Reference Books

The Reference collection is an excellent starting point for research projects. Reference books are non-circulating items (they cannot be checked out) and are designed to be used to look for specific information rather than read cover to cover. Additionally, reference books contain bibliographic records that can lead to the discovery of further resources. In some instances, the reference books are compiled or supported by primary source documents.

• The Sage Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods
• The Social Science Encyclopedia
• About Children
• Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media
• Encyclopedia of Disability
• Encyclopedia of the City
• Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies
• Encyclopedia of Sociology
• Why Animals Matter : The Case for Animal Protection
• Child Poverty in America Today
• Domestic Violence Sourcebook
• Poverty in the United States : An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, and Policy
• Single Parents : A Reference Handbook
• Social Issues in America : An Encyclopedia
• Families in America : A Reference Handbook
• Social Workers' Desk Reference
• Prisons and Prison Systems : A Global Encyclopedia
• Encyclopedia of Prisons & Correctional Facilities
• Encyclopedia of American Prisons
• Women in Prison : A Reference Handbook
• Gender and Women's Leadership : A Reference Handbook
• Concise Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology

• SocINDEX: Index, abstracts, and full text for articles and other publications in sociology.
• Sociological abstracts: Index and abstracts to articles in sociology, 1963-2005.
• Social Sciences Citation Index: Index, abstracts, and citations for articles in the social sciences.
• Academic Search Complete: Comprehensive, multi-disciplinary full-text database.

• Global Issues.org Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All
• electronic International Journal of Time Use Research (http://www.eijtur.org/) is an online referred full text research journal that focuses on time-use from a socio-economic interdependency perspective.
• Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences (http://bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.pl) has 1000 entires that most sociological topics with comments and examples.
• Web Center for Social Research Methods (http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/) is a website that provides resources and links for applied social reasearch and evaluation methods.
• Women and Gender Studies Websites
  (http://libr.org/wss/wsslinks/index.html) is collection of websites that identify resources supporting women's and gender studies research. The resources are compiled and maintained by the Women's Studies Section of the Association of College and Research libraries.
• The Urban Institute (http://urban.org/) is a policy research organization that provides information on social and economic issues. The institute gathers and analyzes data, conducts policy research on critical economic and social trends.
• Public Agenda (http://publicagenda.org/) is a non-partisan, nonprofit public opinion research organization. Public Agenda provides information relating to current social issues.
• Annie E. Casey Foundation (http://www.aecf.org/) provides information to foster public policies, human services reforms that address the issues facing at-risk children and families.
• National Coalition for the Homeless (http://nationalhomeless.org/) provides information on various components of homelessness as well as policy proposals for economic, health care and housing justice.
• The Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/) provides information on public policy from the conservative viewpoint.
• National Center for Policy Analysis (http://ncpa.org/) promotes alternative policy initiatives from a conservative orientation emphasizing, in a polemic style, free entreprise solutions over further goverment regulation.
• FEDSTATS (http://www.fedstats.gov/) provides access to statistical information from over 100 government agencies.

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