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- Margaret Schaus, Reference Librarian and Bibliographer (HC)
- Dora Wong, Science Librarian (HC)
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Anthro 312 : Race, Science and Understandings of Human Aptitude - Science, Technology & Medicine (HC)
Part II. Resources for Explorations in the context of Science, Technology & Medicine:
For historical and social issues in understandings of human aptitude, see Part I of this guide.
A. Finding Background Information - Encyclopedias & Books:
Browsing articles in a subject encyclopedia e.g. by time period, topic, phenomenon, major players is a useful way to get an overview of the issues. Below are listed selected titles but you can find more on your own. Search Tripod or Worldcat, using keyword searches at first, e.g. "history of science" encyclopedia, "history of medicine" bibliography. The bibliography search will fetch books that list useful lists of works on your subject, which you can pursue using Tripod or Worldcat. You can find many useful leads this way and by following footnotes and references in any work!
Searching by subject heading requires you to know beforehand the exact phrase,
e.g. African Americans Social Conditions, which can be hard. Whenever you find a work that is "perfect", click on the subject heading(s) to see more in the same classification.
Encyclopedia of life sciences
A fully searchable and browsable collection of articles by scientists and historians in the life sciences especially useful for an overview of evolution, genetics, immunology, molecular biology, neuroscience, clinical syndromes and science and society.
Particularly relevant categories are:
Genetics and Diseases
Genetics and Molecular Biology
Science and Society
For example, the topic of cognitive ability is covered in at least two articles which explains the biological underpinnings and the molecular mechanisms of cognition and learning.
Intellectual Disability: Genetics
Molecular Genetics of Mental Retardation
Also see featured articles that address health issues and phenotypes often burdened by social judgment
The Evolution of Fatness and Susceptibility to Obesity
Particularly relevant categories are:
Genetics and Diseases
Genetics and Molecular Biology
Science and Society
For example, the topic of cognitive ability is covered in at least two articles which explains the biological underpinnings and the molecular mechanisms of cognition and learning.
Intellectual Disability: Genetics
Molecular Genetics of Mental Retardation
Also see featured articles that address health issues and phenotypes often burdened by social judgment
The Evolution of Fatness and Susceptibility to Obesity
Encyclopedia of applied psychology
Encompasses topics including aging (geropsychology), assessment, clinical, cognitive, community, counseling, educational, environmental, family, industrial/organizational, health, school, sports, and transportation psychology. Each entry provides a clear definition, a brief review of the theoretical basis, and emphasizes major areas of application.
Science, technology, and society
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.
Examines the rise of scientific and technical knowledge such as computers, bioengineering, and physics, but also explores the relationships between institutions in articles that address law, government, military, economics, media, religion, and more. Written by top international scholars and interdisciplinary researchers, these comparative essays provide the latest scholarship covering the global STS field."--BOOK JACKET.
Science in the early twentieth century
"The first A-Z resource on the history of science from 1900 to 1950 examining the dynamic between science and the social, political, and cultural forces of the era."--Publisher's description.
Science, technology, and society
Publisher: Detroit. Mich. : U-X-L, 2001.
Essays on the the impact of science in the 19th century / David E. Newton, Neil Schlager, Kelle Sisung, editors (2 volumes). See the table of contents in Tripod.
B. Finding journal articles - searching databases:
Databases can reach back into the past and make available bibliographic records of scientific progress (primary sources such as dissertations, books and peer-reviewed journal articles) written in the centuries past. Match your needs with a database with appropriate subject content and period coverage. Even databases indexing 20th century literature will yield materials with a historical emphasis if you know how to find them.
History of science, technology, and medicine
Provides citations and some brief abstracts to journal articles, conference proceedings, books, book reviews, and dissertations in the history of science, technology and medicine and allied historical fields from prehistory to the present. It integrates four premier tools for historians: Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science , Current Bibliography in the History of Technology , Bibliografia Italiana di Storia della Scienza , and citations from the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine (incorporating the former Wellcome Bibliography for the History of Medicine).
PsycINFO
Provider: CSA
Provides abstracts of journals, books, book chapters, technical reports and dissertations. Areas covered include psychology and related disciplines, sociology, linguistics, education, medicine, law, physiology, business, psychiatry, and anthropology. Covers 1887-present.
Web of science
Provider: ISI
Provides access to the Social Sciences Citation Index, Science Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Search for scholarly articles in any discipline, or for articles that cite a known author or work. Coverage varies.
PubMed
Provider: NCBI
Includes over 15 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950's. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. Includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.
To retrieve articles that focuses on the history of the subject 1964 and newer, enter keywords and limit it to history of medicine articles, by selecting the "Limits" tab, then the Subsets pulldown menu, and then History of Medicine. For articles older than 1964, combine keyword with the word history to find articles concerning historical information on the subject. Place an asterisk (*) at the end of a word stem to capture all variable forms of your search terms.
JSTOR
Provides full-text and page images from many of the top journals in most academic disciplines. Coverage is from the inception of the journal through three to five years ago. For example, many science journals such as publications from the Royal Society started publishing in the 17th and 18th century. Science magazine itself started in 1880.
IndexCat (a service of the National Library of Medicine)
IndexCat is a digitized version of the printed Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office. The Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General’s Office (Index-Catalogue) is a multi-part printed bibliography or list of items in the Library of the Surgeon-General’s Office, U.S. Army. It contains material dated from the 1400s through 1950 and is an important resource for researchers in the history of medicine, history of science, and for clinical research.
IndexCat contains over 4.5 million online references to over 3.7 million bibliographic items.* 2.5 million items are primarily journal articles; 250,000 items are monographs (books, pamphlets, and reports); approximately 300,000 items are dissertations (theses); and 16,000 are journal titles.
The New York times on the Web
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1851-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1851-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1851-present.
Publisher: [New York, N.Y.] : New York Times.
Historical Images:
Historical medical images from the National Library of Medicine
Images from the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine
Image archive on the American Eugenics Movement
Historical Societies on the Web:
History of Science Society
Their Guide to the History of Science is very helpful for beginning researchers.
American Association for the History of Medicine