- Bazelon, NAMI, Treatment Advocacy Center, etc.
- Groups concerned with your particular area of interest (veterans' rights, children's rights, etc.)
- These sites may provide legislative updates, articles, and position papers on issues of interest
Subject Portal » Social Work » Course Guides »
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- Susan Turkel, Outreach and Information Technology Librarian (BMC)
Related Subjects:
Databases A-Z:
Other:
SOWK 382 : Mental Health Policy and Social Work Practice (BMC)
Searching for books:
Tripod library catalog.
- Congressional hearings – search by title, request from Haverford or Swarthmore
- For locating what’s held at tri-colleges. Delivery within trico – one or two day turnaround
- For known items, search author, title, or journal title
- For unknown items, keyword searches leading to subject heading searches can be most effective.
WorldCat
Provider: OCLC
- A catalog of thousands of library catalogs -- great place to find all sorts of books.
- The results screen will tell you if an item is held in the Trico.
- If not, check "Libraries Worldwide" to see who owns the item. If it's another PA library, request via EZ-Borrow.
Interlibrary Loan and EZ-Borrow
The books and articles you need for your research may not be available from a Tri-College library. We have two systems to help you retrieve the materials you need. See this page to place your requests.
Background sources:
CQ weekly
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1983-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1983-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1983-present.
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Congressional Quarterly,
Offers comprehensive, non-partisan, coverage of the U.S. Congress including bill status, votes, debates and amendments. Includes full-text articles published since 1983.
CQ researcher
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1923-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1923-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1923-present.
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Congressional Quarterly, Inc.
Offers full-text reports on current and controversial world issues. Topics include social,environmental, health, education, science and technology issues. Covers 1991-present.
Law Reviews from LexisNexis Academic
- Click Legal in the red bar across the screen, then Law Reviews and enter your keywords
- These review articles typically give a thorough legal history and background on the topic at hand. Great for finding cases and getting a handle on the development of the issue.
PolicyFile
Provider: Chadwyck-Healey
- Indexing and full text of research reports and studies from think tanks, university research programs, research organizations and policy publishers.
- To search a phrase, enclose it in [square brackets].
Advocacy sites (from your course's Blackboard page)
Searching for legislative history and legal information:
FEDERAL LEGISLATION
LexisNexis Congressional
- For legislative histories, full text of laws and U.S. Code, bills and bill tracking reports, text of submitted testimony from Congressional hearings, text of Congressional Record, and more.
LexisNexis academic
Provider: LN
- Click Legal Research -- provides access to law reviews, and federal and state case law.
Government Accountability Office
- The GAO is "the investigative arm of Congress." It "evaluates federal programs, audits federal expenditures, and issues legal opinions."
- To find assessment reports on existing federal programs, search the box in the upper right corner of this site.
STATE LEGISLATION
LexisNexis State capital
- For bill text and bill tracking reports, state Statutes (laws in force), and more.
Purdon's Pennsylvania statutes, annotated.
Publisher: St. Paul, Minn. : West Group, c1930-
- This set contains the laws of the state of PA, codified into "titles" based on subject matter. (E.g., Title 50 = Mental Health)
- Use the Index to find the statute number, then go to the volume containing that title. (E.g., index entry: Mentally ill persons > Involuntary Examination and Treatment > Court Ordered Treatment = 50 P.S. Sect. 7304.
- The annotations in each subsection provide information on the specific laws that went into the code, and court cases related to the issue. (E.g., 50 P.S. Sect. 7304 is based on "1976, July 9, P.L. 817, No. 143, sect. 304, effective in 60 days. Amended 1978, Nov. 26, P.L. 1362, No. 324, sect. 1, effective in 60 days.")
- Once you have a law number, you can go to the PA General Assembly site to get the text of the law and the bill tracking information.
PA General Assembly
- Click on Session Info to get to search forms
- Can search bill text, get bill tracking reports, use alphabetical Bill Topic Index
- Contains bill text and tracking reports from 1969 to the present.
Searching for academic journal articles:
PsycINFO
Provider: CSA
- Use Limit Search To options to screen out unwanted results: limit to English language, to Journal Articles, and Peer Reviewed Journals.
- Use the Thesaurus to find the best subject terms.
- Conduct several single-concept searches, then combine search sets with the check boxes.
PAIS international
Provider: CSA
- Use to find materials on all areas of policy.
- Provides abstracts of journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, committee reports, intergovernmental, and private organizations reports. Areas covered include political, economic, social and public policy issues.
- Covers 1915-present.
ProQuest Research Library
Provider: ProQuest
Provides citations and full-text magazine and journal articles in a wide variety of disciplines, both scholarly and popular in scope. Covers 1971-present.
Searching for newspaper articles:
LexisNexis academic
Provider: LN
- Hundreds of newspapers and magazines -- foreign, domestic, and local -- dating back to the 1980s; includes all types of article, from news to reviews to Opinion/Editorial and letters to the editor.
- Click on Power Search.
- Put search terms in boxes, with 'and' for multiple terms and * to truncate terms with different possible endings. Put phrases in quotes, e.g. "mentally ill"
- Specify date range. Click Search.
Philadelphia inquirer (Philadelphia, Pa. : 1969)
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1981-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1981-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1981-present.
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Triangle Publications,
- Full-text access to the Inquirer from 1981-present
- Enter keywords, connecting separate terms with AND. (Advanced Search allows you to specify that terms be found in the author, headline, full text, etc. fields)
- Specify date range. Click Search.
Human help!
If you need help: ASK A LIBRARIAN!!! Please come see us and we will help you with your research.
Canaday Library Reference Desk Hours:
Mon-Wed 10am-noon/1-5pm/7-10pm
Thu-Fri 10am-noon/1-5pm
Sat-Sun 1-5pm
Reference Desk telephone: (610)526-5279
Ask a Librarian - Fill in the form, give us your email address, and we will answer within 24 hours!
Canaday Library Reference Desk Hours:
Mon-Wed 10am-noon/1-5pm/7-10pm
Thu-Fri 10am-noon/1-5pm
Sat-Sun 1-5pm
Reference Desk telephone: (610)526-5279
Ask a Librarian - Fill in the form, give us your email address, and we will answer within 24 hours!