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!

Crazy Librarians

Peeps in the Library -- A User Study

Well, it's getting close to Easter. Librarians all over the country are looking again to Millikin Library and shaking their heads, considering doing similar studies in their own libraries. Or wondering why they haven't. Make sure you scroll down through the entire website. You certainly don't want to miss a thing. Let me know if any of you would like to become involved in some studies in our library. I have some work in mind...

It is really time for people outside of the librarian world to see the nutty world of librarians. What we do with our free time. What our professional senses of humor looks like.

Medieval Helpdesk (with English subtitles)

Reading on a Dream: A Library Musical

Librarian Workout Tape

"Ray of Light" St Joseph County Public Library (This is rather long. If you can't watch the whole video, skip to the end.)

Gorilla Librarian (Monty Python)

Have a good time chuckling!

Life Among the Romanies

Come and join the exhibit opening with music and dancing exhibitions tomorrow (Friday) from 2:00-5:00 p.m. in Smathers Library room 100 and the second floor exhibition gallery!

We will be celebrating Alena Aissing’s exhibit opening of

Life Among the Romanies: The Heroic Past and Present

Presentations:

Amie Kreppel, Founding Director, Center for European Studies at UF and Jean Monnet, Chair

John Ingram, Interim Director of the George A. Smathers Libraries

Dancers:

American Tribal Gypsy - Suzanne Bell

Indian Bollywood Dance Chaya Chaya - The Farhana Dancers, Nicoma and Kate

Gypsy Flamenco - Fiorina Boggiano

Irish GypsiKelts and Drumming - Bhrigha

Romanian Gypsy Dances - Margaret Ross Tolbert and Stefan Craciun

Music:

Gypsy Jazz - Hot Club De Ville

Through Deaf Eyes

Watch the History of Deaf People on PBS March 29th at 9:00pm

Last night people all over the country watched a great film, Through Deaf Eyes, on the history of Deaf people in America. Unfortunately, in Gainesville it was pre-empted by Suze Orman's financial advice during pledge week. WUFL will broadcast it here next week, Friday, March 30 at 9pm. But you can browse through their website now and even read the transcript if you'd like.

The larger documentary includes clips of films by Deaf filmmakers, available on the website. But I wish the transcript had some videos of the interviews in sign, instead of all of them in translation.

I wish they spoke more about life outside of school and the educational institutions. Almost all of the pictures on the PBS website is of students practicing speech, getting audiograms, and hitting drums to listen to sounds. I love just seeing Deaf people together playing canasta or enjoying their bowling. A 1/2 second on the Black schools and segregation in the South.

On the other hand, there were Deaf people living everyday lives, just being. Having friends, brothers, wives, husbands, and co-workers. Lots of the stories spoke to the heart. It was so exciting just to know that Deaf kids can't imagine a Gallaudet University with a hearing president. What a change in less than 20 years. (And it's been that long since the Deaf President Now protest!)

The love of American Sign Language and the community afforded Deaf people is palpable in the film. It's clear what Veditz (the NAD President in 1910) was talking about when he told Deaf people that "Sign Language is the greatest gift that God has given to the Deaf."

(We have ordered the DVD. PBS says it will be shipping in May.)

NPR Transcripts in LexisNexis

Searching Sources in LexisNexis -- Organic Peaches in California Depends on Immigration Reform

Last week, during spring break, I was driving home to my family in South Carolina. It was Saturday evening. I was listening to NPR and something interesting came on the radio. "Hmm," I thought. That would make a nice topic to build a blog around."

A week later, I can't remember a thing about the story. Was it about children? Something about demographics? Shoot.

When I got back to the library, I realized I could look in LexisNexis to find the transcript from NPR and figure out what I was listening to. (I could have done this from my parents' home using the VPN, but I was busy crocheting and finding furniture in junk stores.)

LexisNexis includes news sources from all over the world, including articles from newspapers, transcripts from television and radio, book and film reviews, and reports from the newswires. But on Monday morning I wanted to know what I'd been listening to on NPR, so I went to the library's home page and clicked on databases in the first column. In the second box on the databases page, I typed in LexisNexis. There are several different parts to LexisNexis -- the one that contains the news is LexisNexis Academic. (There are no scholarly works in here. I think it's called "Academic," because it's marketed to academic libraries. Yeah.)

LexisNexis will open to this screen:Click on the "Guided News Screen" tab at the top. (If you want to search all news sources, you can use this screen.)

On the next screen, choose, News Transcripts from the first dropdown menu, and National Public Radio Transcriptions from the second dropdown menu:

Notice that you can also get transcripts from the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, the Official Kremlin Intnl News Broadcast, and CNBC/Dow Jones Business Video among others. If you look at all of the drop down menus from the first box and their secondary dropdown menus (i.e., the second dropdown menu changes depending on the first menu) you'll find an amazing variety of sources. Enjoy!

Then, to find the report I was listening to, I remembered that I drove from about noon til 7pm on Saturday. The earlier time I listened to audio books. So I must have been listening to All Things Considered. My search looked like this (Note "all things" in the "show" field):And the results:
There it is! A peach farmer in California talking about the need for large numbers of workers to support organic farming. He sees legalizing immigration from Mexico as the only way to make delicious tasting peaches.

However, as I look at the list of transcripts, I realize that I must have started listening after the reports on the large numbers of child abuse cases reported by juveniles in institutions in Texas and across the United States. Hmm...many interesting articles...

(If you use LexisNexis to search newspapers, you can search just the Miami Herald by choosing U.S. News in the first box, Florida New Sources in the second, and Miami Herald in the very bottom box: StepFive: search this publication title.)

An impression of UF libraries by a non-librarian type person

First of all, thanks to Merrie for allowing me to guest-blog on her very excellent, very informative forum, and for giving me the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subjects, Library West and the UF libraries.
To be honest, I really didn’t start to appreciate the university libraries until I started working as a student assistant at the beginning of last summer. Working with the reference librarians has been a great opportunity to see how knowledgeable they are and willing to go the extra mile for their patrons. If you’ve ever hesitated to go up to the desk and ask for help with a project, please reconsider; no matter how arcane your question, you will no doubt find someone at the desk who can help you. And if, for some reason, they are unable to get the information you need they will invariably refer you to someone who can.
My advice: Make the reference desk at Library West your second home and the librarians your best study buddies. They will not do you wrong.

Some more tips:

• The Circulation desk on the second floor is a great place to start in your search because they can direct you to the places you need to go. They can also provide you with a laptop if computers in the library are scarce, and a set of headphones if you foolishly left yours at home. Be nice to your circulation desk people and be sure to say “hi” to Missy!
• Using your own laptop in the library? You can now print to the third floor orange printer.
  
• The fourth floor, if you are an undergrad who needs extreme quiet to study, is the place to go. You can even sometimes find a study carrel in which to hunker down.
• Second choice for X-treme quietude: The first floor, which at times resembles a basement so how can you go wrong?
• Design and film students take notice: The third floor has high-end computers for graphics and two editing suites! Sweet!
  

Besides the UF Libraries’ home page, Merrie’s blog is probably the best resource for new and interesting information, not just for her areas of expertise but for Library West as a whole. Her most recent post about Book Crossing is a great example of the potential of a library as community space, and I encourage every reader to explore its possibilities. She talks about the library’s potential as community arena in another post about other university and college libraries who have jumped on the library-as-community-space bandwagon (a coffee shop also doesn't hurt).
Okay, I’ve babbled long enough, back to our fearless leader of the library blogs at UF. Thank you once again.
Michele is a student, mom, and mate who enjoys helping others. When she is not working for the greater good at Library West she works on her own, somewhat neglected blogspot blog, The Accidental Environmentalist.

Undergrads and Narcissism

Are undergrads more narcissistic now than 20 years ago?

A new book out, Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before, laments the author (Jean M. Twenge, Phd.)'s findings that undergraduates today are more narcissistic than the previous generation. At least based on her results on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Jean Twenge attributes this to the "self-esteem" movement that encouraged parents to praise their children for being themselves and for doing everything they do.

Interesting. But it's also been suggested that adolescence (emerging adulthood) lasts longer than before, through college and until about age 21 - 23 in developed countries. The symptoms of narcissism are similar to characteristics of young folks figuring out who they are and what they want to do with their lives.

Or are there problems with personality inventories?

Or is it just what always happens. Older folks saying "These kids today...too self-involved. They don't care about anyone but themselves!" That's what older folks said about my generation when I was in college. That's what some older people said about the Vietnam War protestors. "I wish they really were pacifists. But it's not war they're against -- they just don't want to die."

Or is this new generation of undergrads different? What do you think?

BookCrossing.com

Set Your Books Free! Then Watch Them Travel the World through BookCrossing.com

You've read a book you loved, liked, hated. Whatever. You'd love to share it with another. If you're like me, your books are piled up on the floor. Each time a loved one comes to visit, she mutters about your need for more bookshelves, academics who have no space for guests to sit, and fire hazards from the floor to the ceilings.

BookCrossing.com provides Internet space for you to register your books online, journal them (describe them, talk about your interest in them, and critique or evaluate them) and then release them to other people.

Wild Releases mean you release them into the wild: you journal your book, label it as "free not lost", announce where you're leaving it, and ask the finder to register your book, so you can watch it travel around the world.

There are book rings and book rays as well, allowing groups of people all around the world to share their books. And wish lists that tell you who dreams of the books you no longer want or just want to give away.

It's a lovely way to trade books with folks all over the place. Lots of people have done it here in Gainesville already. I'd love to see our libraries get in on the act. Lets make our libraries a Crossing Zone! And maybe later an Official BookCrossing Zone!

The Gator Homeless Coalition

Good evening,

My name is David Reznik and I am one of the founding members of the Gator Homeless Coalition, a group of student volunteers seeking to change the nature of the University of Florida’s relationship with its surrounding community, particularly Gainesville's most victimized citizens: the homeless. UF has proven to be not only the largest, but also most influential institution in the city of Gainesville, and yet it has gentrified the city to suit the needs of privileged UF administration, faculty, and students.

Though the city may benefit from UF’s affluence, Gainesville’s permanent residents, specifically its homeless, suffer as well. There is now an affordable housing crisis and a shortage of shelter beds for the city with the highest poverty rate of any with a public university. The disproportionate number of students in Gainesville has also caused the scarcity of employment opportunities for local residents. It was these factors and more that sparked our mission to create the first student-run homeless shelter in Gainesville during the fall of 2006. We hope to bridge the campus-community divide in a more socially responsible fashion by having UF positively affect the city within which it exists.

While fostering leadership among students through hands-on experience in various disciplines, we seek to not just redefine the inhumane realities of Gainesville’s homeless. Our goal is to ultimately spark political action and social consciousness in making this university town a truly interdependent community.

PLEASE VOTE YES ON OUR REFERENDUM FOR A STUDENT-RUN HOMELESS SHELTER ON FEB. 27th and 28th DURING THE UF STUDENT GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS!!!

If you would like more information about us, please check out our website at www.ufhomeless.org or email us at ufhomeless@gmail.com

Selecting a Database

So, Which Database Should I Use Already?

One major problem researchers often encounter is deciding which database to use. UF Librarians develop Subject Guides listing databases for each domain, but the lists may include 20 databases! How is a confused student to decide among them? Mostly, folks just use the databases they always use. Often it's not a good one for what they're looking for. And then they say...

"I can't find anything about sleep disorders! Someone must have written about it! I see it on TV commercials all the time."

Well, Sociological Abstracts is probably not the best database to find articles on sleep disorders. (Though I was surprised to find some interesting things on it there. But they might not be what a psychology students expected or needed.)

What are the differences between databases?

• Which journals does the database index?
• Which subject area are the journals in?
• Are the journals all in one subject area or are the journals in all subject areas?
• Are the journals almost all scholarly or almost all popular or is there a mix?
• How many journals are covered?
• What does the database index besides journals?
• Does it include books, chapters in books, websites, encyclopedias, dissertations?
• Does the database include abstracts or summaries of the articles or just citations?
  
• Does the database have an interface that's easy to use?
• Do you have a choice of interfaces?
• Is the interface not easy, but powerful (You can find everything, if you spend a lot of time learning how to use it. Some well-designed interfaces are both.)

Here is a chart that compares the features of databases useful in our departments. I will writing more about making these decisions later. Enjoy!

Criminalization of Mental Illness

The Imprisoning of Deinstitutionalized Mentally Ill People

Last Sunday night, CBS's 60 Minutes reported on the death of Timothy Souders, a young man with Bipolar Disorder, who was in prison for shoplifting. The major contention of the producers is that since the deinstitutionalization of people with chronic, severe mental illnesses many are being shunted into the prison system. They are not able or willing to deal with them, not sensitive to their needs. Not aware of their illnesses.

For instance, people who are diagnosed as suicidal and may cut themselves (e.g. cut out pieces of their organs), the prison staff may call "manipulative with extreme behaviors."

Here is a search from PsycINFO about the prison system and deinstitutionalization.
(Remember you'll have to be logged into the library either by its proxy system or the VPN to access these articles.)

Frontline has a program (you can watch online) called The New Asylums, along with a website with more indepth interviews and research material.

I understand this response and the feeling that we might want to reopen or find havens for chronically ill people, but I also worked at a state mental hospital during graduate school. Horrible events occurred there.

If we do decide to find homes for people who are severely ill, we need to think hard about how to make them good places for the patients/residents living there and the staff working there. The working conditions at the state mental hospital took control and dignity away from the staff. Of course the residents suffered. There was a reason the State Hospitals were closed in the first place. It wasn't only because the drugs seemed to be miraculous. It was also because the hospitals appeared to be hellish.

Some books to look at:

Deinstitutionalization : promise and problems
San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, c2001.
EDUCATION LIBRARY -- -- RA790.A1 N43 no.90

The role of the state hospital in the twenty-first century /
San Francisco : Jossey Bass, 1999.
EDUCATION LIBRARY -- -- RA790.A1 N43 no.84

Baum, Alice S.
A nation in denial : the truth about homelessness /
Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 1993.
LIBRARY WEST -- -- HV 4505 .B378 1993

Thesauri and Search Terms

What Words to Search With? Keywords, Subject Terms, Thesauri

Many of my consultations start with this question. "I've looked and looked for stuff. But I just don't know the right words to use. How do I find them?" (Even before the student tells me what they're looking for...)

A lot of times, students are really just looking in the wrong database. A very general database, a database they're comfortable with because they used it before. Or perhaps in Google and their topic isn't too Googleable. Check on our Subject Guides. Or talk with a Librarian about the various databases.

UF Librarians have put together an excellent tutorial on how to analyze your question and develop search terms and a search strategy using your own mind.

But a big part of the problem with searching is that you're really trying to get out of your own mind and trying to figure out how other people are describing things. How authors and other researchers are describing what you are looking for. And how librarians and database designers are indexing and organizing articles.

So here are some ideas about using other people's minds to help you.

• Read subject specific encyclopedia and handbook articles on the topics you're interested in. Scour them for words that you hadn't thought of.
• Talk with anyone you can corral -- especially other students and faculty members (ply them with coffee or chocolates). Make note of how they talk about your topic.
• Use the thesaurus for the database you're searching:

There are a couple of ways to do this. And databases and interfaces vary in how good they are at this. But the idea is that you type in the words you're thinking of, and they give you words that they use to describe the same things. (Duh.) They'll usually give you the definition they use and other words that describe a broader concept; those that describe narrower; and others that are related. Check out the tutorial on PsycINFO's thesaurus.

If you are in Ebsco, using PsycINFO, GBLT Full Text, or Academic Search Premier, you can use the Visual Search or the regular search to see what the most common subject terms are in the articles you find. In the regular search, the most common subject terms will come up on the left hand side of the results screen:Click on image to enlarge

In CSA databases, like LLBA or Sociological Abstracts, the subject terms appear next to the results of individual articles.

If there isn't enough room to show all of the terms, you can look at the whole article. The nice thing about the CSA database, is that when you find an article that looks good, you can select a couple of the terms that describe it, and the database will search using them together for you. (Don't choose all of them. Usually the whole set only describes that one article.)

So with this article, since I wanted to look at "how people listen to verbs in a sentence" and used the keywords "sentence processing" and verbs, I might choose complements and syntactic processing. And later verbs and syntactic processing.Click to enlarge image

The more you read and chat, more terms you'll come upon. Visit me and we can talk and read together! Collaboration helps more than you can imagine. Take care!

Sage e-Reference and Methodology Encyclopedias

Online Now! Statistics and Measurements! Methodology Encyclopedias!

It's 2 a.m. You're reading an interesting paper on sentence processing: Reading sentences with a late closure ambiguity: Does semantic information help? Lipka, Sigrid; Language and Cognitive Processes, Vol 17(3), Jun 2002. pp. 271-298. And you get to a paragraph in the methodology section that states they set up a 2X2 Latin Square.

"What?" you think. "A Latin Square? I don't remember that. They started dancing in the middle of their analysis? It does help break the tension..." Well, I usually don't do that myself. But luckily, I remembered that the library has a trial subscription (soon a regular subscription) to several online encyclopedias from Sage Publications. So I searched for the term "Latin Square" and found an article explaining what a Latin Square is and why they are used.

As the Psych, Soc, Ling, and CSD Librarian, I am especially happy about this, because it includes something I've dreamt about for several years: 3 methods related encyclopedias -- 1 in Statistics & Measurements, 1 in Research Methods in the Social Sciences and 1 in Psychological Assessments.

Yep. In the middle of the night, you can have questions answered! Plus the interface is excellent. The Home Page for each encyclopedia has a list of broad topics that branch off to more specific articles. Or you can look through all of the articles in an alphabetical list. Or you can search for terms in a basic search or a more specific search. Or look through the index.

Each signed article has links to other, related articles. Each article also includes several articles and books for further reading. This is wonderful for another use of the encyclopedia. Doing your own research.

Say you decide to develop a questionaire. You read the several articles in the Methods Encyclopedia on Questionaires/Survey Design, (even an article on Internet Surveys) but are hungry for more! Here are suggestions for further reading from one of the articles:

Blumer, H. Sociological analysis and the “variable.” American Sociological Review vol. 21 pp. 683–690 (1956).

de Vaus, D. (Ed.). (2002). Social surveys (4 vols.). London: Sage.

Groves, R. M. (1989). Survey errors and survey costs. New York: Wiley.

Marsh, C. (1982). The survey method: The contribution of surveys to sociological explanation. London: Allen & Unwin.

Rosenberg, M. (1968). The logic of survey analysis. New York: Basic Books.

Not bad!