimes we can help you find a library in your area that has the material you need.  This really should be the exception, not the rule, in finding library resources for your coursework.

Just a “word of caution” if you do use local libraries. I know that the concept of a library seems pretty “standard” however every library has a different mission and focus.

Academic Libraries use the tuition dollars that their learners pay to collect journals and books to support their programs (just like part of the tuition dollars you pay to Capella goes for library resources to support your coursework). Therefore  if you go to an University or College library in your area, they may have certain restrictions regarding learners who are not enrolled in their institution.  Its always good to call before you go to that library to find their policies for non-affilated users, the librarians here at Capella can also check for you. 

The other type of library you may use is a Public Library. Most of us “grew up” using our public library in some way, shape or form. They are wonderful welcoming centers of the community. However, they often do not have the level of resources you need for academic work. The dollars they get for resources go not only to support resources for individuals who are returning to school but also members of the community in many different roles (business people, parents, children etc.)  The librarians there want to help in whatever way they can because they are a public institution, but again remember it is the responsibilty of the institution you are paying tuition to to support you in your academic coursework.

Thus we come full circle back to the Capella’s online library and the librarians who are waiting to help you use the resources via phone, email or in-person at Colloquium. Don’t wait hours or days to contact us when you can’t find something in the Library call or email, we are here to help!

 Robin

If you are, you’re not alone.  Electronic resources change every day, and it’s very difficult for a citation style to keep up.  There are library databases, online journals, PDFs, HTML pages, power points, blogs, websites, newsgroups, books, podcasts, etc. That means that there may not be an “official” example of what you want to cite.  Plus, there’s not only the Electronic Media section of the APA Manual, 5th edition, but also a supplemental APA Style Guide to Electronic Resources linked from the Capella Library’s Guides and Tutorials page.

Does your head hurt yet?

So, where do you start?  First of all, remember that your citation is like a treasure map.  The information included in it helps the next researcher find that specific source.  The more information you can give, the more likely the next person will find it.  That’s why it’s so important to include things like the author (even if the author is an organization, not a particular person), date, name of the journal, title of the article or book, and retrieval information.  Retrieval information is only used for electronic resources, and will be a document number, or a date along with a database name, or a web address.  Here’s an example of a government report from the web:

Most of the electronic resources you will be using are actually library databases.  For articles from databases, there are actually three different ways you might cite them.  Which one do you use?

•  Is there a DOI (digital object identifier)?  If yes, use the example on page 7 of the Supplemental Guide.  The guide also has information about the DOI on pages 2-4. Not all databases have the DOI yet. Look on the article’s information page in the database to see if one is there.
• Is it a PDF that looks exactly like the original, paper version of the article?  If yes, you may simply have an “electronic version.”  Look at the example on page 271 of the APA manual for a citation of an electronic version.
• No DOI?  Not an “electronic version?”  Then you’ll want to look at page 279 of the APA manual for an example from a library database.

If what you have is NOT from a library database, but is still an electronic resource, then things get really exciting.  You may have to look through the examples between pages 271 and 281 in the manual and the examples in the supplement. 

Pick the examples closest to what you have, and build your citation from there.   There are an almost infinite number (okay, maybe not, but it seems that way) of possible citations, so there may not be an example of exactly what your citation should look like.  You’ll have to put on your thinking cap and make sure you get as close as possible.

However much APA citations may fell like a punishment, they’re there for a reason.  Because other people do their citations correctly, you can benefit by using those citations as part of your own research.  See our Bibliography and Cited Reference Searching guide for help with this.

Remeber, APA isn’t your enemy.  It’s just a very exacting and persnickety friend!

-Erin

PsycBOOKS added the following titles to its coverage list in April 2008. Of the titles added, 3 were APA books and 4 were designated classic books. Classic books are landmark titles in psychology and are selected by APA experts.

APA Books

• The meaning of others: Narrative studies of relationships, © 2007, by Josselson, Ruthellen (Ed); Lieblich, Amia (Ed); McAdams, Dan P. (Ed)
• The muscular ideal: Psychological, social, and medical perspectives, © 2007 Thompson, J. Kevin (Ed); Cafri, Guy (Ed)
• Toward a science of distributed learning, © 2007, by Fiore, Stephen M. (Ed); Salas, Eduardo (Ed)

Classic Books

• A history of psychology in autobiography, Vol V, © 1967, by Boring, Edwin G. (Ed); Lindzey, Gardner (Ed)
• Homework, © 1989, by Cooper, Harris
• Social policies in the making: A dynamic view of social problems, © 1947, by Landis, Paul H. 
• War in the twentieth century, © 1940, by Waller, Willard (Ed)

Note: To read any of these ebook go to the Databases A-Z page. Scroll down to PsycBOOKS and type in the title

- Erika

The Capella Library has just added the Journal of Mixed Methods Research. It contains scholarly articles about the use of mixed methodology in research, and includes reviews of books on methodology. If you are using mixed methods for your dissertation, this is a great resource for you.

To access this journal you’ll want to use the link above or Journal Locator and search by title. For help using Journal Locator, see our library tutorial.

For more information about research methodology, check out our Ebook list on Research Methodologies.

-Erin

We have added new guides to the Library’s Guides & Tutorials page

What are Peer-reviewed Articles & How do I Find Them? (Flash with audio)

a link to…Reading Strategies
This resource is designed to help you build skills and strategies to make your reading as efficient as possible.

Course-specific Guides
Course-specific research guides are tailored to course content and include techniques such as developing search strategies, finding materials on specific topics, evaluating results and more.

Undergraduate

• PS3600: Principles of Public Safety Investigation (u01d1)
• PS3900: History of Violence in the U.S. Society (u09a1)
• MAT2050: Statistical Literacy (u05d2)
• BUS3040: Fundamentals of Human Resource Management

Graduate

• Psychology First Courses
  • First Library Search
  • Scholar Practitioner Assignment
• HS5002: Survey in Research in Human Development and Behavior (u07d2)
• PSF8631: Case Studies in Critical Incident Management
• PSY7220: Child Psychology (case study)

Is there another guide you would like to see? Let us know.

-KateP

Think plagiarizing can be considered an innocent mistake? These stories may cause you to think again about copying and pasting that bit from an article or website.

Plagiarizing can carry extreme repercussions both on the job and concerning a degree in progress or already granted. Plagiarism is rarely considered an innocent mistake, especially in academia and publishing where people are expected to understand the rules and respect the intellectual property of another. Excuses are usually not accepted and it can be challenging to rebuild a reputation after one is caught plagiarizing.

Romance novelist Cassie Edwards learned this the hard way. In her novel Shadow Bear Edwards lifted passages from a book about Ferrets written by Paul Tolme. Ferret references in a romance novel?!? This humorous article written by the plagiarized author discusses how Edwards worked ferrets into a conversation between Lakota Indian Shadow Bear and a pioneer woman. While Edwards claimed “she didn’t know she was supposed to credit her sources” this excuse was not enough to save her publishing deal with Signet Books.

Another case of career-ending plagiarism comes from prominent newspaper, The New York Times. Journalist Jayson Blair plagiarized by fabricating details including fake quotes from interviews. The situation wounded the credibility of the New York Times and heads rolled because of it. Jayson Blair was of course fired, but two editors also resigned due to their alleged bad management that allowed this to happen. In this case plagiarism not only affected the plagiarizer, but his managers (the editors) also found themselves in hot water.

An Austrian report titled “Report on dangers and opportunities posed by large search engines, particularly Google” cites examples of people losing their jobs and revocation of degrees for plagiarizing on a thesis or dissertation. The report cites the definition of plagiarism from the software program turnitin.com, which specializes in scanning documents to find instances of plagiarism. Below is that definition as quoted in the report:

“All of the following are considered plagiarism:

• turning in someone else’s work as your own
• copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not”

While citing sources often feels like a pain, the pain of not crediting another’s work can be felt for years.

-Sommer

Dr. Naomi Stanford, who teaches in SOBT, has had a new book published recently:

Standford, N. (2007). The Economist Guide to Organisation Design. Profile Books.

This is her second book. Her first one was published in 2005: Organization Design: the Collaborative Approach.

-KateP

Good question, isn’t it?

We (Erin & Sommer) attended the LOEX conference last weekend in rainy Oak Brook, Illinois. The main focus of this conference is information literacy and library instruction. Basically, a bunch of librarians got together to talk about how best to turn mere mortals into super searchers. Why would we do this? Well, for some background on information literacy, check out this piece from the Library Research Handbook.

While professional conferences allow all kinds of opportunities for networking, Erin and I found a more unusual opportunity as we donned swimsuits and headed for the pool area. As we sat in the hot tub, we learned about some of the innovative projects going on at other libraries. Anyone interested in finding articles from an iPhone?

We did eventually leave the pool behind and attended a variety of sessions. One of the more interesting poster sessions was by Katherine Johnson, a library student at Dominican University, who compared the setup of library databases to commercial websites, such as Barnes and Noble.

If you’ve ever shopped online, you know that you can start with a broad search and then modify it until you get to the products you want. I’ve included images of two searches below to point out the similarities. One is in Amazon and the other in Academic Search Premier. Both are looking for the keywords stress relief.

There is a dropdown next to the search box that lets you tell the database / website where you want to look. When you find results, there are subject terms / categories to the left of the results. These can help you narrow your search.

Once you find something interesting, you can click the title of the article / product to get to a screen with more information about it. So, if you’re a master shopper online, you already have a lot of experience that can help you in the library.

There is one big difference, though. Amazon will ask you to pull out a credit card. The library databases are already paid for – you just have to go in and pick out what you want to read.

– Sommer & Erin

A: We get many phone calls and emails from learners who are having trouble looking for articles but after a few questions we realize the trouble often lies with the topic. When your topic is too broad or too narrow it can make finding articles difficult.

For a few tips on Defining and Narrowing a Topic click through our tutorial or PDF with an example topic grid.

Topic Grid you can fill in is on the PDF:
-KateP

I’ve been playing around with a new Del.i.cious account for Mental Health Counseling this week.  As you know, not all websites are created equal – particularly when you are looking for credible information, so it’s nice to have a place to store the best sites I find.  

The librarians are thinking social bookmarking Web 2.0 tools like Del.i.cious can help us organize useful resources from the web by specialization or topic. 

Check out my Mental Health Counseling site.  Let me know what you think.

And for more about social bookmarking, see below*:

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