COLLECTIONS:

Special Collections

University Archives

Collection Preservation

Research Collections:
Psychology Collection

Collection Overview
Development of the psychology collection follows the research and teaching needs of faculty and students in the Psychology Department, as well as the Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology and other  units of  the Lynch School of Education, and the university community as a whole in the area of psychology. The collection covers a broad range of subjects in psychology; it includes histories and introductions, and material on Freud and a wide variety of psychoanalysis topics, Jung, psychiatric studies, archetypes, psychology and religion, and alchemical studies. The collection is also strong in the post-Freudian theorists--Adler, Erikson, Fromm, Horney, Klein, Menninger, Rank, Reich, and many others. Other areas of strength are works on existential psychology, human potential psychology, behaviorism, the cognitive revolution, including the human mind, artificial intelligence and other neurophysiological approaches, Gestalt psychology, and social psychology. Further collection strengths include works on child psychology, Piaget, and object-relations theory.  The collection also has extensive titles on gender and sexuality, disorders and treatment, with great emphasis on depression, schizophrenia, abuse, autism, cognitive therapy, rational and relational therapy, gestalt, family, and child therapies. Among some of the special topics in psychology covered by the collection are sleep and dreams, creativity, art and perception, language, memory and noncognitive perspectives of the mind.

Rapid advances in computer and networking technology have resulted in the acquisition of significant electronic resources. The next area of major collection growth in electronic formats will be in electronic journals. The psychology collection program has emphasized acquisition of digitized information and texts when possible because they vastly improve a researcher's ability to identify and access research resources.

Kwasi Sarkodie-Mensah
Psychology Bibliographer
O'Neill 312
1-617-552-4465
E-Mail: sarkodik@bc.edu

Selected Resources

In the O'Neill Library:

• Collected works and critical works of major world psychologists, as well as other thinkers whose contributions to psychology are critically important: Thales, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Galen, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Herbart, Fechner, Helmholtz, Wundt, Brentano, Ebbinghaus, Galton, Binet, James, Hall, Cattell, Titchener, Watson, Wertheimer, Koffka, Kohler, Freud, Adler, Jung, Krueger, Pieron, among others.

• Extensive holdings in psychological journal literature, many from the first volume through the current issue.

• Reference works: Gale  Encyclopedia of Psychology, The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Dictionary of Concepts in General Psychology, Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling, Encyclopedia of Psychology,  DSM IV,  Handbook of Child Psychology, Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, Mental Measurement Yearbook, (also online); Test Critiques, among many others.

On the Web (Restricted to the BC Community):

• Subject index to the literature:  PsycLit

• General indexes:

  • Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science)

  • ERIC

  • Education Abstracts

  • HAPI (Health and Psychosocial Instruments)

  • MEDLINE

  • Health Reference Center (InfoTrac)

  • Expanded Academic Index ASAP (InfoTrac)

  • General BusinessFile (InfoTrac)

  • ABI/Inform

  • Lexis/Nexis Academic Universe

  • Biosis Previews

  • Dissertation Abstracts Online

  • Article 1^st, Contents 1^st, NetFirst (OCLC)

  • Sociological Abstracts (Sociofile)

  • Mental Measurements Yearbook (Buros)

• Full text electronic journals: Applied Cognitive Psychology, Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, Journal of Comparative Neurology, among others. Other electronic journals in psychology may be found at the following e-journal gateways: JSTOR and Project Muse.

• Other databases in the Social Sciences, Science and Medicine: Subject Indexes to Online Databases: Social Sciences and Science and Medicine.

Research Guides
More information about available resources can be found in the following resource guides: Research Guide: Psychology and Three-Step Research Strategy to Psychology.

Interdisciplinary Elements of Subject Area
Interest in psychology is shared with nursing, education, social work, sociology, computer science (through the Carroll  School of Management), linguistics, and biology in the following areas: psychoanalysis, counseling psychology, social psychology and the biological bases of behavior,  cognitive aspects of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, neurology, genetics, and physiology.

Formats and Types of Materials
Formats collected in psychology include print, electronic, microform, and audiovisual. Types of materials include monographs, serials, and reference works including major indexes, abstracts, catalogs, bibliographies, yearbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, research guides, directories, technical reports, annual reports and proceedings or reports of conferences, symposia, and international congresses.

Languages
Psychology materials published in Western languages are emphasized, particularly English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Publications in major European languages are also considered. Translations of major psychological works are selectively considered.

Geographic Areas (Subject Approach)
The major emphases are on Europe and North America. Significant works from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa are also collected.

Time Periods (Subject Approach)
The  primary emphasis of the collection is on twentieth century materials.

Date of Publication
Current materials are emphasized.  Very selective retrospective purchasing may involve reprints or microform rather than the original format. A limited number of earlier titles, both book and serials are purchased as needed for replacement purposes.

Subject Areas Collected by Library of Congress Classification Number
BCAT, the online catalog, can be searched by LC classification number to get a better idea of what specific titles the psychology collection contains.  For example, the command c=BF 180 will produce the beginning of a list of works on experimental psychology.  This list can be browsed by pressing the F8 key or typing f and pressing the Enter/Return key.