Stewart Library owns or has access to a large number
of resources to help in your research.
Getting Started: if you're
not sure of a topic or need some background information, reference
books can be very helpful. Some good ones to start with are:
| Notable twentieth-century Latin American women : a biographical
dictionary |
Ref CT 3290.N68 2001 |
| Native American women : a biographical dictionary |
Ref E98.W8B38 2001 |
| Sister days : 365 inspired moments in African American
women's history |
Ref E185.86A29 2000 |
| International encyclopedia of women and sports |
Ref GV709.I58 2000 |
| Dictionary of Feminist Theory |
Ref HQ1115.H86 1995 |
| Encyclopedia of women in the ancient world |
Ref HQ1127.S25 2001 |
| What American women did, 1789-1920 : a year-by-year reference
|
Ref HQ1154.C665 2001 |
| A Glossary of Feminist Theory |
Ref HQ 1190 .A53 1997 |
| The almanac of women and minorities in American politics
2002 |
Ref HQ 236.5 .U6 M3779 2001 |
| A to Z of American women leaders and
activists |
Ref HQ1412.L36 2002 |
| Significant Contemporary American Feminists |
Ref HQ 1412 .S56 1999 |
| American Women's History |
Ref HQ 1115 .W4 1994 |
| Women in World History - a Biographical
Encyclopedia |
Ref HQ 1115 .W6 1999 |
| Women in the Third World |
Ref HQ 1870 .W6548 |
| United States Government Documents on
Women |
Ref HQ 1410 .H85 1993 |
| Asian Pacific American women in higher education : claiming
visibility & voice |
Ref LC2633.6.H85 1998 |
| The quotable woman : the first 5,000 years |
Ref PN6081.5.Q65 2001 |
| Encyclopedia of women's health issues |
Ref RA 778.G39 2002 |
You can find many other
reference books on Women's Studies by browsing the call number area:
HQ 1000 to HQ 2000.
A good place to find information
on current issues is the CQ Researcher. The newest
one is kept behind the Reference Desk. It's also available
on the web: CQ
Researcher.
Finding Books:
Use the WSU online catalog to find what
books and other materials, such as videos, the Library owns.
The catalog will provide the location and availability of the resource,
We also have a subscription to Netlibrary,
which provides access to electronic books.
Good keywords to use
include: gender identity, feminist, feminism, women,
sex differences, sex role
Finding Articles:
The best way to find articles
is to use one of the Library's article databases. These
databases provide references to articles in journals. In some
cases, the actual article is available on the computer. Our
databases are available from home or work. Just click on the
link and enter your ID number when prompted. Don't know your
ID or pin number? Directions are available on our Off-Campus
Access page.
Useful databases for Women's
Studies include:
- Contemporary
Women's Issues
Contemporary women's issues on health and human rights, some full-text.
1992 - present, updates every two weeks.
- GenderWatch
Newspaper, magazine, and journal articles addressing the impact
of gender in society. 1990-Present (with selected articles
from the 1970's and 1980's) Fulltext.
- Ethnic Newswatch
Articles from ethnic newspapers published in the U.S. 1960
- present. Fulltext. Search in English or Spanish.
- America:
History and Life Indexes scholarly literature
on the history and culture of the United States and Canada. 1964-Present.
- JSTOR
Full text, scholarly articles in the field of Feminist and Women's
Studies
- MLA Bibliography
comprehensive index to articles on literature, literary criticism
and language.
- Literature
Resource Center a complete literature reference
database designed for both the undergraduate and graduate student
- a good place to look for basic biographical information and
critical analysis.
Academic
Search Premier is a general database that allows you to
search important journals in many fields, including Women's Studies.
It has many full-text articles.
What to know if we have
a journal online? Check out our Full
text Electronic Journals and Newspapers search page.
If you are doing research
on women's issues in a specific field, it can be helpful to look
in a database specific to that field. For example: to
research women executives look in a business database, to
research women and domestic violence look in a criminal justice
database. Ask a librarian to help determine which database
is best for your topic.
Browsing Current
Periodicals:
You can also browse through
journals and magazines. This can be helpful when you're looking
for a topic. Current issues are on the 1st floor south, older
volumes on the 2nd floor. Titles in the field include:
Check the title of the
journal on the Full text
Electronic Journals and Newspapers search page to see where
to access the journals online.
You can also browse the
HQ 1 area to see what other titles are available.
Government Publications:
Government Publications
are great places to find information on women. The library
has a good collection of Federal and Utah State documents.
Many are available on the web, as are government publications from
the UN, foreign governments, other states and organizations.
Some are listed on the Library's online catalog, but most can be
difficult to find. Try your favorite search engine or ask
a librarian to help.
Interlibrary Loan:
If we do not own a particular
book or article you need, we will borrow it for you from another
library through Interlibrary
Loan.
There's a
lot of good information out on the web. Unfortunately, some
it's not so good, so be sure to evaluate, evaluate, evaluate!
Some interesting places to start looking are:
- Clearly identify your information need
- Identify key words and search terms
to match your topic
- Develop search statements using
advanced search techniques
- Boolean logic, adjacency searching and truncation
- Use the Online
catalog to find books, videos and other materials
- Use an appropriate article database to
find journal articles, ask a librarian for help if you're not
sure what's best
- Use Interlibrary loan
to get materials that are not in Stewart Library
- Use search
engines to find Web information
- Carefully
evaluate the information you find for usefulness and quality
- Revise your search terms and strategy to expand or narrow your
results, be creative, look in other areas
- Use appropriate style to document and cite research
- Ask for HELP
at Reference, via phone
or email
