Finding Journals & Articles

If you have a topic and want to find journal articles…
If you are searching for journal articles on a particular topic for a paper for a class or a research project or your dissertation, you’ll be going to the databases that PGSP has purchased for finding journal articles.

See the Literature Search and Databases page to start searching for articles by topic or subject.

If you have a citation and want to find journal articles…
If you have a citation from a journal article or book or other source and want to see if PGSP has access to the journal article, the best place to start is the PGSP Journal List.

You can also find the Journal List by clicking on the Journals Button on any PGSP Library webpage.

Once you’re in the Journals List, simply type 1 or 2 words from the journal title into the Find box and click on the Search button. You can type in words in any order and from anywhere in the title of the journal. For example, if you’re looking for the journal called Journal of Clinical Psychology, you can simply type in clinical or you can type in clinical psychology or you can type in journal of clinical psychology. If we have no journals that fit the words that you typed in, then you will get a message saying “No Titles where title contains…” – check to see if you spelled everything correctly, and if you did, then you know that we do not have access to that journal and you’ll need to either order the article through InterLibrary Loan (ILL) or get help in finding the article at another local library.

If you type in just one or two words, you may get a list of journals with those words in their titles, so simply scroll down the list to see if your journal is in the list. If it is not in the list, then once again, PGSP does not have access to that journal and you’ll need to either order the article through InterLibrary Loan (ILL) or get help in finding the article at another local library.

If you see the journal you want, it will have blue links beneath the title of the journal. Each of these links is a source for the journal. There may be several sources for a particular journal, or there may be only one. Check the dates of availability beside each link to see if the date you need is available. If it says Embargo… with some number of months after the word embargo, then that means we don’t have access to that journal from that source until the number of months indicated has elapsed. So if it says Embargo 12 months, and you’re looking at the journal list in September, then we won’t be able to get the latest issue of that journal until 12 months from now, which would be September of the next year. But if you need August of the previous year, then you would be able to access that August issue from the previous year.

If one of the links has dates that include the date you need, then click on it to get to the electronic fulltext of the article immediately. If it says PGSP Library Stacks in Print Format, then we have the article on our shelves in the library. If you are not in the Bay Area because you are a distance learning student or because you are on vacation or internship or otherwise out of the area, email the PGSP Librarian Scott Hines and he can photocopy the article for you and scan it and then email it to you.

If you have any difficulty accessing electronic fulltext journals, email or visit the PGSP Librarian Scott Hines.

InterLibrary Loan (ILL)
Information on how to order books and journals that are not available at PGSP.

Materials at Other Local Libraries

If there are books or journal articles that you need that you cannot find at PGSP, and you don’t have enough time to obtain the items through ILL, you may be able to go to another local college or university library and make photocopies of pages from the book or article, or in some cases you may be able to check the book out of the other library.

Stanford University Libraries
The Lane Medical Library at Stanford is open to the public, and they cover medical and psychiatric topics that we do not cover here at the PGSP Research Library. You can go there to get photocopies of books and journal articles or to download and print or email to yourself articles from journals in electronic fulltext format. You can also check books out from Lane Library, but you’ll need to visit the PGSP library during normal business hours to get the borrowing card for Lane Library. Check the Stanford University Libraries catalog to see if they have a book or journal by going to http://jenson.stanford.edu and choose browse then enter the journal or book title and click on either the Title button for a book or the Periodical Title button for a journal.

Green Library at Stanford does not offer unrestricted access by the public, but you can gain entrance to the library in two ways:
One way is to borrow the PGSP institutional Stanford library card, which is available from Scott Hines or Geeta Patangay in the PGSP library. This card lets you in the door at Green Library, but must be returned to the PGSP library within 24 hours (by Monday if borrowed on a Friday). The other way to gain access to Green Library is to go there and enter information about yourself into the computers at the front entrance and show them a picture ID. This method gets you into Green Library 7 times in the next 12 months. Our advice is to use the PGSP institutional Stanford Library card for most of your visits, and reserve the 7 access method for times when you need to go to Green Library on a whim, late on a Saturday night, for example, when you cannot get the PGSP institutional card.

You can check out books from Green Library only by purchasing borrowing coupons at the PGSP Library. Each coupon costs $5.00 and allows you to check out one book. PGSP students who have advanced to doctoral candidacy are allowed to have Stanford Green Library borrowing coupons at no charge.

The Education Library at Stanford is also open to the public, though PGSP cannot check out books from the Education Library.

Unfortunately the Law Library and the Business School Library are not open to students who do not attend those respective schools.

NCCPL Libraries
PGSP is a member of a consortium called the Northern California Consortium of Psychology Libraries, and PGSP students are allowed to borrow books from the libraries of other universities in the consortium or use their journal collections after getting a borrowing card from the PGSP Librarian Scott Hines.

One nearby member of NCCPL is the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP), which is located just a few doors down from PGSP on East Meadow Way. ITP has a focus on spirituality and religion in psychology, and may be a good source of books and journals in those areas. See the PGSP Librarian Scott Hines for assistance with finding books at ITP.

Other Local Libraries
Other libraries in the area are also useful at times for quick access to books or journals.
UC San Francisco is open to the public and has may be the best way for San Francisco residents to obtain materials related to medicine or psychiatry. Santa Clara University and San Jose State University both have books in the area of counseling that are more difficult to find at PGSP and Stanford libraries.

You cannot check books out from these libraries, but you can use their journals and make photocopies from their books.

For assistance with finding books and journals at other Bay Area libraries, email or visit the PGSP Librarian Scott Hines.