Folks may be aware that PsycInfo comes with different "front ends" which I assume differ in capabilities and costs. Two interfaces that I have access to are: (a) CSA Illumina and (b) Ebscohost. The "look and feel" of both interfaces are different and some of the functions that appear to be similar do not produce the same results.
For example, because my last name has an unusual spelling, it should be a unique term to search for. If I search for articles where "palij" appears anywhere in the text, I should come up with the same number of hits regardless of the interface *IF* the functions are the same. In CSA, entering "palij" (no quotes) and choosing the search type "Anywhere", there are 350 hits. In Ebscohost, entering "palij" (no quotes) and choosing search type "TX All Text", there are only 39 hits (a side issue is that the two do not always agree on the number of citations of an article in the database which in turn are often systematically lower than the number of citations provided by ISI Web of Science). This raises some questions about why there are these differences when presumably the two interfaces should be accessing the same database (or do they?). Has anyone seen any research on this point? I just stumbled on the above while trying to answer a more important question: in APA 6th edition what is the format of a reference for an article without a DOI that was located online? On page 199 of the 6th ed APA manual, it says: |If there is no DOI assigned and the reference was retrieved online, |give the URL of the journal home page. My first question was, what does this mean and my second question was how do different interfaces deal with this problem? Both CSA and Ebscohost provide the capability of producing APA formatted references (CSA allows one to produce refs in either 5th edition or 6th edition while Ebscohost provides only one APA option which appears to be the 6th edition) but they will provide different looking references if there is no DOI provided (there are some other differences that one might notice). Consider: >From CSA: Andía, J. F., Deren, S., Friedman, S. R., Winick, C., Kang, S., Palij, M., Robles, R. R., Colón, H. M., Oliver-Velez, D., & Finlinson, A. (2003). Towards an HIV role theory: Drug-related peer beliefs and role strain indicators as predictors of injection risk behaviors among puerto rican injection drug users in new york and puerto rico. Journal of Drug Issues, 33(4), 963-982. Retrieved from www.csa.com >From Ebscohost: Andía, J., Deren, S., Friedman, S., Winick, C., Kang, S., Palij, M., et al. (2003). Towards an HIV role theory: Drug-related peer beliefs and role strain indicators as predictors of injection risk behaviors among Puerto Rican injection drug users in New York and Puerto Rico. Journal of Drug Issues, 33(4), 963-982. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu Focusing on the text provided at the end of the reference, it is clear that the particular interface is being referenced and not the URL of the journal homepage as specified in the APA 6th ed. manual. Perhaps the following notes need to be kept in mind: (1) Though the bibliographic formatting associated with the interface to PsycInfo are useful tools, one will still have to carefully examine the reference that is produced. Note that there are 10 authors on the article and CSA provides all 10 while Ebscohost provides the names for 6 (and eliminates some initials as well). The final responsibility for an accurate format of a reference is ultimately the author's, that is, if the author can figure out what it is currently. (2) I wonder about the requirement for providing the URL for a journal's webpage if no DOI is provided (as required in APA 6th ed). Clearly, the interfaces do not provide this info, instead they provide a URL to themselves. Since both interfaces appear to be following APA 6th ed, is this correct practice or does the actual URL of journal's webpage have to be provided? Why do I have the feeling that people may just delete the URL/"retrieved from" info altogether? I can see the value of providing a DOI but I don't see the value of providing an URL if it is absent, especially if one gets references from different college libraries. Besides, the two URLs provided at the end of the references above require one to have access to PsycInfo at those institutions, either as a student or faculty or some other affiliation. People unaffiliated with the institutions will not be able to access them, so what is the point? Again, I wonder if anyone has reviewed the different interfaces that are currently in use for accessing PsycInfo, how do they differ especially in providing info that is consistent with APA 6th ed. style. Any references on these points would be appreciated. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
