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- Susan Turkel, Outreach and Information Technology Librarian (BMC)
- Arleen Zimmerle, Media & Reference Librarian (BMC)
Sections:
- Introduction
- Searching for books
- Searching for scholarly journal articles
- Searching for newspaper & magazine articles and tv & radio transcripts
- Finding online primary sources & historical documents
- Finding statistical information & public opinion poll responses
- Managing your citations
- Getting human help
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Databases A-Z:
Other:
SOCL 303 : Junior Conference (BMC)
Introduction:
This page provides a general starting place for research in Sociology. Please feel free to make an appointment for personalized help from a librarian. We're here to help!
Searching for books:
Interlibrary Loan and E-ZBorrow
The books and articles you need for your research may not be available within the Tri-colleges. We have two systems available to help you retrieve the materials you need. See this page to place your requests.
Searching for scholarly journal articles:
MAIN DATABASE
Sociological abstracts
Holdings:
1963-
Publisher: Bethesda, Md. : Cambridge Scientific Abstracts,
Provider: CSA
Provides abstracts of journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations and conference papers in the fields of sociology, social work and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Covers 1963-present.
SUBJECT-SPECIFIC DATABASES
You may also want to try other databases of scholarly materials, each focused on a particular subject area:
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY DATABASES
JSTOR
Excellent place to start your research. Provides full-text searching of many important scholarly journals. Coverage is from the inception of the journal through three to five years before today.
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.
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.
Google scholar
"Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web"--About Google scholar.
Searching for newspaper & magazine articles and tv & radio transcripts:
LexisNexis academic
Provider: LN
Full-text of thousands of newspapers -- foreign, domestic, and local. Includes NY Times (1980-current).
Includes TV and Radio broadcast transcripts.
Includes TV and Radio broadcast transcripts.
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.
Provides full text searching and PDF page images of the New York Times from 1855 until three years ago. Outstanding resource for historical research! Click the link for your school, then the "ProQuest Historical Newspapers" option.
Readers' guide retrospective
Provides indexing of general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America. Covers popular magazines from 1890 - 1982.
Access world news
Provider: NewsBank
Newspaper collections from NewsBank provide full-text articles from the electronic editions of record for more than 700 newspapers around the globe, including the NY Times (2000-present). Database covers 1977-present.
Ethnic newswatch
Offers full-text articles from newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press in America.
Finding online primary sources & historical documents:
There are many online sources for primary documents, some freely available on the web and others by library subscription only. For a long list of library-subscribed resources, see the History - Primary Sources subject guide.
Here are some good online digital library collections:
Here are some good online digital library collections:
American Memory
Provides information on, and access to, digitized versions of primary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures.
Women and social movements in the United States 1600-2000
This resource provides documents pertaining to women and social movements. Includes document projects that interpret and present documents to address a question or a scholarly debate. Also includes images, a dictionary of social movements, a chronology and teaching tools. Covers the 17th century to the 21st century.
Internet archive
Offers permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format, such as Internet sites, movies, interviews, images, etc.
Finding statistical information & public opinion poll responses:
If you want to back up your arguments with numbers, you will need statistics. LexisNexis Statistical can help you to get data tables, and to identify the organizations that collect the data you need.
If you're interested in public opinion polling data, consult Polling the Nations or the Roper Center's iPoll for poll questions and answers. iPoll also allows you to download the raw data for many surveys so you can do your own analysis.
If you're interested in public opinion polling data, consult Polling the Nations or the Roper Center's iPoll for poll questions and answers. iPoll also allows you to download the raw data for many surveys so you can do your own analysis.
LexisNexis statistical
Provides abstracts and indexes of statistical information from U.S. government publications from 1973, state and private sources from 1980, and approximately 2000 documents from international organizations from 1983. Full-text or web links provided for some citations.
Polling the nations
A compilation of more than 14,000 surveys conducted by more than 700 polling organizations in the United States and more than 80 other countries from 1986 to the present. All the surveys reported were conducted using scientifically selected random samples. Covers 1986-present.
Roper Center public opinion archives
Provides access to data from nearly a half million questions asked on national public opinion surveys, 1935 to present. Users can search the "iPOLL Databank" which is organized at the question level, or search at the dataset level using "RoperExpress" which allows immediate download of about 75% of the Center's public opinion studies conducted in the US from 1935 to present, and many recent studies from outside of the US.
Managing your citations:
There are several tools available for managing and tracking your citations to books, articles, websites, etc.. You can use these tools to maintain a database of citations with your research notes; you can also use them to create your in-text citations and list of sources cited.
To learn about the options, check out the library's Managing your Citations page.
To learn about the options, check out the library's Managing your Citations page.
Getting human help:
If you need help: ASK A LIBRARIAN!!! Please come see us and we will walk you through your search.
Canaday Library TECH Bar / Reference Desk Hours
Canaday Library TECH Bar / Reference Desk Hours
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TECH Bar phone: (610) 526-5279
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