Students frequently
ask me how to find articles that are not available in the library. Here are a
few alternative sources. Make sure you have checked Google Scholar, also check
electronic professional media such as LinkedIn or Research Gate. These are
sites where authors frequently post preprints (work not yet published) as well
as published articles. Be sure you have checked all of the available databases
in your library. In psychology, one that is frequently missed is
"Psychology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection." This database has many
psychology articles, which for some reason, are typically not picked up by
PsycINFO. If you are interested in a health related topic, make sure you check
CINAHL (a nursing database) and Medline.
Check out "Thoreau: Search Multiple Databases." This often pulls up
articles not found in individual databases. Similarly, the database,
"Academic Search Complete" brings up some information outside the
regular databases.
If you still cannot
find a particular paper you are looking for and if you know the authors and
title, you can request an interlibrary loan, in which the librarian will track
it down for you. As a dissertation student, you may be allowed only a certain
number of free loans, so check the rules out first.
Next time we will consider other alternative sources for articles.
Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future
post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu
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