This research guide is intended as an overview of library resources and services of particular relevance for students in Dr. Keville Frederickson’s Spring 2013 course ORLN 5005, Interdisciplinary Theory and 
Knowledge Development. The resources, primarily electronic and accessible on and off campus, have been selected as ones supporting the focus of the course, i.e., “The development and analysis of theory in nursing as part of knowledge development as well as the derivation of concepts and theories from nursing and related disciplines.” The guide also includes a section describing research consultation and assistance services and options for document retrieval and delivery available to all members of the Teachers College community.
Library Resources
Online Catalogs
Periodical Indexes
Federated Search Engines
Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
E-Collections
Handbooks of Research
Reviews of Research
Citation Indexes
Digital Archives
Bibliography and Citation Management Programs
Library Services and Publications
All students, faculty, and researchers also have access to a number of important library services and publications provided to support and facilitate research and study in their particular programs and disciplines.
Online Catalogs
EDUCAT – The most definitive record of the holdings of the Gottesman Libraries at Teachers College, including books, e-books, journals, e-journals, dissertations, media, and other specialized collections of all kinds.
See our library’s video tutorial on searching EDUCAT.
CLIO – The union catalog of Columbia University Libraries (exclusive of the libraries of Teachers College, the Columbia Law School, and Jewish Theological Seminary), providing the most definitive record of individual libraries’ holdings of books, e-books, journals, e-journals, dissertations, media, and other specialized collections of all kinds.
WorldCat – The union catalog of the contents of over 10,000 libraries worldwide, providing the means to do exhaustive searching by author, title, subject, and numerous other criteria and to find locations for specific items in libraries nearby and elsewhere. The online version of WorldCat is freely accessible at worldcat.org.
See our library’s video tutorial on searching WorldCat.
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) are the official subject terms prescribed by the Library of Congress for the cataloging of books and are in use in essentially all academic libraries. To find works pertaining to interdisciplinary theory and knowledge development in nursing and related subjects, it may be useful to use some of the subject terms, or combinations of terms, listed below when searching the online catalogs of libraries at Teachers College, Columbia University, and other institutions.
Evidence-based nursing
Nurse administrators
Nurses
Nursing
Nursing — Ethics
Nursing — Philosophy
Nursing — Practice
Nursing — Research
Nursing — Research — Methodology
Nursing — Research — Statistical methods
Nursing models
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Periodical Indexes
APA PscyNET – Single search interface for PsycARTICLES, PsycBOOKS, PsycCRITIQUES, and PsycEXTRA (see E-Collections below).
Academic Search Premier – A multidisciplinary database providing full text for more than 4,600 journals, including nearly 3,900 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals. See also Academic Search Complete, a scholarly, multidisciplinary full-text database, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887.
Biological Abstracts – An index with abstracts to periodicals in biology and the life sciences. Provides access to biological and medical research findings, clinical studies, and discoveries of new organisms. Coverage is international, and includes biochemistry, biomedicine, biotechnology, genetics, microbiology, and pharmacology.
BioMed Central – Provides access to 207 open access biological and biomedical research journals, as well as current reports and meeting abstracts. BioMed Central offers information about current controlled trials, as well as topics in modern biology.
CINAHL Plus with Full Text – The online version of the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, providing full text for more than 750 journals indexed in CINAHL from 1981-present.
Cochrane Library – A collection of six databases that contain different types of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making: the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews; the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials; the Cochrane Methodology Register; the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects; the Health Technology Assessment Database; and the NHS Economic Evaluation Database. There is a a seventh database that provides information about groups in The Cochrane Collaboration.
MEDLINE – MEDLINE covers the international literature on biomedicine, including the allied health fields and the biological and physical sciences, humanities, and information science as they relate to medicine and health care. Information is indexed from approximately 3,900 journals published world-wide. Our library makes the database available via the Ovid platform; ISI Web of Knowledge MEDLINE and Ebsco MEDLINE can be accessed via the Columbia University Libraries website.
MEDLINE In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations and MEDLINE – This database consists of In-Process and PubMed-not-MEDLINE records from the National Library of Medicine. The In-Process records are ones that will be put into the MEDLINE database after they have been enhanced with MeSH headings. PubMed-not-MEDLINE records are records from journals found in PubMed but not selected for MEDLINE.
ProQuest – Provides broad multidisciplinary coverage of scholarly journals, newspapers, dissertations, and other types of publications; for international coverage and access to full texts of dissertations only, search Digital Dissertations, a subset of ProQuest.
PsycINFO – Covers the scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences.
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Federated Search Engines
Google Scholar – Provides the means to search for scholarly research across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other web sites.
See our library’s Google Scholar video tutorial.
Quicksearch (via Columbia University Libraries) – To search multiple periodical indexes simultaneously within a variety of subjects and disciplinary subcategories.
Super Search (via Gottesman Libraries) – To search some or all of our periodical indexes, plus EDUCAT and CLIO, simultaneously for books, journal articles, reports, dissertations, etc.
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Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
Print Resources
Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health (7th edition, 2003)
Encyclopedia of Nursing Research (2nd Edition, 2006) [see also e-version of 3rd edition below]
Historical Encyclopedia of Nursing (1999)
E-Resources
Dictionary of Nursing Theory and Research (4th edition) – The 2011 edition of this classic dictionary for understanding traditional and new concepts in nursing theory and research encompasses the considerable changes that have occurred in the clinical health sciences since the previous edition was published, and includes updates and new references for entries from the previous edition, and information related to developing areas of research and practice. New content that reflects nursing priorities in research and theory development in the current interprofessional health care environment is featured.
Encyclopedia of Health and Behavior – Includes more than 200 entries on topics such as physical activity, stress and health, smoking, pain management, social support and health, cardiovascular health, health promotion, and HIV/AIDS.
Encyclopedia of Nursing Research (3rd edition) – Written by over 200 nursing research experts, the 2012 edition of this resource updates original entries and adds over 20 new areas of research, including NIH-funded research areas, a comprehensive survey of major nursing research journals, addictions care, palliative care, translational science, simulation, trauma care, family-centered care, mild cognitive impairment, active surveillance for cancer care, workplace and empowerment research, nurse engagement, nurse-physician collaboration, CAM and empowerment research, spirituality, synthesis and action research, mixed methods research, systematic review, and ethnopharmacology.
Encyclopedia of Public Health – Examines a broad range of topics such as environmental health, drug abuse, epidemiology, nutrition, demographics, and diseases. Includes overviews, definitions, and biographical entries.
Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health (2nd edition) – Provides more than 850 entries covering topics in nursing and allied health, including body systems and functions, conditions and common diseases, issues and theories, techniques and practices, and devices and equipment.
Nursing Leadership: A Concise Encyclopedia (2008) – Organized around nine key themes: characteristics of leaders; management and executive skills; theories and models of management and leadership; major leaders in nursing; professional standards; health care delivery standards and health policy; leadership in practice, education, and research; quality outcomes; and informatics and technology.
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E-Collections
Ebrary – Online books across a range of subject areas; searchable, under All Subjects, by Education, Medicine, Science, Social Sciences, etc. and various sub-topics, and by author, title, and other criteria.
Health Reference Center Academic – Multi-source database providing access to full-text of nursing and allied health journals, plus a wide variety of personal health information sources that offer reliable health information to researchers, including nursing and allied health students.
JSTOR – An online archive of over 1,200 leading scholarly journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. Journals are always included from volume 1, issue 1 and include previous and related titles. Tthe most recently published issues (the past 3-5 years) are generally not available through JSTOR, though they usually are through other e-sources.
PsycARTICLES – A full-text database of journals published by the American Psychological Association and other publishers in subject areas such as applied psychology, health, theory, research, social/personality, and more.
PsycBOOKS – A full text database of books published by the American Psychological Association, classic books, and entries from the Encyclopedia of Psychology.
PsycCRITIQUES – Full-text reviews of current books and some popular films, videos, and software, as well as comparative reviews of books in the field of psychology.
PsycEXTRA – A gray literature database comprised of material written for professionals and disseminated outside of peer-reviewed journals; documents include newsletters, magazines, newspapers, technical and annual reports, government reports, consumer brochures, and more.
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Handbooks of Research
Print Resources
Contemporary Nursing Knowledge: Analysis and Evaluation of Nursing Models and Theories (2005)
Handbook of Clinical Nursing Research (1999)
Nursing Research: Generating and Assessing Evidence for Nursing Practice (9th Edition, 2012)
Resource Manual for Nursing Research: Generating and Assessing Evidence for Nursing Practice (2012)
E-Resources
Blackwell Reference Online – Provides full-text access to reference works in the social sciences and humanities; see research handbooks and companions in Business and Management, Medicine, Psychology, and other subject areas.
Foundations of Nursing: An Integrated Approach (2008) – Combines anatomy and physiology with nursing theory and professional issues to present a unified approach to patient care and the modern nurse’s role; applies theory to practice, taking a student-friendly approach designed to help improve clinical effectiveness and successfully integrate nursing knowledge.
Handbook of Stress, Coping, and Health: Implications for Nursing Research, Theory, and Practice (2000) – Compiled to reflect the evolution and testing of various models of stress, coping, and health and their particular relevance for the profession and discipline of nursing. Content includes 23 chapters by various authors focusing on response-oriented stress; stimulus-oriented stress; interactional and transactional models, stress, coping, and health: mediating factors; and future directions for nursing relative to these issues.
Healthcare Research: A Handbook for Students and Practitioners (2010) – Provides detailed explanations of the main concepts and methods used in critical appraisal of published research; drawing on both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the authors write with an emphasis on the development of sound research skills through case-based illustrative examples and scenarios.
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Reviews of Research
Annual Review of Nursing Research – The purpose of this annual review is to examine critically the full gamut of literature on key topics in nursing practice, including nursing theory, care delivery, nursing education, and the professional aspects of nursing.
Annual Reviews – Reviews of topics in biomedical, physical, and social sciences published as annual journals; see in particular the Annual Review of Medicine and the Annual Review of Public Health.
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Citation Indexes
Google Scholar – Provides the means to search by author or publication title, and indicates and provides links to works that have cited the documents retrieved.
Scopus – Abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources with smart tools to track, analyze, and visualize research.
Web of Science – Comprising the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Science Citation Index Expanded, this database supports searching by topic, author, or publication name, and is also a major means for doing cited reference searching, to find articles that cite a person’s work.
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Digital Archives
Academic Commons – Columbia University’s online repository, where current faculty, students, and staff can deposit the results of their scholarly work and research.
Internet Archive – A non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies, and music, as well as 150 billion archived web pages.
PocketKnowledge – The social archive of Teachers College, including unpublished manuscripts and archives from the library’s collections, documents from other departments and administrative offices College-wide, and the work of TC students, faculty, and researchers.
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Bibliography and Citation Management Programs
Citation Management Software – An extensive description of and guide to the use of BibDesk, EndNote, Papers, Mendeley, and Zotero, including a comparison of their relative merits, produced by the Columbia University Libraries’ Digital Science Center.
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Library Services and Publications
Ask a Librarian Services – To explore a variety of kinds of research support: submit an email reference query to librarians onsite; request a research consultation with a Gottesman librarian; review frequently asked questions via the library’s Knowledge Database.
E-Reserves – Provides online access to digital course readings, including e-journal articles and book chapters, as well as call numbers for physical course reserves materials (books, DVDs, videos, etc.).
Document Delivery – The means to recommend items for purchase and/or to request from other libraries materials (dissertations, book chapters, journal articles, etc.) not available through the Gottesman or Columbia University Libraries.
Learning at the Library – The Gottesman Libraries’ blog via the Pressible platform, including content in many topical areas contributed by library staff members.
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