Social Work Library: Resources for Interpersonal Practice

Resources for Interpersonal Practice

Scope note: This web page supplemented an instructional session facilitated by Social Work Library Staff. It is not meant to be comprehensive. Please contact Library staff at social.work.library@umich.edu for additional information.

Introduction | Resources | Additional IP Resources | Practice

Introduction

Information needs for interpersonal practice (IP) are resources related to:

clinical social work practice (assessment, evaluation, intervention, etc.) as it relates to groups and individuals
social issues (e.g. exclusion from clinical services based on socioeconomic background)
diversity of age, race, abilities, social class, sexual orientation, cultural background, etc.
treatment, prevention, and rehabilitation programs (e.g. self-help groups)

U-M Information Environment

The University of Michigan Information Environment is a complex but rich one. It helps to keep in mind several principles:

The Mirlyn catalog is where you find what U-M libraries own, including those materials in the Social Work Library collections.
Indexes or databases provide citations to the universe of the periodical literature - not to what U-M libraries own.
There are a variety of citation-only, abstracts-only, and full-text databases.
Many licensed databases use a web interface but they are not "The Web." These web-based indexes are accessible to U-M affiliates only.

Basic Concepts

Understanding these basic concepts will help you navigate in most library databases, including the library catalog.

Choosing a database- Choose a database based on your topic. Look at these elements:
- focus of the database (topical such as social work, psychology, medical)
- specific populations involved (elderly, children, ethnic groups)
- kind of information needed (popular newspapers, journals, statistics, etc.)
Controlled vocabulary- Most databases have a "controlled vocabulary" for their subject headings/descriptors that are assigned to each record in the database. Always look at your subject headings/descriptors. These are words that may help you with your search. For example, use the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (Z 695.1 .P7 T42 Reference) for valid subject terms in PsycINFO.
Keyword searching- This is one method to try if you are not sure of the "controlled vocabulary" or official subject headings because:
- keyword searching will search your terms in the title, abstract, author, subjects/descriptor and other content-rich fields of the record
- keywords can be combined with connectors (and, or, not)
Connectors- are words that allow you to join two or more words together to get more precise results:

Connector	Result	Use
family and violence and treatment	Will retrieve all records that have all three words (family and violence and treatment) in them.	Used to narrow your search. Will always result in fewer records.
violence or abuse	Will retrieve all records that have either violence or abuse in them.	Used most frequently to search for words that are synonyms.
family and violence not treatment	Will retrieve all records with family and violence but will take out any records with treatment in them.	Used to take out words that are irrelevant to your search.

Narrowing your search- If you are getting too many resulting citations, try making your search more specific. For example if you are interested in research done with Hispanic American families, but are getting too many citations, try narrowing your population to Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, etc. Try narrowing your topic to specific groups, such as single-parent families, extended families, dual income families, etc.
Advanced search tips-Most databases have many more tips and tricks to making your searches more accurate. Please consult the help screens or the guides developed by the Social Work Library Staff (linked below) if you're having trouble.

Fundamental Resources

Database	Use
Mirlyn About \| Quick Tips	Use to find titles of books, journals, newspapers, etc. that the University Library owns. Note: this includes the Social Work Library.
PsycINFO About \| Guide	Use to find articles on any psychology-related topic. Coverage from 1887-
Social Work Abstracts About \| Guide	Use to find journal articles related to social work and human services. Coverage from 1977-
ProQuest Databases About \| Quick Tips	Use for finding articles from a broad range of topics and from scholarly and popular literature. This is a general resource for many topics. Contains a large amount of full-text resources. Coverage varies but not farther back than 1977.
AGELINE About \| Guide	Use to find journal articles, research reports, etc. specifically related to aging. Coverage from 1978-
Ethnic NewsWatch About	Useful for finding full-text news information from ethnic, minority and native presses in both English and Spanish. Coverage starts from 1985-
Family & Society Studies Worldwide About \| Guide	Use for finding international perspectives on family therapy, with links to web documents. Coverage starts from 1970-
Gender Watch About	Use for finding full-text resources about women's and gender publications gathered from scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, reports, pamphlets, and conference proceedings. Coverage starts from 1974-
LGBT Life	Coverage varies by title. LGBT Life is the premier index and for literature related to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues and research. The database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 400 magazines, journals books and news sources, including full text for 50 of the most important LGBT serials and dozens of books. All items formerly indexed in the database Sexual Diversity Studies: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Abstracts are now included in LGBT Life.
UM-MedSearch About \| Guide	Useful for finding medical information on interpersonal issues such as psychiatric, rehabilitative, pharmaceutical information. MEDLINE covers the professional medical literature. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews is the best source for reviews of the effects of health care based on extensive evaluation of reported studies (evidence-based practice). Coverage starts from 1966-

** For a full list of online databases relevant to social work see: Social Work Library Alphabetical List of Databases at http://www.lib.umich.edu/socwork/database.html

= University of Michigan Licensed Database

Additional IP Resources


Locating Psychological and Educational Tests and Measurements http://www.lib.umich.edu/socwork/ rescue/tests.html	American Psychological Association http://www.apa.org/
DSM-IV-TR http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/ disorders/dsm4tr.htm	Social Work Library Online Reference Collection http://www.lib.umich.edu/socwork/ swlonlineref.html
Psychology Electronic Journals & Newspapers http://www.lib.umich.edu/ejournals/ ejsearch.php?searchBy=PX&searchFor =Psychology&New=All	Indigenous People and the Social Work Profession: Defining Culturally Competent Services http://www.socialworkers.org/diversity/ ethnic/weaver.pdf
Michigan Electronic Library -- Mental Health Resources http://melweb.mlcnet.org/viewtopic.jsp?id= 281&pathid=1094	Internet Mental Health - Disorders http://www.mentalhealth.com/fr20.html
Mental Health Net http://mentalhelp.net/ (see especially the Self-Help Sourcebook Online)	Clinical Social Work Federation http://www.cswf.org/

Searching Practice

Practice using PsycINFO

1) Connect to PsycINFO. Go to advanced search: do a keyword search family and violence and treatment. Limit all terms to subject headings.

2) Click on "Attendance-enhancing procedures in group counseling for domestic abusers." Save this record so you will have the citation for later.

3) Click on the SFX button at the bottom of the record. At the next window, notice any links to full-text article access. If there is no full-text access, click on the University Library catalog link to determine where the journal is located on campus. Note in the Mirlyn record that there is electronic access to the cited journal for U-M students. Print out the article mentioned in the database citation.

4) Close the Mirlyn catalog window and the SFX window. Click on the PsycINFO logout link when finished.

Exercise using Social Work Abstracts

1) Click on link above. In the search form, type family and violence. Click on the Search button.

2) Display the complete record for "Domestic violence law reforms: reactions from the trenches" by clicking on the Complete Record link.

3) Click on the Print icon at the right top of the record. Accept the default settings. Click on the Print button. Confirm the correct printer is selected, and click on the OK button.

4) Click on the Back button to return to the complete record. Note the DESCRIPTORS field. "Family-violence" is a valid subject heading.

5) In the search form at the top of the screen, type family-violence. Click on the Search button. This will search for records that have the phrase "family violence" as a subject heading. Notice that the results are fewer, but more on topic.

6) Click on the Advanced tab. A new search form appears, with more input boxes. In the first input box, type the word treatment and in the pull-down menu next to your word, select ABSTRACT(AB). This will search for records that have the term in the abstract field only.

7) Click on the Search History tab. Notice that all your search steps have been saved and numbered. Click boxes next to #2 and #3. Next to the phrase "Combine and search using" click on the and. This will combine your two search steps and will retrieve only those records with family violence as a subject heading and with treatment somewhere in the abstract.

8) Click on the Display icon next to your final results. Click on Print, Save, or E-mail icons and follow the directions given. Click on the Logout link when finished.

9) Click on the SFX button at the bottom of the record. At the next window, notice any links to full-text article access. If there is no full-text access, click on the University Library catalog link to determine where the journal is located on campus. Note in the Mirlyn record that there is electronic access to the cited journal for U-M students. Print out the article mentioned in the database citation.

10) Close the Mirlyn catalog window and the SFX window. Click on the Social Work Abstracts logout link when finished.

Exercise using Sexual Diversity Studies

1) Click on link above.

2) In the "all of the words" box, type in family violence and treatment. Click on the Search button.

3) The results will display in the bottom half of the screen. Click on the View button to display the complete records.

4) To choose several titles you're interested in, click on the check box next to the title.

5) Print or e-mail marked records, following the on-screen directions.

6) Look up the journal, book or document titles in the Mirlyn catalog to see if we have the cited journal.

Back to: Introduction | Resources | Additional IP Resources | Practice

Created by: Joy Cichewicz; Converted by: Jamie Nielsen, 9/23/07

Document Custodian: Nicole Scholtz

Content last updated on: 30 October 2008

Social Work Library | (734) 764-5169 | social.work.library@umich.edu

B700 School of Social Work Building, 1080 S. University, Ann Arbor MI 48109-1106

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Practice using PsycINFO
1) Connect to PsycINFO. Go to advanced search: do a keyword search *family and violence and treatment.* Limit all terms to subject headings.
2) Click on "Attendance-enhancing procedures in group counseling for domestic abusers." Save this record so you will have the citation for later.
3) Click on the SFX button at the bottom of the record. At the next window, notice any links to full-text article access. If there is no full-text access, click on the University Library catalog link to determine where the journal is located on campus. Note in the Mirlyn record that there is electronic access to the cited journal for U-M students. Print out the article mentioned in the database citation.
4) Close the Mirlyn catalog window and the SFX window. Click on the PsycINFO logout link when finished.
Exercise using Social Work Abstracts
1) Click on link above. In the search form, type family and violence. Click on the Search button.
2) Display the complete record for "Domestic violence law reforms: reactions from the trenches" by clicking on the Complete Record link.
3) Click on the Print icon at the right top of the record. Accept the default settings. Click on the Print button. Confirm the correct printer is selected, and click on the OK button.
4) Click on the Back button to return to the complete record. Note the DESCRIPTORS field. "Family-violence" is a valid subject heading.
5) In the search form at the top of the screen, type family-violence. Click on the Search button. This will search for records that have the phrase "family violence" as a subject heading. Notice that the results are fewer, but more on topic.
6) Click on the Advanced tab. A new search form appears, with more input boxes. In the first input box, type the word treatment and in the pull-down menu next to your word, select ABSTRACT(AB). This will search for records that have the term in the abstract field only.
7) Click on the Search History tab. Notice that all your search steps have been saved and numbered. Click boxes next to #2 and #3. Next to the phrase "Combine and search using" click on the and. This will combine your two search steps and will retrieve only those records with family violence as a subject heading and with treatment somewhere in the abstract.
8) Click on the Display icon next to your final results. Click on Print, Save, or E-mail icons and follow the directions given. Click on the Logout link when finished.
9) Click on the SFX button at the bottom of the record. At the next window, notice any links to full-text article access. If there is no full-text access, click on the University Library catalog link to determine where the journal is located on campus. Note in the Mirlyn record that there is electronic access to the cited journal for U-M students. Print out the article mentioned in the database citation.
10) Close the Mirlyn catalog window and the SFX window. Click on the Social Work Abstracts logout link when finished.
Exercise using Sexual Diversity Studies
1) Click on link above.
2) In the "all of the words" box, type in family violence and treatment. Click on the Search button.
3) The results will display in the bottom half of the screen. Click on the View button to display the complete records.
4) To choose several titles you're interested in, click on the check box next to the title.
5) Print or e-mail marked records, following the on-screen directions.
6) Look up the journal, book or document titles in the Mirlyn catalog to see if we have the cited journal.

Social Work Library: Resources for Interpersonal Practice

Social Work Library: Resources for Interpersonal Practice

Resources for Interpersonal Practice

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