Special Education

Finding Books Using DELCAT

Use DELCAT, the Library's online catalog, to search for books, journal titles, media, and other materials in the Library's collections. DELCAT may be searched by author, title, Library of Congress subject heading, keyword(s), and call number. Printed and online guides to searching DELCAT are available. Please note that certain types of material are NOT in DELCAT. These include individual articles in magazines, journals, and newspapers; use library databases and electronic journals to identify articles on a topic.

Finding Articles Using Indexes/Databases

Use one or more of the following indexes to find journal articles, dissertations, ERIC documents, etc. The electronic databases are available from the Library's home page on the Web (http://www.lib.udel.edu) under Databases.

ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) LOCATION: Library Databases: Electronic index which covers scholarly and professional journal articles and unpublished "documents" on education and related fields. Abstracts are included. Covers 1966 to the present.

Education Full Text LOCATION: Library Databases: Electronic index to the 427 periodicals included in Education Index. It also includes the full text of more than 133 of the most important education journals from 1996 forward. Covers 1983-present.

PsycINFO LOCATION: Library Databases: Electronic index which lists articles, with abstracts, published in psychology journals and chapters in books. Useful for topics relating to educational psychology, special education, counseling, etc. Covers 1887 to the present.

ProQuest Digital Dissertations LOCATION: Library Databases: Electronic index which lists dissertations published at universities throughout the country and some foreign universities. Coverage is 1861 to the present.

Expanded Academic ASAP Plus LOCATION: Library Databases: Electronic index which lists articles published in more than 1500 general interest and scholarly journals. Some references include the full text of articles; abstracts are available for others. Coverage is 1980 to the present. Updated daily.

Sociological Abstracts LOCATION: Library Databases: Electronic index which corresponds to the printed index Sociological Abstracts. Covers articles on sociology and related disciplines. Abstracts are included. Coverage is 1979 to the present.

Web of Science LOCATION: Library Databases: A huge, multidisciplinary database corresponding to Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index, published by the Institute for Scientific Information. Provides access to a wealth of scholarly journal literature from more than 8000 scholarly journals. Cited references may also be searched. Abstracts are included. Coverage varies by index, with the social sciences covered from 1956 forward. Updated weekly.

Useful printed indexes shelved in the Reference Room include:

Exceptional Child Education Resources. 1969 -. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref LC3950B .E38)

Education Index. 1929 - 1996. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref L11B .E38) Index Table

Child Development Abstracts. 1927 -. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref HQ750 .A1 C47) Index Table

Locating Articles in the Library

For articles that are not available in full text, use DELCAT to find call numbers and locations for the journals which contain these articles. You may search for an exact journal title (International Journal of Educational Research) or for keywords in the title (Reading Research). But you cannot look up individual articles by author or title in DELCAT. If you cannot find a journal title in DELCAT, the Library may not subscribe to it. Ask at the Reference Desk for assistance.

DELCAT records for magazines and journals are identified by the format designation SERIAL, to distinguish them from books with the same title. Once you have located the DELCAT record for your journal, click on the appropriate link to find out what volumes and years the Library has, called holdings. If more than one location is listed, check each one to determine where the issue you need can be found.

ERIC documents with ED numbers are available on microfiche in the Microforms Area on the Lower Level of the Library, where they are filed by the ED accession number. Do not look for them in DELCAT.

Other Reference Sources

Boyle, Joseph R., and Mary Weishaar. Special Education Law with Cases. Boston MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref KF4209.3 .B69 2001)

Concise Encyclopedia of Special Education. New York: John Wiley, 1990. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref LC4007 .E53 1990)

1995 Educational Opportunity Guide: A Directory of Programs for the Gifted. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref LC3993.9 .E4 1995)

Guernsey, Thomas F., and Kathe Klare. Special Education Law. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1993. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref KF4210 .G84 1993)

International Handbook of Research and Development of Giftedness and Talent. Tarrytown, NY: Pergamon Press, 1993. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref LC3993 .I596 1993)

Rosenberg, Michael S., and Irene Edmond-Rosenberg. The Special Education Sourcebook: ATeacher's Guide to Programs, Materials, and Information Sources. Rockville, MD: Woodbine House, 1994. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref LC3981 .R67 1994)

Vergason, Glenn A. Dictionary of Special Education and Rehabilitation. Denver, CO: Love Publishing Co., 1990. LOCATION: Morris Library - Reference (Ref LC3957 .V47x 1990)

Electronic Access to Library Resources

The University of Delaware Library provides a variety of electronic information resources. Most of these sources are available to University students, faculty, and staff via the Library's home page on the Web (http://www.lib.udel.edu), though some are available only in the Library. University students, faculty, and staff may obtain University of Delaware computing accounts from Information Technologies/IT to gain access to these databases from outside the Library (call 831-6000). Additional information is included in the section "How to Connect" on the Library Web.

For more information on available databases, recommended Internet resources, and electronic journals in your subject area, refer to the Subjects A-Z section on the Library's Web site and select Education. Reference staff will be glad to assist you if you have questions about the availability or location of a particular source.

Interlibrary Loan

University of Delaware students, faculty, and staff may obtain books and journal articles not owned by the Library through the Library's Interlibrary Loan Service. Electronic request forms are available by clicking on Forms or Interlibrary Loan from the Library's home page. Articles can usually be obtained within a few days; books may take longer.

This page is maintained by Meg Grotti, Reference Department.

Version: 02/97
Last modified: 03/24/09