Social Work  Tags: social_work; social_sciences; social_service apa  

This is a guide to select social work resources available to the Catholic University of America community. This guide lists tools to use when beginning your research as well as resources to use for quick reference.

• For online access from home or work:  go to main CUA web site: www.cua.edu. 
• From the CUA web page, click on Academic, then Libraries on the drop-down menu. 
• MyALADIN (at the very top right of the library home page). Use to keep track of the books you have checked out, any fines, and to track requests you have made for consortium loans. You can also renew books online. Use MyALADIN to retrieve articles you request via consortium or interlibrary loan. 
• Click on Aladin: Catalog and Databases to get an overview of all the resources available, or simply scan the library home page.

           Catalog (WRLC – Washington Research Libraries Consortium)

·       use to find books at CU or other consortium libraries.  There are 8 WRLC consortium libraries.

·       use to find what journal titles we own in print

·       use to request books and print journal articles from other consortium libraries (only if CU does not own) or from WRLC storage.  To use this service, click on a record from another library for a book or journal CU does not own.  If a journal, check to see that the other library holds the print journal for the date you need, and then click on “request through consortium loan services” on the record and fill out the page that comes up.

                       ·        when searching the catalog, you can limit to the items CU own

e-Journal Finder

·       use to find what journal titles are available online and for what dates

·       only CU e-journals are available online to CU students.  E-journals in other WRLC libraries are available only if you make a visit to the other campus.

Article Databases (CUA student ID number is necessary to access from off campus)

·       there are currently about 120 article or reference databases (use alphabetical list in the drop-down menu to see all of them)

·       in the drop-down menu under “find databases”, there is a category for “social work.”  These are the databases most used by NCSSS students, although certainly not the only ones.

·        most important for social work are:

            Indexes:

                       Social Work Abstracts

                        Social Services Abstracts

                        PsycINFO

            and other subject indexes like:

                        ERIC (education)

                        MEDLINE (medicine)

                        Sociological Abstracts (urban problems)

Indexes are usually, though not always, put out by a professional association and give you a comprehensive, systematic and thorough review of the literature of a specific field.  They usually have highly informative abstracts, often written by professionals in the field.  They are the best place to start your research. Most indexes do NOT have full text of the articles abstracted in the index itself.  This does not mean full text online is not available.  Use the "find it" buttons in the article abstract to link to the online text, if it is available.  Or, open another window, and use the "CU's e-journals" on the library home page to see if the journal is available online.

Aggregated (miscellaneous) journal databases:

                        Periodical Abstracts (vendor is ProQuest)

                        Academic Search Premier (vendor is EBSCOhost)

                        PsycARTICLES (vendor is Journals@Ovid)

Reference databases:

                        CQ Researcher, for an in-depth look at current social  issues

                        Lexis/Nexis Congressional (for legislation)

Finding articles on your topic and retrieving them: 

·         Go to an index and find some good articles.  Note the journal that the article comes from.  There are 4 possibilities for retrieving the article:

                                    1) We can have the journal online.  Use the “find it” links in the article abstract, or alternatively, open a new window, go to “CU's e-journals” on the library home page, and see if the journal is available online for the dates you want.

                                    2) We can have the journal in print.  Go to the catalog and search under "journal title."  See if CU has it.  If it does, go to the stacks and copy the article.  If it is an older journal, it may be in WRLC storage.  Request a copy of the article online.

                                    3) We could have both.

                                    4) We could have neither.

                                    If CU does not have the journal you need for the date you need either in print or online, go to the online catalog and see if another WRLC library has the journal (print - not electronic) in the year you want.  Request a copy of the article using the link provided in the catalog record for the journal.  You must provide all the needed bibliographic information for the article: author, title of article, name of journal, vol., issue or number, and page numbers of the article.  You get this information from the reference you found for the article.

                                    If no WRLC library has the journal, use the interlibrary loan form, located under "library services" button at the top of the library home page.