Education:
A Guide for Library Research

This guide provides students in the Earlham M.A.T. program a listing of the most important scholarly and professional sources in education. The guide will be of continuing use through out your program when you are unsure how to begin a research project. If you find the guide is unhelpful please contact a reference librarian or email me. - Tom Kirk x1360

Reference sources

Below are listed the most important print resources that are available in Lilly Library. There also are a set of online reference sources that you can access from the libraries' Online Reference page which is listed on the library homepage.

Encyclopedia of Education and Human Development. 2005. 3 vols.
Ref LB 15 .E473 2005

Encyclopedia of Education. 2003. 8 vols.
Ref LB 15 .E47. 2003. Also available online.

Encyclopedia of Educational Research. 4 vols. 6th ed. 1992.
Ref LB 15 .E48 1992

Handbook of Research on Teaching, ed. by Virginia Richardson. 4th ed. 2001.
Ref LB 1028 .H315 2001

Encyclopedia of American Education. 2001. 3 vols.
Ref LB 17 .U54 2001

World Education Encyclopedia. 2002.
Ref LB 15 .W87 2001

Concise encyclopedia of special education; A Reference for the Education of the Handicapped and Other Exceptional Children and Adults. 2nd ed. 2002.
Ref LC 4007 .E53 2002

Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. 2002.
Ref LC 4704.5 .T86 2002.

Learning Disabilities Source Book. 1998. (Health Reference Series, v. 38)
Ref LC 4705 .L434 1998.

Education and Sociology; an Encyclopedia. 2001.
Ref LC 189.95 .E38 2001

Encyclopedia of Psychology. 2000. 8 vols.
Ref BF 31 .E52 2000

There are a number of other encyclopedias in psychology that may be useful. Browse the Reference shelves in the area of BF.

Encyclopedia of Sociology. 2000. 5 vols.
Ref HM 425 .E5 2000. Also available online.

The HM and HQ are excellent areas of the reference shelves to find other encyclopedias on sociology, social services and related fields such as women's studies, queer, gay and lesbian studies, and social history.

Other online encylopedia and dictionaries.

The Earlham libraries maintain a collection of online reference works for which we pay annual subscription and access fees.

Biographical Resources

American National Biography. 24 vols. + suppl. 1999-2002.
Ref CT 213 .A68 1999. Also available online.

Biographical Resource Center.

This online resource provides a collection of biographical entries from a variety of biographical dictionaries, encyclopedias and handbooks, as well as full-text articles from periodicals which are essentially biographical. This is less scholarly than ANB but is an excellent source across the broad spectrum of living and dead people in all walks of life, with world wide coverage.

Tests and Testing

Mental Measurements Yearbook. Eleven editions. Earlham has 3-11, 1949 through 1992. Ref BF 176 .B8

This is a catalog of tests along with descriptions of the tests and summaries of evaluations of the tests. Extensive bibliographic references to the evaluation literature are provided.

Tests in Print. 6 vols. 1999.
Ref BF 176 .T4 1974 - 1999.

Similar to Mental Measurements Yearbook above in structure and content.

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Annual reviews

Review of Research in Education. v. 1. 1973- .
Ref LB 1028 .R43

Annual Review of Psychology.

This is one of some twenty plus annual series, each of which contains a series of sophisticated scholarly review articles. The reviews focus on a specific topic (e.g., "Peer relationships and social competence during early and middle childhood.") in which there have been significant recent advances in research. The essays are critical summaries of the research findings with special attention to gaps in the field and suggestions for further research. A parallel title is the Annual Review of Sociology.

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Library catalog and other catalogs

The library's new catalog is now up and running. We encourage you to use the "Enhanced Search" interface. Certainly the "Basic Search" is good for a simple search for a particular book by author or title. However for a subject search that requires complex searching the "Enhanced Search" is preferable. Furthermore the "Enhanced Search" allows the application of limits such as by format (e.g., books, periodical, audiovisuals) and by date (e.g., 2000-2003).

The new catalog also has some new features such as "My Account" that allows you to see what you have checked out and to renew books as appropriate. Another new feature is the ability to see the history of your searches during a session. This history doesn't get saved from one visit to another.

Aleph the new catalog

You also have access to a world-wide catalog of library holdings which includes the listing of over 52 million items --books, periodicals, media, manuscripts, etc. This catalog can always be used as a substitute for the Earlham libraries' catalog and it provides a terrific resource for finding out what is available in nearby libraries or simply identifying a comprehensive list of resources on a topic. The catalog is known as WorldCat and is provided by OCLC.

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Databases online

Academic Search Premier.

This index is a broad ranging general index to popular and scholarly periodicals covering all fields of knowledge. The index covers some 3,100 periodicals. For 1,000 titles, the full-text of the articles is included with varying starting date for each title that generally falls between 1993 and 1998. Found in the General & Reference section of Earlham's databases.

ERIC - Educational Resources Information Center. 1966 to the present.

ERIC is a comprehensive index with abstracts to references for 1.2 million publications. The database includes journal articles, books, theses, curricula, conference papers, standards and guidelines and research reports. This last category includes a type of "gray" literature that is accessed only through ERIC. These are publications of individuals, individual school corporations or investigative organizations. ERIC provides a link to the full text of these and some other documents but many items, especially the journal articles, need to be accessed either through Earlham's SFX service* or by using interlibrary loan. Because ERIC's own Web site is not linked to Earlham's SFX service the EBSCOhost version of ERIC is preferable.

*SFX service is a button that appears within library databases that provide a link to the full text of a journal article or information about how to get access to the item.

EBSCOhost version. ERIC Web version

Professional Development Collection.

This database includes bibliographic citations and some full-text for journal articles across a wide range of periodicals. The articles focus on education topics but may or may not come from education journals. This is an index designed for a profession rather than to cover a subject area. This can be both useful and frustrating. It ought always be used on combination with ERIC and other databases and rarely will it completely satisfy your needs.

PsycINFO. 1887 to the present.

PsycINFO is the comprehensive index to the scholarly literature in psychology. Books, journal articles, and research reports from around the world are included. Each entry includes an abstract that summarizes the nature of the article and its content. Within the database there are links to full-text articles if they are available. The interface for this search tool is similar to Academic Search elite. Found in the Social Sciences section of Earlham's databases.

Web of Science . 1981 to present.

The Web of Science (bad name!) is actually three databases that can be search individually or in any combination. They are entitled: Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences, and Sciences. The databases can be search by a variety of key word approaches --subject, author, organizational affiliation-- or by citation. The latter is unique in the world of indexing. It allows the user to identify works that have cited a known work. Therefore a relevant citation which a researcher has already identified can be searched to see what works were subsequently published based on the known work. The "web" part of the name is indicative of the complex linking of articles among each other. The first use of this complex database is best done with the aid of an experienced user. See a reference librarian for help.

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Finding periodicals

The library provides a service through its Web pages that lets you identify all periodical contents to which we have access be they print titles or on-line titles. If you have a citation and you want to locate the full text go to the SFX Citation Linker page and fill in the name of the periodical and click on the SFX button.

Education Periodicals Received in Print by Indiana University East

Consult the list of titles which is available at the Reference Desk. Since IU East has a teacher preparation program, they have many titles used by teachers that contain practical information.

The Library is located on the IU East Campus which is located on US 27 North, east of 27, just before you reach I-70. The Library is located in the Hayes Hall.

Hours are:

Mon.-Thurs.-8:00 AM-9:00 PM
Friday-9:00 AM -5:00 PM
Saturday-8:30 AM -2:00 PM
Sunday-12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Call 973-8309 for Library Circulation Desk to get hours during the summer and between sessions.

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Web resources

There are a tremendous number of Web sites that relate to education just as there are for any other broad field of human endeavor. A user can use a search engine like Google to explore the Internet. Unfortunately the number of sites and their uneven quality makes it almost impossible to pinpoint high quality sites easily. The best solution is a quality Webliography --a bibliography of Web sites-- that provides a listing of quality Web resources. To help you in your research a list of education Webliographies is provided below. We highly recommend some exploration of one or more of these before launching a wide-open search of the Web using a search engine. We welcome suggestions from M.A.T. students of Web sites that are good directories to Web sites useful to practicing teachers.

The Gateway to educational materials.

An excellent resource for educators sponsored by the US Department of Education, this site is a project of a consortium associated with the Information Institute of Syracuse, Syracuse University. Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) links to "thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites" selected by consortium members. In late August 2002 when this review was prepared, GEM contained more than 25,000 annotated resources, including free sites and materials that required registration or purchase; however, fee-based resources make up a small proportion of the sites. Resources can be located by using an index of keywords, the subject (topic) index, or the search engine. (Excerpted from review by L. L. Scarth, Mount Mercy College in Choice, Special Issue 41 (2004).)

New Teachers Home Page.

Supported by Inspiring Teachers Publishing this site was created by educators for beginning teachers. A review by G.L. Wilhite in Choice reviewes describes NTHP as a "valuable resource for students, new teachers and teacher educators whorking with new teachers." The site provides much practical advice and includes anewsletter of tips. There are advice and discussion forums for sharing ideas.

Web English teacher.

Web English Teacher claims to offer the best of K-12 English/Language Arts online teaching resources. English teacher Carla Beard, who created this Web site, tells users to "think of it as the faculty library and faculty workroom on a global scale." Because it is so focused, this site offers comprehensiveness and depth of materials that most English teachers will find helpful. The site is mostly geared toward middle and high school levels; for example, links for the advanced placement and international baccalaureate courses include ambitious unit plans, lesson plan discussion questions, literary concepts, grading rubrics, and essay planning guides for the major works offered in the curricula. The Book Reports link offers numerous ideas for assigning book report projects to students at all levels. Additional links at this site include teaching ideas and quality online resources for works in the field of children's literature and young adult literature, both fiction and prose, organized by genre and then authors' names. Separate links are devoted to Shakespeare's works. Other resources from this site include drama, ESL/TESOL, grammar, poetry, folklore, mythology, speech, debate, journalism, poetry, and critical thinking. Web English Teacher is easy to navigate, and the links are well maintained. Materials found at this site are consistently well organized and offer quality as well as quantity. (Excerpted from review by S. A. Ariew, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Choice, Special Issue 41 (2004).)

Social studies teaching material.

This web site was created by Randall Shrock, Tom Kirk and students of the Earlham M.A.T. program. It is a listing of selected sites useful in teaching social studies.

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Other resources

Writing Annotations.

This page provides instructions for writing annotations as well as some examples.

Evaluating Internet Resources.

Guidance on evaluating web sites and information to help in that assessment.

How to cite electronic resources.

This directory, prepared by Earlham Libraries, will lead to several different style guides for citing electronic resources. Pick the style that is consistent with the citing style you are using for print sources.

Finding Web resource in education.

  • Use directories of education Web sites prepared by Earlham and by other educational institutions.
  • Use refereed databases of Web sites such as WorldCat.
  • Use general search engines like Google.
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Researching School Districts

Indiana Department of Education.

This is the portal for accessing information published by the Department. It contains much data about schools and student learning in individual school districts. In fact this Web site can overwhelm you with information. An understanding of how the system works and extracting data will be essential. Consult a librarian for help. From the DOE homepage there is access to the ASAP Education Web Site. ASAP is the Accountability System for Academic Progress and is a recently established to provide computer-generated statistical tables on local school systems for school administrators, teachers, parents and school board members. Eight categories of data are provided: academic standards, accountability, accreditation, best practice, professional development, school data, school improvement planning and state aims and goals. This service appears to be "tacked on" to the rest of the DOE and may duplicate, in part, data that is already there.

US Department of Education Index.

The portal entry for a myriad of publications, including statistical database and directories, published in print and on the Web by the US Department of Education. This is a treasure trove of information that will take some time to learn to navigate. But it is well worth it.

The Education Trust

The Education Trust was established in 1990 by the American Association for Higher Education as a special project to encourage colleges and universities to support K-12 reform efforts. Since then, the Ed Trust has grown into an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to make schools and colleges work for all of the young people they serve. The Education Trust conducts many studies and uses data from others to analyze school performance. The site provides interactive tables of academic performance by state. Cohort data is available by race and socioeconomic categories.

Pal-Item Communities.

A compendium of information on the communities of Wayne County, including their schools, and the surrounding area. Only the most basic information is provided.

Google Search Engine. Google Scholar. Google Books

There are actually three different search engines. They differ no in their appearance but in the type of web pages they search. The Google Search Engine is the index to the larger collection of web pages. The Google Scholar Search is an index to web pages that are scholarly publications. Which ever search engine you use select the "Advanced Search" interface and the following search elements:

In the exact phrase box: name of school

e.g., nettle creek school corporation

In the all of the words box: state subject

e.g., indiana parent*

Try alternative searches using different terms for the same concept. For example in place of parent* type in the at least one box family mother* father*. Another alternative is to search the name of individual schools instead of the name of the cooperation. For example, Hagerstown Junior Senior High School instead of Nettle Creek School Corporation.

Palladium-Item.

The newspaper is on-line with current news and a small archive back to 1999 is available from the library's News Resources page. A complete file of the newspaper is available on microfilm at Morrisson-Reeves (MRL), the city public library. MRL has an on-line index which you can consult prior to a visit to the library at 80 North 6th Street. To consult the newspaper index go to the MRL homepage and select OPAC. In the OPAC select "Newspaper Index." The MRL homepage is at http://www.mrl.lib.in.us/ .

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