Course Specific Research Guides
Databases
Serious research at the university level requires that you consult articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. Articles in journals such as these are read and checked by experts prior to being published. While popular magazine articles may be useful, for high quality research you will need to find articles in peer-reviewed journals. To find scholarly articles efficiently, use one or more of the subscription databases provided by Lamson Library and described below. Remember that while many articles in these databases may be available in full text electronically from a database, many journal articles are NOT available in full text online. If an article is not available electronically, a physical copy may be in the library. So if you don’t come into the library, your research will probably be incomplete. Lamson Library has an excellent journal collection in Education. Listed below are the most useful databases for research within the field of Early Childhood Studies. To learn more about any database, click the INFO button. A complete list of our Digital Resources are available from the Databases link.Note that to access these databases from off campus, you must first connect to the Plymouth State portal: my.plymouth.edu and then click on the “Library” tab at the top.
- Academic Search Premier(many full-text articles) [INFO]
START HERE! This is the largest, scholarly, multi-discipline, full text database. Indexes over 8,000 scholarly and popular journals. - ERIC(via EBSCOhost; links to full text) [INFO]
ERIC is the world’s largest source of education information, indexing articles from over 1,000 education journals and hundreds of thousands of ERIC documents (such as papers presented at professional conferences or curriculum guides from schools. Click on INFO button for coverage and availability of documents. - PsycINFO(huge index; links to full-text) [INFO]
Massive psychology database indexing journal articles from over 2,000 journals in over 25 languages, plus book chapters, books, dissertations, and technical reports. - PsycARTICLES(selective subset of PsycINFO database; all full-text) [INFO]
All full-text articles from 56 journals: 45 published by the American Psychological Association and 11 published by allied organizations. - Kraus K-12 Curriculum Guides(many full-text) [INFO]
This is a searchable cumulative index to nearly 6,500 PreK-12 curriculum guides, frameworks, and standards from 1983 to the present. The full text is available online for over 2,500 documents. The remaining guides are available on microfiche in Lamson Library. - Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database(many full-text articles) [INFO]
The Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD) is an acquisition, research, and reference service that lists more than 1 million children’s book titles and provides full text access to more than 280,000 reviews of children’s books from 36 review sources. The database allows the user to search for children’s titles by a variety of criteria, such as age or grade of child, or by genre such as fantasy. - Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center(all full text)[INFO]
This is a useful database if you are looking for “pro” and “con” essays on controversial topics. In addition to these “Viewpoint” articles, the database also includes other full-text journal articles, as well as statistical tables, overviews of court cases, hundreds of images, and links to reviewed Web sites.
Reference Sources
Good Reference sources provide an excellent starting point for research. They can give a succinct overview of a topic, highlighting the most important information and recommending additional specific resources. The print Reference Collection is located behind the Reference Desk on the Main Level. For Education materials, browse the “L” section of the Reference Collection. You’ll find such useful subject encyclopedias as the new 8-volume ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EDUCATION and the 3-volume ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SPECIAL EDUCATION. Ask a librarian for assistance if you need help. The link below will provide a listing some of the most important Reference sources in the field of Early Childhood Studies.
Key Reference Sources in Early Childhood Studies
Books and More: Using the Library Online Catalog
The Library catalog is a catalog of all books (both print and e-books) and other materials in Lamson Library – such as videos/DVDs, music CDs, and music scores. It also includes the titles of all the periodicals we have physical copies of, as well as many Web sites. To specifically search the Library Catalog, click the “Search Library Catalog” link in the left frame of the Library Website. Your results may be a combination of many different types of resources, such as books and Web sites. At the university level, you should be using books for nearly every research need. Both historical and new developments may be found in books. When searching the online catalog, be sure to try both a KEYWORD and a SUBJECT search. They will provide different results. There are many ways to structure or modify a search of the online catalog, including ways to find sections or chapters on your topic within a larger work. Ask for assistance at the Reference Desk. Our online catalog is very powerful and allows a variety of specialized searches, such as limiting your search to materials published after a specific year, or limiting your search to find DVD’s or Web sites. Use the Advanced Search link to do specific kinds of searches. Here are some of the key Subjects in Early Childhood Studies to use when searching the library catalog (with links to each search in our catalog):
- Subject search for Child development
- Subject search for Children
- Subject search for Early childhood education
- Subject search for Education, Preschool
- Subject search for Infant psychology
- Subject search for Infants(see also the special subdivisions under this subject such as Development and Growth)
Web Sites
In general, Web sites are a bad source for research – because there is no guarantee that the information being posted is accurate or up-to-date. Don’t use an Internet site as a reference unless you are sure it’s reputable, scholarly, current, and unbiased. There aren’t many Internet sites that can claim these qualities. Serious research requires that you consult sources such as journal articles from peer-reviewed or scholarly journals, and books from reputable publishers. However, some Web sites can be very helpful.In Early Childhood Studies, see the list of reputable Web sites from professional, governmental, and research organizations in section VI. of the course guide for ER2000 [see link at top]. In addition, here is a link to Web sites in Early Childhood Studies from the Librarians’ Internet Index:
- Early Childhood Web Sites (from the Librarians’ Internet Index)
In addition to these Web sites specific to Early Childhood, Lamson Librarian Gary McCool has been selectively choosing key general Web sites in Education. Click the Education Web Sites link below to see all these sites, organized under the 26 sections shown below.
- Education Web Sites (Selected by Lamson Librarian Gary McCool)
Web site links are available here under the following sections: Associations and Organizations; Career Education and Planning; Child Care; Children’s Literature; Colleges and Universities; Distance Education; Educational Software; Educational Technology; Higher Education; History of Education and Childhood; Home Schooling; Job Postings; Legal; Lesson Plans and Resources; New Hampshire; On-Line Journals; Opinion Pages; School Directories; School Reform and Improvement; School Standards; Special Needs/Special Education; Statistics; Teaching on the WEB; Test Reviews; U.S. Department of Education; Web Pages from K-12 Schools
Finally, here are some links to general Education Web sites from the Librarians’ Internet Index:
- General Education Web Sites (from the Librarians’ Internet Index)
- K-12 Education Web Sites (Librarians’ Internet Index)
Style Guide
Most Education courses at PSU require you to use APA Style (from the American Psychological Association) when you format your bibliography and refer to sources in your text. The full APA Publication Manual is available on Permanent Reserve and in Reference. For a summary of examples for your bibliography, see the Library’s online APA Style Guide (available from the Library’s Web site or from the direct link below).
Document Delivery / Interlibrary Loan
If you need a book we don’t own or an article from journal we don’t have (or can’t access electronically), we can get these materials for you. That’s what Document Delivery or Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is for – we’ll find the book or journal article you need from another library. To request an item on Document Delivery, log in to MyPlymouth, go to the Library Home Page, click on “Document Delivery” under “Services” at the left, and fill out the appropriate form. Since we can’t control how rapidly another library may fill your request, you should allow about 10 days to get items from Document Delivery, so you’ll have to plan ahead. “The Library didn’t have what I needed” is never an acceptable excuse.
Librarians
It’s always appropriate to ask the professional Reference Librarian at the Reference Desk for assistance. We can help connect you with an authoritative reference source that might be useful to you, or help you refine a database search to help you find what you need. If you’ve got a class assignment, we’re probably familiar with it and we’re glad to help. You can also ask us a question online, by clicking the “Ask a Librarian” icon on the Library Home Page.
More…
- Ask a Librarian
- Subject librarian: Gary McCool
discipline=er, discipline=cd, discipline=erse, subj=early childhood studies, hint=early childhood studies, format=subject guide
