Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics

A great encyclopedia! Tell me if you like it!

Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics

Look what we have access to online!

My gosh, this is an amazing encyclopedia and one that should be useful to almost everyone in all of your departments. The topics of the articles are amazing and fascinating. Just browsing through it is a thrill. You can search it from the top of the page as well.

Science Direct's publicity states that

the online version will include updates as subjects develop ELL2 includes: * c. 7,500,000 words * c. 11,000 pages * c. 3,000 articles * c. 1,500 figures: 130 halftones and 150 colour * Supplementary audio, video and text files online * c. 3,500 glossary definitions * c. 39,000 references * Extensive list of commonly used abbreviations * List of languages of the world (including information on no. of speakers, language family, etc.) * Approximately 700 biographical entries (now includes contemporary linguists) * 200 language maps in print and online. Also available online via ScienceDirect – featuring extensive browsing, searching, and internal cross-referencing between articles in the work, plus dynamic linking to journal articles and abstract databases, making navigation flexible and easy.

It's hard to even list the topics -- there are articles on everything. And references to articles and books.

For example, say you are interested in how Latinos/as perceive their medical treatment in the US. You might want to know how they see their interaction with their physicians and other health care professionals.

Doctors and Patients in Multilingual Settings, Pages 741-748, C. Roberts
Full Text + Links

Cross references to other articles in the Encyclopedia are

Conversation Analysis

Conversational Analytic Approaches to Culture

Medical Discourse: Illness Narratives

Medical Discourse: Non-Western Cultures

...Along with 23 references to articles and books outside the encyclopedia (including some linked to full-text).

On the other hand, there are great numbers of articles on technical areas of linguistics. This is really a encyclopedia to return to again and again.

Virginia Tech

What happened at Virginia Tech? What do we know about such murders? murderers? recovery?

Last Monday I was working on Ask a Librarian when a student IM'ed me asking, "Have you heard about what happened at Virginia Tech?"

Being in librarian mode, I said, "Yes. Did you want more information about it?"

"No," the student said. "I just wanted to make sure you all did." Then we continued to talk about the events at Virginia Tech and what we'd heard. Apparently he was on his computer when he heard and needed to talk to someone about it, so he IM'ed us at Ask a Librarian.

You might want to find out what we've learned about school shootings, those who shoot their fellow students, and how communities can try to recover from these traumatic events. We have several resources:

Encyclopedia of Murder & Violent Crime

School Shooting
Mass Murder

Ramsland, Katherine. (2005) Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers: Why They Kill. p cover. Westport: Greenwood eBooks.

Staub, Ervin. (2003). The psychology of good and evil : why children, adults, and groups help and harm others Cambridge, U.K. : Cambridge University Press.
short excerpt
LIBRARY WEST -- -- BF789.E94 S83 2003

Staub also discusses how we can work on making us more giving and altruistic towards others and how to make it through these horrible experiences.

Douglas, Johns and Olshaker, Mark. (1999) The anatomy of motive : the FBI's legendary mindhunter explores the key to understanding and catching violent criminals. New York: Scribner.
LIBRARY WEST -- HV7911.D68 A33 1999 [Regular Loan]

Kelleher, Michael D. (1997).Flash point: the American mass murderer. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
LIBRARY WEST -- -- HV6529 .K45 1997 [Regular Loan]

Lavergne, Gary M. (1997). A sniper in the Tower: the Charles Whitman murders.
Denton, Tex.: University of North Texas Press.

Webber, Julie A. (2003). Failure to hold : the politics of school violence. Lanham : Rowan & Littlefield.
EDUCATION LIBRARY -- -- LB3013.3 .W43 2003

There are several different databases that would be helpful:

PsycINFO

for psychological information on the shooter, the families left behind, the students who are friends and those who are hurting, grieving, frightened and angry just by living on campus. And the rest of us, feeling the same things because we live in the same world and are affected by knowing that such things can happen.

mass murderers

Another article in the Journal of Primary Prevention discusses (and this is a simplification of the argument) the limited ethical development in the family, restricted social interaction with his peers which doesn't allow further development, and then a school that is competitive, frustrating to a not completely competent person. It is quite interesting.
Thompson, Stephen and Kyle, Ken. (2005).Understanding Mass School Shootings: Links between Personhood and Power in the Competitive School EnvironmentJournal of Primary Prevention. 26,(5). 419-438.

ERIC
Education Full Text

for information on schools and education, including higher education.

Criminal Justice Abstracts

as it sounds, for information on criminology and criminal justice. This includes both forensic psychology, legal research, and sociological research.

Sociological Abstracts

for information about our society, violence, schools, alienation, community, globalization, etc.

If you'd like to know about what other material we have that can help us understand or help you try to help other people, let me know and we can look for information together. Remember to take care.

I loved you Kurt Vonnegut!

Thank you Kurt Vonnegut for all you've done for us.
All you've brought to us. All you've given us.

SDSU Test Finder

Another Hearty Librarian, Mark Stover, Catalogs Publically Available Tests and Measures

In an earlier, and well-read blog, I wrote about the database that Helen Hough developed. It indexes books that compile large numbers of tests, measures, inventories, and assessment tools for psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and other social scientists.

Mark Stover, head of Reference Services at San Diego State University (SDSU), has done us the service of indexing books and journals that might contain only 1 or 2 of these types of tests. His database is called SDSU Test Finder. After you find the title of a test, you'll need to use our Library Catalog to see if we have the book or if we subscribe to the journal in print or online. It we don't have it, we can always borrow important (to you) material through InterLibrary Loan.

Encyclopedia of the Human Brain

I just fell upon it -- It's from ScienceDirect -- Quite Expensive -- Please Use It!

You know, UF Libraries have so many resources, none of us know what all we have! Especially since we share resources with the Health Science Center Library and the Legal Information Center (the Law School Library), I'm sometimes amazed at what we have.

Very soon, in a couple of weeks, we'll be getting the online version of the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics through ScienceDirect. This is the revised edition of the 10-volume 1990 set. Anyway, I was just looking around ScienceDirect, hoping to find a bit of info about the Encyclopedia and maybe a sample article or two that I'd missed before. Or one they'd added.

And to my delighted eyes, what appeared was another encyclopedia: The Encyclopedia of the Human Brain Editor-in-Chief: V. S. Ramachandran (from my alma mater)! The Health Science Center Library (HSCL) must have decided to buy it. Thank you HSCL! Little did they know how much they have aided folks who research and study in all of the departments dear to my heart and yours! Here are some interesting articles:

Adolescent Brain Maturation Aging Brain Alcohol Damage to the Brain Autism Dyslexia Endorphins and their Receptors Heuristics Humor and Laughter Language Acquisition

Language and Lexical Processing Logic and Reasoning Neural Networks Recovered Memories Sexual Behavior Suicide Violence and the Brain Visual System Development and Neural Activity

Each article includes a glossary and great set of references. You never have to stop studying your topic of choice! (I know! It's just like every other addiction in the world. It's always there for you. But it's almost free if you're aligned with UF. There are articles on addiction, too!)

Communication Problems and School

Finding a Social Space for Folks with Asperger's Syndrome

"Merrie, I'd like to do my paper on kids with Asperger's Syndrome/dyslexia/stuttering and school. Is there anything on that?"

Every time I talk to Communication Science and Disorder classes, at least 3 or 4 students want to study interaction between children and adolescents with asperger's and their classmates. Honestly, it's been relatively easy to find remediation studies to increase kids' social skills or to look at social interactions in a reductionist way. But larger studies that look at how kids interact in school have been hard for me to find.

Then the other night, Nightline showed a program on Asperger's Syndrome, Bullying, and a school in New Jersey. The school teaches students what Asperger's is, gets them involved with each other and teaches them how to be friends with each other. It's "heaven" one of the kids with Asperger's says.

I tried to find articles about bullying, teasing and harrassing of kids with Asperger's. Though several make mention of it, as if it's well known and first-person narratives include it, I couldn't find studies of bullying per se. It's the terms "bullying" (in British writing) or "victimization" (in American writing) that help find these articles for us. Yay! And especially in PsycInfo! So, here is one search from PsycInfo:

(autism OR asperger*) AND (bullying OR victimization)

Try other searchers in ERIC, Lingustics and Language Behavior Abstracts, PubMed, and Education Full Text. They'll all show you something a bit different.

Books we have on Asperger's -- just search in the catalog using the second box. Change the dropdown menu to "Subject." Type in Asperger Look at all the possible subject heads there are. (You won't be able to link to the library catalog from here, though :(

23		Asperger's syndrome - [LC Authority Record]
2		Asperger's syndrome -- Case studies
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Congresses
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Education -- Great Britain
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Fiction
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Handbooks, manuals, etc
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Juvenile fiction
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Care

4		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Education
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Education (Higher)
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Education (Higher) -- United States
3		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Family relationships
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Life skills guides
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Patients -- Vocational guidance
2		Asperger's syndrome -- Popular works
1		Asperger's syndrome -- Social aspects
2		Asperger's syndrome -- Treatment

PsycArticles and the Proxy Server

I can't download APA Journals from home!

This has happened a couple of times this semester. APA reported massive downloads from our proxy server several times. To protect itself, APA blocked our proxy's IP-address from access to PsycArticles and PsycBooks. APA believes the download occurs via a robotic method. You might have noticed that last weekend until yesterday (March 31 - April 4, 2007) access was again down. (Then again, you might have been too busy watching the Gators win a 2nd National Championship in Basketball!)

If this happens again, please access PsycArticles and PsycBooks through the VPN. I know that a few of you have had problems with the VPN and at least one of you have a complicated local network which the VPN interferes with. However, for most of the off campus UF community, the VPN should mimic your computer life on campus.

Methodology Handbooks

New Handbooks in Methodology from Sage Publications

As I've mentioned before, the library is trying to develop a strong methodology collection and get it used! Peter Malanchuk, our Librarian for Political Science, and Colleen Seale and Michael Dietz, both from the Reference Department, are collaborating with me to determine what reference materials and circulating books would enlighten students and faculty most during those dark moments of HUH?? or just the grayish ones.

Sage Publications has a well-earned reputation for producing some of the very best methodology handbooks. They are where I turn when I want to develop our collection. We also chose these texts because the articles include case studies from all over the social sciences: from political science to communication, psychology to television. Check out the Table of Contents. Pretty impressive.

Recently, Peter and I requested feedback on sets that reprinted "benchmark" articles about issues on particular methodologies. We already have a few of the sets:

Ethnography / edited by Alan Bryman. Table of Contents
The American tradition in qualitative research / edited by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln. Table of Contents
Conversation analysis / edited by Paul Drew & John Heritage. Table of Contents


They are all going into reference, so you'll be able to get at them when you need them. Faculty members can assign readings from them. They have wonderful reference lists after each article which should lead you to other readings.

From consulting the suggestions from faculty and the requests we get from students, we've decided to buy the following sets:

Measurement / edited by David Bartholomew Table of Contents
Research Design / edited by David de Vaus Table of Contents
Evaluation Research Methods / edited by Elliot Stern Table of Contents

Several faculty members asked for the Measurement texts and students are often confused about how and why they should use certain tests and inventories. Research Design was also requested and is broad, addressing very general issues confronted by most researchers.

Thank you for you assistance and let me know what other books we can gather together for you!