CSA Re-Load of PsycINFO Database

July 25, 2002 Author: CDLCategories:

CSA has just completed reloading the PsycINFO database with new 2002 data from the American Psychological Association (APA). This reload provides several new features and enhancements:

Cited References — Cited references are now displayed in the References (RE=) field. There are more than 4 million cited references, with most of the individual references displayed in accordance with the APA style manual. This implementation allows users to actively link to any cited reference present in PsycINFO and other records in PsycINFO that also cite the record. Furthermore, any data occurring in the references can be searched using the RE= field tag. A new Number of References (NR=) field precedes the References field, giving a summary count of the references that are displayed.

Consolidated Data — All PsycINFO files have been consolidated into one complete database within IDS. It is now no longer necessary for users to mark multiple sections in order to search the complete range of years. Increased Coverage – The PsycINFO database now features increased coverage, beginning from 1872 and continuing through to the present. Previous coverage began from 1887.
Additionally, APA has added new records with older publication years from the Harvard Book List, Psychological Index, and other chapter records not previously released. Most of these older records range from 1929 to 1983.

Other changes include:
–Addition of a browsable and therefore searchable Journal Name field, JN=;
–Addition of the Contact Individual (CI=) field that displays the postal address and e-mail address of the author who is taking inquiries about the article;
–An expanded Author Affiliation (AF=) field that now contains the affiliation information of most of the authors indexed (previously, this field only contained the affiliation information of the first author)
–A new Information Provider (IP=) field containing the web address of the publication where the record appeared, but not necessarily the full text of the record;
–Reformatted full text linking data, which allows for more successful links to the full text service providers.

More information about PsycINFO on IDS is available at: http://www.csa.com/csa/factsheets/psycinfo.shtml

(Adapted from: CSA News List)

Lorna Lueck, UCSB (lueck@library.ucsb.edu) is the Resource Liaison for PsycINFO