PsycINFO

PsycINFO is an abstract (not full text) database of psychological literature produced and copyrighted by the American Psychological Association.

It contains citations and summaries from the 1800s to the present, of:
 * journal articles
 * book chapters
 * books
 * technical reports
 * dissertations within the field of psychology

General Facts:
 * More than 2.3 million records as of June 2007
 * More than 161,000 records added to the database in 2006
 * Updated weekly

Journal coverage:
 * More than 2,150 titles covered
 * 98% are peer reviewed journals
 * Currently covered journals at www.apa.org/psycinfo/about/covlist.html
 * Journal records—78% of database
 * Accepted for coverage if archival, scholarly, peer-reviewed, and regularly published with titles, abstracts, and keywords in English
 * Comprehensive coverage of more than 1,099 titles ("cover to cover") as of Winter 2006
 * 237 journals with a 100% selection rate
 * Articles selected for psychological relevance from remaining titles

Book coverage
 * Chapters from authored and edited books—7% of database
 * Authored and edited books—4% of database
 * English-language, published worldwide
 * Selected if scholarly, professional, or research-based; all with psychological relevance

Dissertations and other secondary publications
 * Selected from Dissertation Abstracts International (A and B)
 * 11% of database
 * Abstracts in dissertation records starting 1995
 * Selected on basis of classification in DAI in sections with psychological relevance

Geographical coverage
 * Publications from more than 49 countries
 * Journals—more than 27 languages
 * Non-English titles in Roman alphabets included 1978–present

Record Contents
 * Bibliographic citation
 * Abstract
 * Table of contents for books
 * Index terms from the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms
 * Keywords
 * Classification categories
 * Population information
 * Geographical location of the research population
 * Tests and measurements used in the research
 * Cited references for journal articles, book chapters, and books mainly from 2001 to present
 * More information at www.apa.org/psycinfo/about/fieldguide.html.

Abstracts
 * 1995 to present, virtually 100% of records have abstracts (0.007% no abstracts)
 * For non-dissertation documents added from 1967 to present, 99.2% contain abstracts

Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms
 * 10th Edition (print) released in July 2004 with 200 new terms
 * August 2005 Online update to the Tenth Edition includes more than 200 changes
 * More than 7,900 controlled terms and cross-references
 * Hierarchical, alphabetical, and subject arrangements
 * Records indexed with most specific term applicable
 * Major and minor terms assigned
 * Maximum of 15 total terms, 5 major terms.
 * More information at www.apa.org/psycinfo/products/thesaurus.html.

Classification System
 * 22 major categories and 135 subcategories
 * Each record assigned to one or two classifications
 * Scheme found at www.apa.org/psycinfo/about/classcodes.html

Cited References
 * More than 23 million references in 600,500+ journal articles, books, and book chapters as of June 2007
 * Retrospective to 2001 and earlier, where available (APA to 1987)
 * APA-style format
 * More information at www.apa.org/psycinfo/about/citedrefs.html

Historic Records Psychological Abstracts 1927–1966; Psychological Bulletin 1921–1926; American Journal of Psychology 1887–1966; All APA journals back to first issue of publication; Psychological Index (1894–-1935); citations to English language journals only;Classic Books in Psychology of the 20th Century and the Harvard Book List, 1840–1971 No controlled vocabulary (descriptor) field; index field may contain descriptor terms, but they are not controlled; other indexing fields, such as Age Groups, form/Content are not present; classifications are broad only
 * Sources
 * All records published in Psychological Abstracts are now in PsycINFO
 * More than 335,000 historic records in PsycINFO
 * Historic records differ from 1967–present records

PsycINFO is produced and copyrighted (c) by the American Psychological Association, all rights reserved.

It is one of a number of databases indexing psychological research papers and journals. Others include  PsycLit, Psychological Abstracts, Ulrich International Periodical Directory, PUBLIST (The Internet Directory Publications), ISSN International, PSICODOC, the ISOC database PSEDISOC, CSIC-RISO, CIRBIC-REVISTAS, COMPLUDOC Social Sciences Citation Index and the Institute for Scientific Information(Thomson-ISI)