• View
• Edit
• History
• Print

HomePage

Social Work 110: Social Work as a Profession

Professor Barrie Robinson
GSIs: Elizabeth Horevitz and Kristen Gustavson
Fall 2009
Questions about your library research?
Contact Susan Edwards (sedwards@library.berkelely.edu or 510-643-6224)

Getting an Overview:

Encyclopedias are good ways to get such overviews. The Social Welfare Library has encyclopedias in its reference section on a number of subjects. One of the most useful is the 4-volume Encyclopedia of Social Work (HV35.S6, Reference; there's also a set in the open stacks available for checkout). The Green Book (in progress) is also a great way to get up to date statistics and information on federal government programs developed to address social problems -- programs such as Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, Foster Care and welfare. Additionally, it includes a discussion of related issues, such as the well-being of the elderly and of children and families. (If the program you're interested in hasn't been updated yet, you can also try the 2004 Green Book.) A really good online encyclopdia is the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences -- take a look at the sections on Aging, or Substance Abuse, for example.

Finding Books:

OskiCat is the UCB library catalog -- it searches for books, and bound journals by title (not individual articles). For this paper, you should be able to find enough information here on campus. But just so you know, the Library Catalogs tab at the top of this page will take you to all of the catalog choices where you can find books from all over the U.S. and even the world. Books and articles can be borrowed on your behalf via Interlibrary Loan -- free to you, but it does take time.

If you don't know a specific title or author, or the exact Library of Congress Subject Heading (and who does?) use the dropdown arrow and select KEYWORDS. You can start with one or two keywords, and if you find a book that looks relevant, look at the bottom of the record to see the Subject Headings. Subject headings are powerful terms ("controlled vocabulary" in library speak) that bring together various ways to say the same thing.

Finding Articles:

We have hundreds of research databases, on a wide variety of topics. They are organized according to academic discipline. In order to find the most relevant databases, you'll want to look at those listed under Social Welfare... but also those that are listed under Public Policy, since this course covers both areas.

General Articles-- Good starting place...
Social Welfare: Article Databases. Also, not listed since it's trial -- but try Social Work Abstracts via Ebsco through November!
Public Policy: Article Databases
Ethnic Studies: Great to get information on the "who is affected" component of the assignment

Tips and Tricks

• Use synonyms -- there are many ways to express a concept, for example African American or Black
• Use "controlled vocabulary" -- (descriptors or subjects) if the database has them ... they bring related terms together.
• Use truncation -- to get different forms of the word, for example homeless* also searches on homelessness
• Use quotation marks -- when you want an "exact phrase"
• Use parentheses -- whenever you're searching for synonyms before you use AND: (teen* or adolescen*) and homeless* Otherwise, the computer may interpret the search in ways you did not intend.

Sometimes you already have a citation, and you just want to see if the library has the article you want. Try the Citation Linker -- if that fails, check the title of the journal (NOT the article) in OskiCat... or ask for help!

Or You Can Experiment with Searching Books AND Journals:

Libraries know that you want a mix of books and articles, and that students are relying on Google, or better yet, Google Scholar to search for both. The great thing about Google Scholar is that if you are on campus, or using the proxy server, it passes you through to content that the library is licensing and paying for. In addition, you can try Next Generation Melvyl -- it's a pilot project and searches books as well as SOME of the article databases. Finding Government Documents:

Citing Your Research

Scholarship relies on the work of those who came before "building on the shoulders of giants" -- but you need to clearly show where you got your information. There are also powerful citation management programs available free to you as students -- see Citation Help for more information.

Off-Campus Access:

The Library pays for access to thousands of electronic journals, databases, etc. You can access these from off-campus, by following these directions.