We Feel Fine: Visualizing Emotions?

The web has given us many opportunities to look at our world and ourselves in new ways. With social networks and other media, we have tools to share how we are feeling 24/7. One research group has attempted to capture that zeitgeist in an interactive data visualization project.

We Feel Fine allows you to look at data about our emotions. Clusters form around keywords and demographic information. The site is playful: you can mouse over the opening screen dots to see what words have been used. Selecting Murmurs will load individual status descriptions onto the screen. The section labelled Mounds is actually a chart with jello-like mounds representing how many people have used a particular word to describe their state of mind.

While the site has a playful feel, the implications are deep. Does this really represent our emotional lives? What should we do with these insights? There is something tremendous and unprecedented in this project even if it is limited. In some ways it validates our depths. There is more to us than just the surface. It shows us how little we can know without someone being willing to share. When you see that thousands of individuals have used the keyword crying to describe their state, it tells us something. We feel better when we see that the keyword most used is better.

It is a site worth checking out. With 10 years of data, they add thousands of new emotion descriptions every day.

Library Catalog Downtime Today

EOS, our library catalog provider, updated our library catalog software yesterday. Due to some issues, the catalog is down today. EOS Support will get the catalog back up and running as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience!

If you need help, email us at refdesk@sofia.edu

Library Hours Shortened Today Due to Weather

Although the San Francisco Bay Area storms that were predicted today were lighter than anticipated--at least so far--the library's open hours have been shortened today to 10am to 2pm. We will still be virtually available! Please reach us by email at refdesk@sofia.edu if you need help. We will be back to our normal hours tomorrow, December 12.

Today: Databases Available on Campus Only

Today, IT is working on servers and our databases won't be available off campus for the day. After that, we will be back up and better than ever!

If you need to email us today, please email us at sofiauniversitylibrary@gmail.com or wait until tomorrow. 

Check out our database access links if you can make it  campus:

http://sofialibrary.blogspot.com/p/today-campus-only-access-to-library.html

Make the Most of Ebrary E-books

 We often get asked about how to best use ebrary, our largest e-book collection. Here is a handy infographic that spells out the options:

How do I read e-books in ebrary?
Option 1: Read online in your browser. Just find the book you want, click on the title, and click on Read Online. Take advantage of the Bookshelf and other features.
Option 2: Download chapters. Click on Read Online, then select the print icon. It will create an image PDF which you can save/print. Limit of pages per day varies by book. Keep forever.
Option 3: Download complete book. You can download and open in Adobe Digital Editions or Bluefire. The e-book will expire in 7-14 days. Most books allow this option. 

View/download a larger version of the infographic here.

Ready to read? Go to ebrary now.

New Students: Free Library Downloads in the Portal

Most of the library's main resources are found through the library's website, but two resources are actually found in the Sofia University Portal.


Go directly to the portal: https://portal.sofia.edu/ics/


Log in and click on the Student Services link.


Toward the bottom of the Student Services page is a section labeled Library Resource Packet. The following items are available for download.


APA Guide to Electronic References - this is a PDF of a guide to citing electronic sources. We purchased the license so that every student, staff and faculty member could download and use/print a copy.


Endnote Software - Endnote is powerful citation management software. We have a site license for every student, staff and faculty member. It is available for Mac and PC. Please follow the instructions for download.


The reason we stored them in the portal is to make them readily available to new students while still honoring our contract agreements with the providers.


If you have questions, please email us at refdesk@sofia.edu.

Our Access Databases Page: Same Content, Better Arrangement

We just made changes to our Access Databases page. All of the databases are still there. They are just in a new arrangement. We hope that it will help you in your research process!

Database Collections
These are the huge collections of databases on the ProQuest and Ebsco platform. You can search for full text articles and some other content in these collections.

E-Books
We have added more links to e-book collections.

E-Journals
This is a new section so that you can quickly go to the e-journal collection you need. Remember that the A to Z List is the ultimate list of our journal holdings.

Image/Audio/Video
We have some wonderful audio, image and video collections for you to check out.

Questions or problems? Email us at refdesk@sofia.edu

PsycBooks: New E-books and Handbooks Now Available!

PsycBooks is an collection of ebooks that includes thousands of early works in psychology as well as most APA books. APA recently announced that they will now include newly released e-books and APA handbooks as well.

It is available to Sofia Library patrons through our EbscoHost collection.

How does it work? If you wish to focus your search on the e-books in PsycBooks, you can use the following instructions to make the process quick and easy.

1. Navigate to EbscoHost on our Access Databases page or use the EbscoHost link above.
2. Log in if you are off campus.
3. Choose the Journal Articles, Books, & Test Reviews link or the Ebsco Mobile link if you are on a mobile device.
4. Scroll down and click on the PsycBooks link. That will allow you to focus your search to PsycBooks e-book content only.
5. Type in your search and press Enter.
6. The results will be chapters from individual books. Each chapter is in PDF format. You can download, read, and print any chapter. It is yours to keep.

There are other ways to search if you navigate to the Advanced Search option.

We hope you enjoy the additional content in this database. If you need help, please email us at refdesk@sofia.edu

More about PsycBooks

PsycBOOKS® from the American Psychological Association (APA), includes over 38,000 chapters in PDF from over 2,500 books, published by the APA and other distinguished publishers, and includes digitized content of historical significance from the Archives of the History of American Psychology (AHAP) collection . It also contains over 1,600classic books of landmark historical impact in psychology dating from the 1600s, and the exclusive electronic release of more than 1,500 authored entries from APA/Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Psychology.

 

Library Catalog has a New URL

If you are in the habit of bookmarking websites you use often, please remember to change the library catalog URL.

The old URL is http://librarycat.sofia.edu/I40006

The new URL is http://I40006.eos-intl.net/I40006

We are updating the library site and research guides to reflect the new URL, so let us know if you run into a page with the old URL.

If you have questions or issues, email us at refdesk@sofia.edu.

Sofia Library: New Hours for July and August 2014 and Library Catalog Downtime

Our summer hours for the months of July and August will be as follows:

Mon.-Fri. 9-5
Sat. 10-4
Sun. Closed

We will also be closed for the Fourth of July Weekend: July 4th-6th.

Also, our library catalog will be down for a period of 24 hours on June 28-29 for a server migration. The catalog should be back up on the morning of the 29th.

Library Closed Graduation Weekend: June 21st and 22nd

The library will be closed this weekend, June 21st and 22nd, so that we can attend the Commencement ceremonies for our students. Some students have mentioned wanting to stop by the library while they are here for the ceremonies. Please email Katrina at katrina.rahn@sofia.edu if you would like to arrange to pick up a particular book, video, etc. while you are here. We won't be able to fully open the library, but we can arrange to check out materials or answer a question here and there.

Library Hours for June 2014

On Saturday, June 7, 2014, the library and campus will be closed for electrical repairs. The library will be open again on Sunday, the 8th. If you have urgent issues, please email us at refdesk@sofia.edu. We check for messages at this address 7 days a week.

Starting Sunday, June 8, 2014 we are changing library hours slightly. For the rest of June the following schedule will be in place:

Sunday: 12-6
Monday-Thursday: 9-6
Friday: 9-5
Saturday: 10-4

This schedule change is a pilot. If all goes well, our schedule will adjust based on the needs of programs each quarter. Please contact us with questions and comments about this change at refdesk@sofia.edu.

Last of all, the library is closed for Graduation Weekend, June 21 and 22nd. We look forward to celebrating this special time with our new graduates!

Use Research Guides for Help with Your Research

Research Guides from Sofia Library have information to help you use the resources the library has to offer. There are guides for basic research, as well guides for certain programs, written by the Sofia University librarians. E-mail us with any questions: refdesk@sofia.edu

All of our Research Guides are available from the library Web site by selecting the green button on the right hand side of the page to Research Guides. We will be keeping these Guides up to date with any new developments. You can also go directly to Sofia Library’s Research Guides from this link: http://sofia.libguides.com/

Here is a list of our current guides with links:

1.	Databases Guide: Sofia University Library by Lucy Erman - Last Updated Apr 23, 2014 392 views this year

2.	Find What You Need: Sofia Library Research Guide by Lucy Erman - Last Updated Apr 23, 2014 169 views this year

3.	Alumni Services - Sofia/ITP Library Research Guide by Lucy Erman - Last Updated Nov 21, 2013 133 views this year

4.	EndNote at Sofia University by Lucy Erman - Last Updated Mar 25, 2014 85 views this year

5.	Sofia Library Services and Collections on Campus by Katrina Rahn - Last Updated Oct 18, 2013 69 views this year

6.	Transpersonal Psychology by Linda Magnusson - Last Updated Aug 27, 2013 67 views this year

7.	Spiritual Guidance Research Guide by Katrina Rahn - Last Updated Apr 22, 2014 27 views this year

8.	Clinical Psychology by Linda Magnusson - Last Updated Sep 4, 2013 24 views this year

9.	Faculty Library Services - Sofia Library Research Guide by Lucy Erman - Last Updated Mar 20, 2014 22 views this year

10.	Women's Spirituality Research Guide by Katrina Rahn - Last Updated Apr 22, 2014 16 views this year

APA Handbooks Trial: Now Until May 15, 2014

We are happy to announce a database trial for the entire set of APA Handbooks. The trial will last until May 15th. You will be able to download PDF chapters from any of the 26 handbooks.

The handbooks cover a variety of subfields in psychology including addiction syndrome, educational psychology and much more. Whenever we have a trial it gives our community the opportunity to evaluate resources for possible purchase or subscription in the future.

The link to the APA handbook trial is on our Access Databases page or here.

Questions or comments? Please email us at refdesk@sofia.edu

APA handbook of Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality (Vol 1): Context, Theory, and Research is Online

Check out the new APA handbook of Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality (Vol 1): Context, Theory, and Research. It is available in full text online. You can access and download each chapter as a PDF.

The goal of this handbook is to provide thorough coverage of the current state of the field: what we know about religion and spirituality and their roles in human functioning (as well as what we do not know), and how we can apply this knowledge to advance the welfare of people, individually and collectively. In addition, we hope to spur the field forward by encouraging greater coherence and integration in the field. To achieve our first goal of thorough coverage of the psychology of religion and spirituality, we have taken the ambitious approach of creating a two-volume handbook. To achieve our second goal of encouraging greater coherence in the field, we have taken two steps. First, we have developed an integrative paradigm, consisting of several guiding themes for the field. Our integrative paradigm is introduced in the first chapter of Volume 1 and elaborated further in the introduction to Volume 2. Readers are strongly encouraged to read these introductory chapters to provide them with this orienting vision for the field. We also shared the integrative paradigm with the authors of our chapters and asked them to work within this overarching perspective. Second, we have provided a strong organizing framework for these two volumes. Although both volumes integrate research, theory, and practice, the first volume places greater emphasis on research and theory, and the second volume focuses in greater detail on practice.  - APA Site

It is tremendously validating to see this work, and the Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology, to be published within a year of each other. One might say it is a trend!

Currently we have the substantial 700-page first volume, but we will be looking into getting volume two as soon as possible.

Psychotherapy.net Streaming Video Collection

We just added a new database of streaming clinical videos from Psychotherapy.net.  Please take some time to explore it.

It contains 110 titles and growing. There is no overlap between this collection and the Alexander Street Press Counseling and Therapy in Video collection. 
 

The following psychologists, and many more, are represented in the collection: 

• Insoo Kim Berg
• James Bugental
• Albert Ellis
• James Hillman
• Sue Johnson
• Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Hanna Levenson
• Peter Levine
• Marsha Linehan
• Rollo May
• Monica McGoldrick
• Salvador Minuchin
• Violet Oaklander
• Carl Rogers
• Natalie Rogers
• Ernest Rossi
• Judith Rubin
• Virginia Satir
• David and Jill Scharff
• Martin Seligman
• Irvin Yalom

The new database is full of great learning opportunities. Please let us know if you have questions or issues by email at refdesk@sofia.edu.