General Library Information
PGSP's Research Library actively supports the research, scholarship, and teaching goals of PGSP through the maintenance, organization, and development of a highly specialized collection of books, journals, and audiovisual materials, as well as the provision of appropriate information services. Staffed by the Library Director, a Catalog Librarian, a Reference Librarian, and graduate student assistants, the library is open 75 hours a week, including evenings and weekends.
Print materials consist of approximately 8,000 cataloged books, 2,500 volumes of journals, and circulating copies of all dissertations. Additionally, the collection includes over 1100 active subscriptions to professional journals, fulltext online electronic books, fulltext online electronic dissertations, and other fulltext online electronic materials. The Library also holds a Multimedia collection of over 500 audio cassettes and 150 videotapes. The Library Director works closely with faculty to ensure the collection is timely, relevant, and that it will adequately support a doctoral-level program.
Computer databases available to the PGSP community include the PsycINFO, Medline, LexisNexis, and ERIC databases, as well as several fulltext databases that provide immediate access to online fulltext journal articles.
The library offers a full range of services to students and faculty, including reference and research assistance, help with online literature searches, and InterLibrary Loans. The library also provides multimedia equipment for student and faculty use in presentations.
The San Francisco Bay Area is rich in research resources, including two of the finest university libraries in the United States -- Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. The PGSP Research Library acquires a number of Institutional Library Cards which enable faculty and students to have access to the Stanford University Libraries.
In addition, excellent collections in psychology, psychiatry, and related fields can be found at the UC Medical Center in San Francisco, the Lane Medical Library at Stanford, the UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, and the SF Psychoanalytic Institute. Materials may also be requested through InterLibrary Loan, and the Research Library staff utilizes a number of on-line resources including OCLC and the National Library of Medicine's Docline to provide comprehensive, efficient InterLibrary Loan service.
The library participates in various biomedical networks and the Northern California Consortium of Psychology Libraries (NCCPL), which provides access to a diverse range of psychology collections. Our students now have direct borrowing privileges at the 14 NCCPL member libraries.
The PGSP library subscribes to three major cooperative networks, accessing regional, state, and national academic, public, and corporate collections. These information nets provide reference referral, union periodical lists, reciprocal lending, and photocopying services. Pacific Southwest Regional Medical Library Service (PSRMLS) is one of nine regions organized by the National Library of Medicine to service the biomedical community. The Northern California-Nevada Medical Library Group is an organization of 85 Health Science Libraries. Approximately 10,000 serial titles are owned by the network members. The library also belongs to OCLC's California Resource Sharing Network with approximately 33 million holdings at over 400 libraries.