Sociology Subject Guide

Primary Databases

  • Social Work Abstracts
    • Abstracts of the leading publications in the Social Work field published from 1977 to the present. This database requires a username and password. Please contact the Reference Desk for help.
  • PsycINFO (CSA)
    • Includes international material selected from periodicals written in over 25 languages since 1887. Includes current chapter and book coverage with worldwide English-language material published from 1987-present. Adds over 55,000 references annually through monthly updates.
  • SocialSciAbs (FirstSearch)
    • Provides records for English-language periodicals published in the United States and elsewhere. Contains a bibliographic citation for each record. Includes articles, interviews, obituaries, biographies, and book reviews.
  • WorldCat (FirstSearch)
    • Contains all the records cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Offers millions of bibliographic records. Includes records representing 400 languages.
  • Social Services Abstracts
    • CSA's database that provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. The database abstracts and indexes over 1,600 serials publications and includes abstracts of journal articles and dissertations, and citations to book reviews.
  • Expanded Academic ASAP
    • An InfoTrac database filled with full text and images for a broad collection of academic disciplines. Access scholarly journals, news magazines, and newspapers - many with full text and images!
  • CQ Researcher
    • CQ Researcher offers in-depth, non-biased coverage of today's most important issues. Each report is on a single topic—more than 12,000 words of text and extensive bibliographies.
  • Opposing Viewpoints (InfoTrac)
    • Overviews, full-text articles, statistics, and resources on social issues. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center draws on the acclaimed social issues series published by Greenhaven Press, as well as core reference content from other Gale and Macmillan Reference USA sources to provide a complete one-stop source for information on social issues. Access viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine.
  • International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences
    • A rich encyclopedia with thousands of full text articles relating to the social and behavioral Sciences.
  • International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
    • Available through Gale Virtual Reference Library
    • Choose Social Science
  • Michigan eLibrary (MEL)

Secondary Databases

  • General Reference Center Gold
    • Full-text general database through InfoTrac (1980- ) A general interest database that integrates a variety of sources in one easy-to-use interface. Use General Reference Center Gold to find articles from newspapers, reference books, and periodicals, many with full-text and images. Find the latest current events, popular culture, business and industry coverage, the arts and sciences, sports, hobbies, and more.
  • Health & Wellness Resource Center and Alternative Health Module
    • Use this Resource Center to find magazines, journals, newspapers, definitions, directories, and information on: Fitness, Pregnancy, Medicine, Nutrition, Diseases, Public Health, Occupational Health and Safety, Alcohol and Drug abuse, Prescription Drugs, Herbal remedies, and alternative or complementary treatments, etc. Included are links to diet, cancer, and health assessment sites as well as government databases. Material contained in this Resource Center is intended for informational purposes only.
  • Health Reference Center Academic
    • Health resource through InfoTrac (1980- ). Use this database to find articles on: Fitness, Pregnancy, Medicine, Nutrition, Diseases, Public Health, Occupational Health and Safety, Alcohol and Drug abuse, HMOs, Prescription Drugs, etc. The material contained in this database is intended for informational purposes only.
  • ATLA Religion (FirstSearch)
    • A "FirstSearch" database of articles in Religion, Bible, Theology, Philosophy, Ministry, etc., from over 1550 journals, including 60 leading theology journals that provide full-text articles. Produced by the American Theological Library Association. Supports religious and theological scholarship in graduate education and faculty research. Contains thousands of citations from international titles and multi-author works in the field of religion. Includes a full range of index citations to journal articles, essays in multi-author works, and book reviews from three ATLA print indexes: Religion Index One (RIO), Religion Index Two (RIT), and Index to Book Reviews in Religion (IBRR). Spans over 50 years with selected records going back to 1818.
  • IDEAL (International Digital Electronic Access Library)
    • 174 full text journals through Science Direct.
  • FACTS.com
    • Includes:
      • Facts On File World News Digest
      • Issues and Controversies On File
      • Reuters On-Line News Service (last 2 weeks).

Interdisciplinary Databases

  • InfoTrac OneFile
    • A broad database covering a wide range of topics with millions of full text articles. A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social science, sports, technology, and many general interest topics. Millions of full-text articles, many with images. Updated daily.
  • Project Muse (for on-campus users)
    • Provides online, worldwide, institutional subscription access to the full-text of about 200 scholarly journals in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. See Journal Titles list.
  • CPI
    • Christian Periodical Index is an index to articles (not full-text) from an evangelical perspective. About 150 journals and popular evangelical magazines are indexed. Some of these titles are available full-text online.
  • eBooks Michigan
    • A collection of almost 18,000 eBooks available to Michigan libraries. The state "owns" 1 copy of each book and the checkout time is 6 hours. You must create a free account before accessing the titles.
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica
    • Includes link to Britannica's Internet Guide to "best web sites."
  • WilsonSelectPlus(FirstSearch)
    • Provides indexed and abstracted records with accompanying full-text periodical articles, many of which are linked to citations in other FirstSearch databases. Includes US and international professional publications, academic journals, and trade magazines. Links to full-text articles.
  • RefWorks
    • A personal database that allows you to download references from online databases and then formats them for use in bibliographies and research papers. You will need to create an individual account the first time you use this service. Click here for Help Using RefWorks.

Reference Books

Websites