Communications Studies

Contact Information

The Scripps College of Communication homepage is at: www.commcoll.ohiou.edu.

The School of Communication Studies homepage is at: www.coms.ohiou.edu.

Char Booth is the subject bibliographer for Communication Studies. Please contact her about our collections or suggestions for purchases. Char can be reached by telephone at 740-593-2697 or by e-mail at boothc@ohio.edu. She is available for research consultations and classroom library instruction (graduate and undergraduate level classes) by appointment. Please allow two weeks for a library instruction session and two to three days for a research consultation, especially at the beginning of a quarter.

Anita James is the liaison for Interpersonal Communication. Her telephone number is 740-593-4840 and her e-mail address is ajames1@ohiou.edu. Dr. James coordinates School of Interpersonal Communication library ordering.

Reference Tools

Reference tools are good for several things. First, they are great for finding factual information (names, numbers, etc.) Second, they are useful for background information about a topic. Finally, many reference books contain pointers to journal articles. I am not listing every reference book dealing with communication here, because there are hundreds of them and because interpersonal communication spans many disciplines. Rather, these are some basic tools. You can do a keyword search in ALICE and limit to Where>Reference to find others, or you can stop by the Reference Desk for help.

General

Please also review the electronic reference tools listed in the
Communication Studies section of InfoTree. There are some good ones here, and you can use them at home!

Communication Yearbook
Reserve P87 .C5974
Essay reviews of research in communication. Volumes from 1977-1997 are available.

Key concepts in communication and cultural studies
Reference P90 .K457 1994
An alphabetically arranged glossary to communication terminology.

Directories

O'Dwyer's Directory of Corporate Communications
Reference HD59 .O35a 1994
Lists 10,000 public relations and communication people at companies and associations. Includes industry, geographical location, advertiser and alphabetical indexes.

Who's Who in Mass Communication
Reference P92.5 .A1 W54 1990
Alphabetical listing of personal data on communication researchers.

Yearbook of Experts, Authorities, and Spokespersons
Reference desk PN 1991.8 T35 B76
Details and contact information for experts on a variety of topics. There is also a Web version of this book, available at http://www.yearbooknews.com/

Organizations and Associations

Many communication organizations and associations have a Web presence. They are too numerous and dynamic to list here. Please search for them individually or use the gateway sites listed on this guide to find them. Two good places to look up associations and organization in general are Associations Unlimited (also a print publication called Associations Unlimited, and the Internet Public Libary's Associations on the Net, at http://www.ipl.org/ref/AON/.

Library Collections

Books

Use ALICE to locate books on your topic. Do a W>keyword search using one or more words to search for records containing all of those words. Remember that, for the most part, you will need to think in broad concepts in order to locate books. For example, if you aren't finding anything doing a keyword search on "women communication africa," try "women africa" and "women communication" and "communication africa" to find books which may contain chapters on your topic or be loosely applicable.

You can order materials from the Library Annex and from branch campuses, with the intercampus/annex request button in ALICE. You may also order materials from the OhioLINK Central Catalog. If you can't find materials here or a book you need is checked out or missing from Alden Library. Inter-campus and OhioLINK orders take about three working days; materials are delivered from the Alden Library Annex at 10:30 and 2:30 each weekday. For help ordering materials, please stop by the Alden Library Reference desk. For materials not available from any OhioLINK library, you can use Interlibrary Loan. To locate books in other libraries, use Worldcat.

Film

Films are a popular teaching tool for Interpersonal Communication, as well as a source of research material. Go to ALICE and perform a video search. Videos don't generally circulate via OhioLINK or Interlibrary Loan, so if we don't own something and you think it a useful addition to our collection, let us know.

Journals

Go to ALICE and perform a periodical title search. Remember that ALICE does not index individual journal and magazine article; you must use an article index/database such as Academic Search Complete. If you cannot find the journal title in ALICE, use ILLiad, our interlibrary loan service to order the article you need.

Government Documents

The Government Documents Department on the 5th floor of Alden Library contains useful sources of statistical and other information, including telecommunications data, industry data, and data about foreign countries. Most of our government publications are listed in ALICE. After doing your search there jot down the Superintendent of Documents call number to find the item in Alden Library. You can also talk to a Documents librarian for help in finding more obscure, state and local, or foreign materials.

Microforms

Microform sets often provide historical and primary source materials which are unavailable in any other format, as well as newspaper and magazine collections. Most major microforms sets are listed in ALICE, but the records are not very detailed. If you are looking for this kind of material, please consult the Microforms Department homepage or talk to a librarian in that area.

Archives

Archives and Special Collections houses records materials pertaining to state, local, and University history, as well as some other rare materials and special collections. These materials are often not on ALICE, so check with the librarians in that department.

Internet Tools

Web Gateways

The Web can provide Interpersonal Communication students with primary research material, information about programs and associations, and a scholarly community, among other things. Listed below are some gateway sites for finding communication materials, but the topic is too broad to count on these alone!

Electronic Frontier Foundation

www.eff.org
"The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-profit civil liberties organization working in the public interest to protect privacy, free expression, and access to public resources and information online, as well as to promote responsibility in new media." The Web site includes information on the organization as well as a huge archive of collected articles and other good stuff. A good place to look for research projects.

Ohio State University's Subject Guide for Communications

http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/gateway/bib/communication.html
This is a great beginning guide to research in the area of communication. It covers print sources, databases and web sites.

Primary Sources (media)

A useful source of televison news is the Television News Archive/. It covers 1980 to present. Indexes the Vanderbilt TV News Archive, which is a videotape collection of U.S. national and local, and some international news programs. This index comes with order forms which you can use to order the materials for a fee.

Magazine and journal articles can be found using the databases listed in InfoTree.

Transcripts of a wide variety of major television and radio news sources and wire reports can be found in LexisNexis.

Secondary Sources (Indexes to Scholarly Journals)

Scholarly journals can be located using the print and electronic indexes in our collection. Unfortunately, there is no large, powerful database which indexes interpersonal communication scholarly literature. Several useful databases are listed in InfoTree. For help choosing or using a database, contact Char Booth.

The major print indexes are listed below:

Communication Abstracts
Reference desk (current two years) and Index room P87 .C59733
1978 to present. Indexes and abstracts journals and books on all aspects of communication.

Index to Journals in Communication Studies through 1990 (Matlon Index)
Reference desk Z5632 .M394 1992x
Time coverage varies by journal. A detailed subject index for 15 core journalismand communication journals.

Journalism Abstracts
Index Room PN4722 .J69
Covers 1963 to 1993. Indexes and abstracts dissertations and theses on the subject of journalism and mass communication from Universities in North America.

Urban Affairs Abstracts
Index Room HT123 .U7
Indexes and abstracts journal articles and newsletters in the broad area of urban affairs. Includes subject and geographical indexes. Coverage from 1972-1994.