Education: Library Resources

Contents

• Finding Background Information
  • General Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
  • Child Psychology and Development
  • Special Education
  • Multicultural Education
  • Educational Assessment
  • Education Statistics
  • Comparative and International Education
• Finding Books in the Pace University Library
• Finding Periodical Articles in Education
• Locating and Evaluating Web Resources
• Citing Your Sources

Finding Background Information

The following reference resources provide background information in the field of education.  All books are located in the reference section of the Birnbaum Library (first floor) unless otherwise noted.

General Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

American Educators' Encyclopedia    Ref LB15 .D37 1991

Short articles discuss key people and concepts in the field of education.

Dictionary of Educational Terms    Ref LB15 .B35 1995

Brief definitions of common educational terms.  Includes a list of education-related acronyms.

Encyclopedia of Education    Ref LB15 .E47 2003 (v.1-8)

Over 1,000 articles dealing with the history, theory and practice of education.

Encyclopedia of Educational Research   Ref LB15 .E48 1992 v.1-4

Articles summarize research on various aspects of education.

Handbook of Research on Curriculum    Ref LB1570 .H264 1992

Articles on curriculum development and on issues related to curriculum in specific disciplines.

International Encyclopedia of Teaching and Teacher Education    Ref LB1025.3 .I58 1995

Lengthy articles on teaching and learning, with useful bibliographies.

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Child Psychology and Development

Family Encyclopedia of Child Psychology and Development    Ref BF721 .B7157 1992

Short articles on development concepts, and on the major thinkers in child psychology.

Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence    Ref HQ772 .G27 1997

Covers medical, psychological, and educational topics relevant to child and adolescent development.

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Special Education

Encyclopedia of Special Education    Ref LC4007 .E53 2000 v.1-3

Articles on the pedagogical, legal, and practical issues involved in the education of special needs children.

Handbook of Special Education: Research and Practice

Ref LC3965 .H263 1995

Articles on the learning characteristics of special populations, with detailed treatments of specific conditions.

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Multicultural Education

Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education    Ref LC3707 .E53 1998

Articles on bilingualism in the United States.  Discusses families, communities and schools.

Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education    Ref LC1099.3 .H35 2004

Lengthy, well-documented articles on issues related to multicultural education.

Encyclopedia of Multicultural Education    Ref LC1099.3.M58 1999

Short articles on various aspects of multicultural education.

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Educational Assessment

Handbook of Psychological and Educational Assessment of Children    Ref BF722 .H33 2003

Contains chapters on various topics related to the assessment of children.

Tests: A Comprehensive Reference for Assessments in Psychology, Education and Business    Ref BF176 .T43 2003

Brief descriptions of thousands of tests, with information on their purposes and publishers. Does not include evaluations or reviews.

Test Critiques    Ref BF176 .T419 1984 v.1-10

Provides several pages of description and critique on tests.

Mental Measurements Yearbook    Ref Z5814.P8 B932; most recent edition on Reserve

Entries include a test's description, purpose, target population, publication dates, administration, publisher and a review of the test. Indexes: classified subject, names, score, and acronyms. The volumes do not cumulate, so check earlier volumes.  Also try the database version of Mental Measurements Yearbook.

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Educational Statistics

Education Statistics of the United States    Ref LA201 .E38

Annual compendium of U.S. Government educational statistics.

National Center for Education Statistics    http://nces.ed.gov/index.html

Visit the home page of the U.S. Government's main repository for education statistics to find such publications as the Condition of Education 2003, and to access survey data from a number of different sources.

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Comparative and International Education

Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators    Ref LB 2846.E247 2003

Detailed international education statistics.  OECD Education research is also available online at the OECD website.

Education Indicators: An International Perspective    Ref LB2846 .E2493 1996

Compares educational participation and attainment across multiple countries.

International Encyclopedia of National Systems of Education    Ref LB43 .I584 1995

Guide to the educational systems of the world, broken down by country.

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Finding Books in the Pace University Library

In addition to the reference resources listed above, the Pace Library has a number of circulating books in the field of education.  To find circulating books, you will need to consult the Pace Library Catalog.  The catalog lists the books, videos and other materials that the Library owns, and tells you where to locate those materials.

You can search the catalog by Title or Author, but unless you are looking for a specific book, you will most likely want to begin with a Keyword search.  This option allows you to enter words or phrases and retrieve books whose descriptions match those words or phrases.  It is also possible to search the catalog by Subject, but you should be aware that a subject search will target only specific Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Once you have identified a book that you are interested in, note the Location (i.e. specific campus library) and Call Number (this gives you the shelf location) of the book so that you will be able to find it in the Library.  The following are general call number ranges for education materials:

• L: Education (General)

• LA: History of Education

  • LA201-LA398: History of Education, United States

• LB: Theory and Practice of Education

  • LB1025-LB1050.75: Teaching, Principles and Practices
  • LB1050.9-LB1091: Educational Psychology
  • LB1555-LB1602: Elementary or Public School Education
  • LB1603-LB1696.6: Secondary Education, High Schools

• LC: Special Aspects of Education

  • LC65-LC245: Social Aspects of Education
  • LC1200-LC1203: Inclusive Education

For more information on finding books, please see the Library's guide to Using the Pace Library Catalog.

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Finding Periodical Articles in Education

To access the library's subscription databases, go to the Library Home Page (http://library.pace.edu) and click on Databases.  Here you can view descriptions of the databases that are available in a certain subject area (e.g. "Business" or "Education"), or you can choose a database from an alphabetical list.  The following databases are particularly useful for education topics:

Education Abstracts

More than 400 English-language periodicals and yearbooks published in the U.S. and elsewhere. Subjects include administration, teaching methods and curriculum, literacy, government funding, and more. June 1983 to the present.  Selected full text for this database is available through OMNIFile (another library database).

ERIC

The ERIC database consists of two distinct components: The Current Index to Journals in Education and Resources in Education. The Current Index to Journals in Education indexes over 980 journals dealing with the field of education. Resources in Education makes available indexing, abstracting and full-text of non-journal education documents, which have the prefix ED in the ERIC number.

Academic Search Premier

Citations, abstracts and full-text of humanities, social sciences, non-technical general sciences and current events articles dating back to 1965.

Research Library

Citations and abstracts of articles from more than 1,800 periodicals dating back to 1989.  More than 200 of these periodicals are available in full-text format.

PsycINFO

Includes references and summaries for journal articles, books, book chapters, and technical reports published worldwide, and references to dissertations.  Over 1,300 journals in more than 30 languages and English-language books are represented in the database.  Covers 1887-present.  See also PsycArticles for selected full-text articles.

Although several databases provide you with instant access to full-text periodical articles, there may be occasions when you find only a citation, or a citation and an abstract.  If this is the case, you will need to use the Library Catalog to determine whether the Library subscribes to the journal in question.  For more information, see the page titled "I have an article citation, now what do I do?"

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Finding and Evaluating Websites

The Pace Library maintains a directory of Websites that we have looked at and judged to be appropriate for academic research.  To access this directory, visit the Library's Internet Resources by Subject page.  See especially the Education category.  Other subject directories, as well as useful search engines, are listed on the library's Internet Search Tools page.

Regardless of the method that you use to locate Web resources, you will evaluate their accuracy, authority. objectivity and currency.  For more information on evaluating Websites, please see the library's page on Evaluating Resources.

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Citing Your Sources

To avoid the appearance of plagiarism, you will need to cite all of your information sources using a standard citation format, such as APA or MLA.

For information on APA citation format, see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Birnbaum Ref. Reserve, Mortola Ref. Desk, Mortola Ref. BF76.7 .A46 2001).

For information on MLA citation format, see the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Birnbaum Ref. Reserve, Mortola Ref. Desk, Mortola Ref. LB2369 .G53 2003)

Additional information about citing resources is available on the Library's How to Cite Resources page.  If you are unsure of which citation format to use, please ask your instructor.  For more information on plagiarism, see the "Student Resources" on the Library's Plagiarism Facts for Faculty and Students page.

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Still Need Help? Ask a Librarian!