Despite being the primary site of scholarly conversation in the sciences, not all disciplines revolve around the journal literature. Often considered “book-based” disciplines include archeology, law, politics/international studies, psychology, philosophy, sociology, history, communications, and media studies. Book chapters are generally cited less than journal articles and there isn’t as established of a culture of research impact measurement around book chapters as there is around journal articles. Book chapters are still valuable pieces of academic writing, however, as they provide a home to content that doesn’t fit well into the article format. Finding book chapters using electronic resources can be a little bit tricky, as the tools are scattered, but read on for specific tips, tricks, and resources to try out.
Recommended Resources
- Scopus – After a massive book expansion project completed a few years ago, Scopus is now home to more than 150,000 books. As with the rest of Scopus’ massive collection, the books cover a wide range of disciplines. You can limit searches to “Book Chapter” to filter the results as you wish by using the “Document Type” search facet.
- ProQuest E-Book Central – ProQuest Ebook Central is a great interdisciplinary resource for finding book chapters, covering Science, Medicine, Social Science, Humanities, and Arts. Enter your search terms and then you can switch to “Chapter Results”, which will exclude book titles that met your criteria.
- Web of Science – similar to Scopus, Web of Science is a large interdisciplinary resource that has recently undergone a big book project. Whereas in Scopus you can limit on the front end of your search, Web of Science lets you set a preference for document type after you search.
- Google Scholar – If you’re looking for a book chapter and you know the title, Google Scholar might be worth a shot. Since it doesn’t have any search limiting functionality for chapters, it isn’t as good of a resource for pulling chapters on a topic to browse.
- PsycInfo – Produced by the American Psychological Association, PsycInfo is home to all of the publications from the group. Book chapters are readily available, and the subject matter touches on the psychological aspects of many disciplines.
Tips & Tricks
- If the Yale libraries do not own the chapter, you can request a scan or delivery of the book through interlibrary loan.
- If searching for the title of a book chapter, mark it as a “Keyword” or “All Fields” search instead of “Title”. If you mark it as “Title”, you might miss out if we have the whole book your chapter is in but it isn’t entirely indexed.
- If you know the name of the book the chapter is in, try using Quicksearch to locate the book and navigate to the chapter that way.
- Tools like Scopus have robust author profile systems. Try to search for the author of the chapter, click on their name, then all of their publications (hopefully the chapter you seek) will populate.