Research Resources:
Subject Research Guides:
Social Work:
Journals, Indexes and Databases
Primary Databases
Social Services Abstracts (1980-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
This database provides coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including community development, gerontology, homelessness, social policy, and social welfare.
Social Work Abstracts (1977-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
Produced by the National Association of Social Workers, this database contains citations and abstracts
for over 35,000 articles and dissertations in the field of social work.
Family and Society Studies Worldwide (1970-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
This database indexes and provides abstracts for literature on the family and family-related subjects and has an international perspective. Subjects covered include family therapy, cross-cultural issues, minority groups, intermarriage, social policy, parenting, family relationships, foster care and adoption.
PAIS International and Archive
(1972-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
Provides access to literature covering the full range of political, social, and public policy issues.
PsychiatryOnline
(1998-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
PsychiatryOnline provides access to a number of American Psychiatric Publishing books and journals including the DSM-IV-TR® and The American Journal of Psychiatry.
Searching is available across all the books and journals in the database.
PsycINFO
(1872-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
This is the principle index to the academic and professional literature in psychology and related
disciplines such as education, psychiatry, social work, and sociology. Provides citations to,
abstracts, and full-text if available, from journals, books and book chapters, dissertations,
and technical reports.
Social Sciences Full Text (1983-present) Rutgers Restricted Access
Coverage in this database includes community health and medical care, gerontology, psychiatry and psychology, and social work and social welfare and other social sciences fields. This is a good place to start for a quick overview on what is available on your topic.
Secondary Databases
AgeLine (1978-)
Provided by AARP, this free database abstracts the social gerontology literature
and other aging-related resources from psychology, sociology, social work, public policy
and the health sciences. Coverage includes journal articles, books and chapters,
dissertations, and gray literature. Please check IRIS for materials the Libraries own.
Criminal Justice Abstracts
(1968-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
Provides comprehensive coverage of criminal justice, criminology, and related disciplines. Journals,
books and book chapters, and some government reports are indexed. Topics such as juvenile delinquency,
corrections, victims' issues, and crime trends are covered.
Education Index/Abstracts/Full Text (1983-present) Rutgers Restricted Access
Subject coverage is primarily education, but related topics such as social work in schools are included.
ERIC: Education Resources Information Center
(1966-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
Provides citations and abstracts from ERIC documents and a broad range of educational journals.
GPO Access-Legislative Branch Resources
This page provides access to bills, public laws, congressional documents and reports. Although dates may vary by document, coverage generally begins 1993-1994.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Abstracts Database (1960's-persent)
The database contains abstracts of more than 200,000 justice publications, including Federal, State and Local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, documents and unpublished research on a wide range of criminal justice topics.
PILOTS Database: An Electronic Index to the Traumatic Stress Literature
Rutgers Restricted Access
The PILOTS database is an electronic index to the worldwide literature on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health consequences of exposure to traumatic events. It is produced by the National Center for PTSD, and although sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, PILOTS is not limited to literature on PTSD among veterans. The PILOTS thesaurus is included.
PILOTS is also freely available for visitors to the
PILOTS web site.
Medline (1950-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
This is the National Library of Medicine's database of citations and abstracts
for the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health care systems, and
related areas such as psychology and psychiatry.
Sociological Abstracts (1963-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
This database indexes the literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Major areas of coverage relevant to social work include family and social welfare, policy, planning, and welfare services.
THOMAS-Legislative Information on the Internet
THOMAS provides access to current and recent legislation, roll call votes, the Congressional Record, committee reports, bill summaries. Check this page for dates of coverage.
Other Related Databases
Academic Search Premier (EBSCOhost)
(Coverage varies by publication)
Rutgers Restricted Access
Provides citations and abstracts to over 4,000 journals covering most academic areas of study. Full
text is available for nearly 3,200 scholarly publications.
Access World News
(Coverage by publication) Rutgers Restricted Access
Full-text content of over 840 North American newspapers and over 1,080 international newspapers plus a few select wire services. The entire collection or a selection of newspapers by specific title, region, state, country, or continent can be searched. A clickable map-based interface enhances the ability to search a selection of newspapers.
Alcohol Studies Database
This database contains records for journal articles,
books and book chapters, dissertations, government documents, and conference
papers covering biomedical and psychosocial aspects of alcohol use and increasingly, other forms of substance abuse.
ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (1987-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts contains citations and abstracts of journals from 16 different countries (including the U.S. and U.K.) Major areas of coverage include health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education.
Dissertations and Theses
(1861-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
Provides citations to dissertations from North American graduate schools and European universities
from 1861 to the present. Rutgers users have online access to the full-image of doctoral dissertations
and theses completed at Rutgers University since 1997. Dissertations provide access to the most recent
research and extensive bibliographies.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar searches for scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, dissertations, book citations, preprints, abstracts and technical reports. Sources of material include academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and open access publishers.
Health and Psychosocial Instruments
Rutgers Restricted Access
An electronic index that describes questionnaires, rating scales, projective techniques
and other types of measurement instruments drawn from journal articles and compendiums.
Each entry includes source of the test information, abstract, reliability and validity
information. This database is searchable by test or subscale title, author, keyword or
descriptor and many other fields.
HealthSTAR-Ovid
(1975-present)
Rutgers Restricted Access
This database contains citations to the published literature on health services, technology, and
research. It focuses on both the clinical and non-clinical aspects of health care delivery.
PopLine (1970-present)
This database provides citations/abstracts to articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues such as maternal and child health, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, etc. A useful database for those conducting medical social work and public health research. Please check IRIS for journals and other materials the Libraries own
VioLit
VioLit is a violence-related research literature database with abstracts and reference information. It is provided by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV), University of Colorado. Please check IRIS for journals and other materials the Libraries own.
Web of Science
Rutgers Restricted Access
Use this database to find who has cited a particular author and track trends in the literature.
This database can also be used to search for literature across disciplines.
Westlaw Campus Research Rutgers Restricted Access
Westlaw Campus Research covers thousands of publications, most of which are available in full text. It is especially useful for legal research, as well as for current news coverage and business.
Print Indexes
Sage Family Studies Abstracts
ALEXANDER: REF HQ536.S23 1988-2007
Indexes and provides abstracts to books and articles on family studies and issues.
RefWorks and Other Information
RefWorks
Refworks is a web-based application for managing citations, and is free to Rutgers faculty, students, and staff. It enables you to import references from many electronic databases, including citations while you write your paper, and build a bibliography according to different style sheets.
Alert Services-Keeping Current
A number of the RU Libraries indexes and databases will provide table of contents of specified
journals or notification of current articles that match particular topics. This
page describes these types of alerts and how to subscribe to them.
How do I find an article on my topic?
How to find out if RU has a particular journal
Popular Literature vs. Scholarly Peer-Reviewed Literature: What's the Difference?
