Kevin D. Blair and David B. Taylor (2006). Examining the Lives and Needs of Child-Only Recipient Kinship Caregivers: Heroes Stepping Up to Help Children. Journal of Family Social Work, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 1-24.

Carolyn Morell (2003). Empowerment and long-living women: return to the rejected body. Journal of Aging Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, p. 69.

Kevin Blair (2002). School social work, the transmission of culture, and gender roles in schools. Children & Schools, vol. 24, no. 1, p. 21.

To learn more about the research interests of Social Work Department faculty, visit the department's web site.

Finding Journal Articles

These are the most useful resources for finding social work journal articles:

Academic Search Complete via EBSCOhost

Academic Search Complete provides full text for more than 5,990 publications, including full text for more than 5,030 peer-reviewed journals. It does not cover every social work journal published, but it covers the core journals and will be sufficient to find a few articles on most topics. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, we recommend that you always search this database.

Social Work Abstracts via EBSCOhost

This database covers the most social work journals and includes references to materials from 1977 to the present. Please note that this is not a full-text database: it only includes citations and abstracts, not full-text articles. However, it is the definitive resource for social work research and you should search it for every project.

PsycINFO via EBSCOhost

PsycINFO contains citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books, and technical reports, as well as citations to dissertations, all in the field of psychology and the psychological aspects of related disciplines, including social work. Highly recommended if your topic has anything to do with human behavior.

PsycARTICLES via EBSCOhost

This database contains more than 25,000 full-text articles from 42 journals published by American Psychological Association and allied organizations. Coverage includes general psychology and specialized basic, applied, clinical, and theoretical research in psychology.

ERIC via EBSCOhost

ERIC is the largest index of education-related journal articles and reports in the world. Highly recommended if your topic has anything to do with school social work.

Return To Top

Finding Books

New social work research is typically first disseminated through journal articles. However, books can still be an important component of your research. Just remember to look at the publication dates and note that journal articles may give you more recent research.

To locate books owned by Niagara University Library, use the Library Catalog.

If you want to search for books owned by other libraries, too, then try searching WorldCat, a catalog that contains references to more than 57 million items owned by 9,000 libraries worldwide. Don't worry - if you need a book owned by another library, you can request it. To learn how, go to the section called Obtaining Materials NU Library Does Not Own.

Tip: One thing to note when searching for books is that they are usually not as specific as articles, so construct your search in a more general way than you would for an article search. So, let's say that you were doing research on using music to help autistic children. Your best bet would be to search for books about the broader subject of autistic children and pick out book titles that may look relevant.

Return To Top

Finding Facts, Statistics and Web Sites

The Library has some excellent reference books in the field of social work and related disciplines. For example:

• Encyclopedia of Social Work (HF5803 .A38x)
• Encyclopedia of Education (LB 15 .E47)
• Encyclopedia of Psychology (BF 31 .E5)

These titles are located in the Reference Collection on the first floor across from the Reference Desk.

Tip: Reference books can also help you locate keywords to help you perform better searches. For example, suppose you are doing a paper on missing children. If you take a few minutes to look in a social work encyclopedia, you will learn more about the topic and find keywords like kidnapping and abduction. Knowing more background information and keywords will help you do better and more comprehensive research.

The World Wide Web is a great place to find statistical data. Try these sites:

• American FactFinder
• Statistical Abstracts of the United States

If you are looking for specific information on the World Wide Web, visit a search engine like Google and type your keywords in.

If you would like to browse a directory of social work web sites, try this one:

• Social Work Search (information and links to other web sites of interest to social workers)

Return To Top

Obtaining Materials NU Library Does Not Own

If you need an article or a book that NU Library does not own, we will try to get it for you. Just go to the Interlibrary Loan page to order it.

Tip: In a hurry? If the article or book you need is owned by another library in Western New York, you can visit that library and use their resources on site (view a list of Western New York library web sites). Please note: If you wish to borrow a book from another Western New York library, you can get an Infopass Card at the Reference Desk.

Return To Top

How to Cite Your Sources