Notable E-Book: APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Industrial and Organizational Psychology (often abbreviated as I/O psychology) is a multi-faceted and ever-changing branch of psychological research. As the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology (which we have on Credo Reference) defines it, it covers "organizational, military, economic and personnel psychology and including such areas as tests and measurements, the study of organizations and organizational behaviour, personnel practices, human engineering, human factors, the effects of work, fatigue, pay and efficiency, consumer surveys and market research." And not just in the classic corporate environment, either. I/O scholars conduct research into the operational and human dynamics of hospitals, prisons, universities, public-service agencies--any and all types of organizations!

That's a lot of territory. And it deserves an extensive and up-to-date reference handbook. It has one now through the APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Although we also purchased the paper copy, most users will be interested in the electronic version of this three volume set. Click a link--you will authenticate through the proxy server off-campus--for one of the three volumes. Each numerical chapter is presented in order as a PDF. (You are supposed to be able to click the abstract link to the right to read a summary, but this does not work for these ebooks. You only get a page linking to the three volumes and a description of the entire reference work...which is not particularly useful.)

You can, however, use the search option in the upper right of any page to search within the handbooks.

And, since this handbook set is from the American Psychological Association, the publisher also indexes the chapters in their PsycINFO database. Which is useful, but not as much as it should be. Because handbooks like this one are expensive extra content, beyond what is contained in the PsycBOOKS database (to which we also provide access), the chapters do not directly link in PsycINFO--although we are currently working with both APA and Ebsco to see if we can make that happen. For now, when you find a chapter in PsycInfo (as in the example below), just go to our online catalog (or one of the links in this blog) to get to the ebooks and their content.

This is a valuable handbook that will benefit not only psychology majors, but also those in the management, public management, government and even the sociology/criminal justice fields. Take a look at this latest handbook for I/O psychology. But remember that others are available. We also own the Sage Handbook of Industrial, Work and Organizational Psychology on Sage eReference, and we even have a respected older print handbook which is still quite useful for some topics. The four-volume Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the Consulting Psychologists Press is now located in the circulating collection on the 4th floor, along with many of our other I/O psychology monographs.