Human Services/Social Work  

You can use this guide as your starting point for research in Human Services

Use the tabs above to explore the many resources available to students and faculty:

• print and digital reference sources for getting started (i.e., Sociology, Psychology, and Human Services encyclopedias)
  
  
• catalogs for discovering books (both print and digital format, at STL and in libraries worldwide)
  
  
• databases for searching for journal articles
  
  
• selective reliable websites

Feel free to contact me for additional guidance.  Contact information is available on the right-hand side of page.

Valerie Mittenberg,  Reference Librarian

Reference Sources, such as subject encyclopedias, can help you to get started on a research project by providing reliable information that will help you to contextualize and narrow your topic. Subject Encyclopedias are more specialized than general encyclopedias. Coverage is limited to a specific subject or field of study and contain more developed articles written by scholars and experts within the field. Reference sources generally provide:

• Background information about a topic

• Brief, factual overviews of topics

• Important dates, events, and people associated with a topic

• Terminology and definitions of terms related to a topic

• Articles written by authors with expertize in the subject matter

• Bibliographies of sources for further reading

E-Reference Sources

Gale Virtual Reference Library, and the Sage Reference Online, allow you to search for topics across the entire collection of encyclopedias within each database.