PsychInfo

How I Searched:

I knew that ‘library’ and ‘public library’ would not be in PsychInfo’s Thesaurus, but I knew I could play around with the second part of my topic. I decided to do a search on how public libraries affect a person’s well being. I searched the thesaurus for ‘well being’ and found it immediately. A list of related terms is with the result as well, and I click on one I like: ‘Mental Health’. From here, I construct my search.

My Search:

My Results:

My Best Result:

What I learned, Content:

               I found an article called “The Public Library as Therapeutic Landscape: A Qualitative Case Study” by Liz Brewster. This article explores how a visit to a public library can be beneficial to patron’s mental health due to its qualities of openness, familiarity, tranquility and empowerment.

What I learned, Searching:

               I made good use of PsychInfo’s thesaurus. It was really helpful in translating what I knew I was looking for on the database into a term that would return relevant results. It is important to continue to narrow down your terms to find the one that is just right. If I had stuck with ‘well being’, I wouldn't have ended up doing my search with the term ‘mental health’.

Reflection:

               Searching PsychInfo for my blog topic was not something that I was looking forward to. I know very little about psychology. I was worried I wouldn’t find good results, especially since part of my search-public libraries-isn’t something commonly discussed in psychology. I was surprised at how easy I used PsychInfo. It wasn’t difficult to use and the thesaurus helped me find terms to use that I would not have come up with all on my own.

Resource:
EBSCOhost. 2014. PsychInfo. Denton, TX: Texas Women's University, TWU Libraries