Sociology Resources

Finding Books | Finding Journal Articles | Reference Resources | Finding Images and Artifacts | Using Audio/Visual Equipment and Software

 

Finding Books

CONSORT is the shared catalog of the Kenyon, Denison, Ohio Wesleyan, and Wooster Libraries.

OhioLINK is a catalog containing the collections of 86 libraries throughout Ohio. OhioLINK members include all academic libraries in Ohio as well as a few public libraries.

Kenyon students, faculty and staff may request materials from other CONSORT or OhioLINK libraries. If you are unable to find an item in CONSORT or OhioLINK, try using WorldCat , a catalog which contains the holdings of over 9,000 institutions worldwide. To request an item found in WorldCat, you will need to use our Interlibrary Loan form.

Finding Journal Articles

Library catalogs (CONSORT and OhioLINK) do not contain information about individual articles within journals. You will need to search an index or database to find citations for articles or, in many cases, the full-text of the articles themselves.

When you have identified a promising article, check CONSORT or OhioLINK to determine which library holds copies of the journal that you need. Remember to search by the journal title, not the title of the article. If Kenyon does not own the journal or it is not available online, you will need to request the article using the Interlibrary Loan form.

Sociology Indexes and Databases

These are the most useful indexes and databases for Sociology, but remember there may be other good sources, depending on your topic.

SIRS Researcher (Social Issues Researcher)
Provides general full-text covering social, scientific, health, historic, economic, political and global issues.

SocINDEX
SocINDEX, a comprehensive sociology database, contains abstracts for more than 590 'core' coverage journals dating back to 1895. In addition, this file provides data mined from more than 500 'priority' coverage journals as well as 1,040 'selective' coverage journals.

Social Science Citation Index (1980 - )
[Part of the ISI Web of Knowledge]
The Social Sciences Citation Index indexes 1,700 journals spanning 50 disciplines. Perform a general search using subject terms, author, journal title, or author affiliation; or find out who has cited a particular work by doing a Cited Reference Search. Reference lists for each work are included. Updated weekly.

Academic Search Complete (1965- )
Academic Search Complete is a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database designed specifically for academic institutions. This resource contains more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals. In addition, Academic Search Complete offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,300 journals and a total of 10,900 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format.

Social Sciences Abstracts (1994- )
Indexes and abstracts articles from English-language periodicals published in the United States and elsewhere. Coverage includes a wide range of interdisciplinary fields covered in a broad array of social sciences journals.

Sociological Abstracts (1963-2005)
[Also in print at Ref. HM1 .S67 (1952-1963)]
Provides access to journal articles, conference papers, books, & dissertations in sociology and related disciplines in the social & behavioral sciences. Articles are drawn from an international selection of over 2600 journals.

Electronic Journals

JSTOR
Provides access to the full content of a variety of scholarly journals. Coverage generally begins with volume one of a journal, and ends 2-5 years from the present. Journals may be browsed or searched. Includes the sociology journals listed below, and a wide variety of interdisciplinary journals.

OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center (EJC): Sociology and Social Studies
The EJC emphasizes current coverage of journals in a variety of subjects. Journals related to Sociology include:

Using Reference Resources

Reference books, such as encyclopedias, can be used for a quick overview of a topic. They can also be useful for finding citations to works which can help you further your research.

Encyclopedias and other general helpful books

American Attitudes: Who Thinks What About Issues That Shape Our Lives, 5th edition [Ref. HN90 P8 A527 2008

Encyclopedia of Sociology
[Print Version, Ref. HM17 .S86 1994] or Electronic Version]
This five volume set provides introductory articles on numerous topics in the field of sociology. Articles contain bibliographies to help further your research.

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures [Ref. E169.1 G73 2004
An eight-volume set divided geographically: Great Plains, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, New England, Pacific, Rocky Mountains, The South, and Southwest. Each volume provides an overview on elements of cultural topics such as art, architecture, ecology, ethnicity, fashion, film, folklore, food, music, recreation, and religion; and how these elements have evolved over time.

Statistics

ICPSR - Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research
Database maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. Subjects covered include: Census Enumerations; Community and Urban Studies; Conflict, Aggression, Violence, Wars; Economic Behavior and Attitudes; Education; Elites and Leadership; Geography and Environment; Government Structures, Policies, and Capabilities; Health Care and Facilities; Instructional Packages; International Systems; Legal Systems; Legislative and Deliberative Bodies; Mass Political Behavior and Attitudes; Organizational Behavior; Social Indicators; and, Social Institutions and Behavior.
NOTE: Users that desire to download members-only data and some publicly available data are required to establish a MyData account. Creating a MyData account will also permit you to access new features in the future such as order history and notification when data that interests you become available. See the ICPSR Data Use Tutorial for additional information.

Statistical Insight (formerly Statistical Universe and Statistical DataSets)
Provides access to a variety of sources of statistical information from federal, state and international sources.

U.S. Census Bureau
Includes data from the 1990 Census, and will be the first source as data from the 2000 Census is analyzed and released. The 1990 Census is available in print in the basement of Chalmers Library, behind the Bound Periodicals. Older editions of the Census are available in the Government Documents collection.

American FactFinder
An interactive application, supporting the Economic Census, the American Community Survey, the 1990 Census, Census 2000 and the latest Population Estimates.

Historical United States Census Data Browser
This project of the University of Virginia andthe Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides data from the 1790 Census up to the 1960 Census.

The Statistical Abstract of the United States [Ref HA202. A1]
Issued yearly, the Statistical Abstract concentrates on recent national data, but some tables are broken down by state and over recent historical periods (5-20 years). The current volume is at the Information Desk; volumes from 1878 on are in the Reference collection.

County and City Extra [HA203. C68]
Places, Towns and Townships [Ref HT123. P53 1998]
These two volumes provide data for smaller geographical areas. County and City Extra provides data about all the counties in every state, and metropolitan areas with over 25,000 people. The current edition is at the Information Desk, with older volumes in the main collection. Places, Towns and Townships looks at incorporated places and Census-designated places of all sizes.

Ohio County Profiles
From the Ohio State University Extension Data Center, this site features a variety of statistics regarding life in Ohio's different counties. Categories include basic demographics, income, education, unemployment, business, and agriculture.

Ohio State Data Center
From the Ohio Department of Development, this site publishes official Ohio economic policy documents and research articles, as well as maps and raw statistics about the Ohio economy and population.

Writing and Citation Guides

American Sociological Association Style Guide (Info Desk HM48 A54 1997)

A Guide to Writing Sociology Papers (HM585 .G78 2008, currently on Course Reserve)

Finding Images and Artifacts

Sometimes it may be appropriate to consider sociological topics through the "graphic record" of a society. Consider these sources of photographic and artistic evidence:

OhioLINK Digital Media Center
Includes more than 65,000 images, covering art and architecture, historical and archival images, maps of Ohio towns and cities, and more.

AP Images
A collection of pictures, graphics, text, and audio from the Associated Press. The print negative archive contains over 50 million photographs. Graphics Database is a professionally produced collection of approximately 14,500 maps, graphs, charts, logos, flags, illustrations, etc. that are ideal for multimedia presentations. The Text Database features 800,000 news stories written by AP writers, dating back from 1997. The AP Audio Database contains over half a million searchable audio clips dating back to the 1920s, with clips as recent as 48 hours.

American Memory
The American Memory Historical Collections, sponsored by the Library of Congress' National Digital Library Program, are collections of digitized documents, photographs, audio, and video from the Library of Congress and other research collections nationwide.

National Archives Online Exhibits
Digitized images of documents from the National Archives, from the voting record of the Constitutional Convention through items of folk art sent as gifts to President Clinton.

Using Audio/Visual Equipment and Software

For upper-level courses, you may need to document your research process or provide visual images. LBIS has camcorders, digital cameras, DVD players, and other A-V equipment available for you to borrow. Click here for a list of circulating equipment.

The Multimedia Collections Unit provides editing equipment to work on creating and manipulating digital still and moving images. Click here for more information on what is available and instructions on using the equipment.

LBIS also provides access to Atomic Learning, a collection of short, easy-to-view and understand tutorial movies that answer common questions people have when learning and using software. It includes more than 20,000 individual tutorial movies, which cover more than 100 software applications.