Skip to Main Content

*Psychology*

A general research guide for the undergraduate and graduate courses in OSU's Psychology program.

Finding Books: An Overview

1Search
1Search lists all the books held in the OSU Libraries. Use the At OSU Libraries scope to search just the OSU Library Catalog. Use the OSU Libraries + Summit scope to also search Summit. Summit lists books at other regional libraries that can be retrieved for you and delivered within 3-5 business days, free of charge. If the OSU Libraries do not own an item, use Summit.

WorldCat
WorldCat lists books that are available at other libraries in the United States, and sometimes in other countries. If you find a book you want, and it is not listed in the OSU Libraries catalog or the Summit catalog, you can request the book by clicking on the Request from Interlibrary Loan button in the Summit/WorldCat catalog. This service usually takes 2-3 weeks.

Other Options: Google Book Search searches within indexes and texts of books. How much of the book you see depends on the copyright status, and on how much of their copyrighted work that authors and publishers who participate in the program will allow. For many items, you can click on "Find this book in a library" to see if OSU owns a copy. This is not a complete catalog, so please check OSU and Summit catalogs, too.

Finding Books in Psychology

Search online catalogs (and 1Search) by author, title, keyword, subject, etc.

Subject searching: The most effective subject searching utilizes the Library of Congress Subject Headings. A copy of this set of books can be found at the Ask Here desk on the main floor of the Valley Library.

Keyword searching: Use specialized dictionaries and thesauri to find terms you can use to build a keyword search. Look for the Reference Works in Psychology on the General Information tab for some suggestions.

Locating by call number: Many psychology materials fall into the "BF" call number range and are located on the 6th floor of The Valley Library. Other materials may be classified in Psychiatry (RC 435 - 571) found on the 1st floor.

Ebooks at OSU

Find electronic books (ebooks) at OSU Libraries in four easy steps. 

  1. Start in 1Search from the OSU Libraries home page. Search for your topic or book title.
  2. Use the facets on the right-hand side of the page to choose eBooks and Apply Filters. You may need to go to "show more" under content type.
  3. Click Online Access by the desired ebook.
  4. Click Red Online tab to access the ebook.

Most ebooks can be "borrowed" for 1 or 7 days. In some cases, you can download the ebook and read it for the given loan period. For more information, check out OSU's ebook guide.