Doing research always takes more time than the researcher thinks it should. Learning to use library resources, such as online catalogs, databases, paper indexes, and bibliographies, will help you become an effective and efficient researcher. The goal of this guide is to introduce you to the many types of resources available for sociological research in the UCSD Libraries.
E 184 - E 185: American ethnic groups.
HA: Social science statistics.
HM: Sociology (general and theoretical). Social psychology.
HN: Social history. Social problems. Social reform.
HQ: The family. Marriage. Women. Feminism.
HT: Communities. Classes. Races. Slavery.
HV: Social and public welfare. Substance abuse. Criminology.
HX: Socialism. Communism. Anarchism.
K: Legal issues
LC: Educational sociology.
RA: Social medicine.
Indexing & Abstracting Databases help you identify citations for articles from journals, magazines, newspapers, chapters within books, conference papers, dissertations, and more. Many of these include UC-eLinks, a feature that will tell you if the article is available online or which UC library subscribes to that journal in paper.
Full-text Databases and Electronic Journals offer one-stop shopping for complete text of an article, but sometimes don't include statistical tables, charts, graphs, illustrations, and photos.
**NOTE** To see a complete list of databases recommended as useful for sociology, click on SAGE from the SSHL home page. Then click on Social Sciences, then Sociology. Last, click on article databases or electronic texts (collections).
Free Internet Sites are, generally speaking, not very useful for finding scholarly, authoritative material. However, if you decide to search the Web for information on your topic, be sure that the webpage contains credible information. How can you tell if a website is credible? Look for the following criteria and evaluate the information accordingly:
If you decide to surf the Net, try Google as a search engine. Put phrases and names in quotation marks, e.g., "O.J. Simpson" media coverage. Also, check out the Librarians Index to the Internet and our own web portal, Sage Or, you can use a meta-engine, like Dogpile, which will search the Web using multiple search engines simultaneously. Also, check out InFoPeople's Best Search Tools. Remember that the web contains a lot of inaccurate information. Be sure to evaluate all websites and web pages for reliability.
(Of course there are many others, but these ten are the top-ranked according to JCR, Journal Citation Reports)
A controlled vocabulary called the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) is used to describe all library materials in the catalogs, so to use the catalogs effectively, you'll need to figure out which subject headings best describe your topic.
EXAMPLE: A subject search for drug-addicted babies in ROGER will retrieve nothing because the subject headings used by the Library of Congress are these:
Do a keyword search for any book on your topic, and see what subjects have been assigned to the records you find. Then use those subjects to find similar items.
EXERCISE: The word whiteness is in many titles, but it's not an official subject heading. What subject headings are used instead?
Do a subject search in ROGER Web to see related subjects.
EXERCISE: A search for poverty will show you all subject headings beginning with that word and links to related headings.
Try the Keyword search in ROGER and the Subject search in Melvyl which allows you to search for words in the subject or other parts of the record without knowing the exact word order.
EXERCISE: compare a search for welfare mothers in ROGER and in Melvyl, as both a phrase and a subject search.
If you need data you can manipulate, check out the Social Sciences Data Collection which can provide you with statistical data to support your research.
Government publications are another great source to remember, particularly for statistics, public policy reports, maps, and primary source information.
Alanna Aiko Moore
Sociology, Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies Librarian
Social Sciences & Humanities Library
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, 0175R
La Jolla, CA 92093-0175
Phone (858) 822-5918
Fax (858) 534-7548
aamoore@ucsd.edu