Librarian
Pre-Class Question
- Pre-session question: PollEv.com/kpartAnswer this quick question before we get started.
Find Books in Catalyst
Books & eBooks
To find books held at libraries beyond Carleton and St. Olaf (and request them through Interlibrary Loan): Search WorldCat!
Books and more from other libraries
Request books you find on WorldCat using the "Request Via Illiad" links.
Collecting context and search terms
Academic reference sources are a great set of tools to use alongside article databases. Consulting a signed article is like asking an expert about a topic. Use these short articles to get a sense of how research in the field is organized what language is used (gather keywords to improve your searches elsewhere), find ideas for shaping your question, and see vetted lists of books and articles (better than 3,000 results from a search).
Find Articles in Journals
- ProQuest Social Science Database This link opens in a new window(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
Search across the scholarly literature on a wide range of social science disciplines including anthropology, criminology, economics, education, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology. - ProQuest Research Library This link opens in a new windowBroad, interdisciplinary coverage. Great place to start. For some topics, may be necessary to find ways to limit to sociology articles.
- Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
Contains scholarly journals, trade publications, and magazines from across the disciplines and from popular culture. Much of the content is available in full text. An ELM Database. - Social Sciences Citation Index This link opens in a new windowAlso known as Web of Science, this broadly interdisciplinary index is a great way find research and see how much it has been cited.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowAnother broad, interdisciplinary resource with a familiar interface. Great for natural language searching of full text, and for finding related articles.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window(Searches through citations and the full text)
Search through the full text of key books and journals from across the disciplines, with emphasis on recent scholarship. - JSTOR This link opens in a new windowFull text of core journals in many academic fields. Narrow to sociology and you'll get your best full-text search of the most influential journals. Can be hard to search on broad topics because there are no subject headings.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new windowA mix of scholarly and journalistic full-text content, the titles you find here are written for or by ethnic, minority, and native groups.
