Research Guides: Social Work: Databases

Databases for scholarly articles (use these first!)

Social Work Abstracts
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Produced by the National Association of Social Workers. Contains references to social work and other related journals on topics such as homelessness, AIDS, child and family welfare, aging, substance abuse, legislation, and community organization. Please note: Limited to four simultaneous users.
Sociological Abstracts
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Indexes and abstracts, articles from scholarly journals covering sociology, anthropology, criminology, demography, education, law, social psychology, and urban studies
PsycINFO
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Provides access to abstracts, citations, articles, books, and dissertations in the psychological, social, and behavioral sciences. Includes all American Psychological Association journals.

Clinical, medical, & health databases

MEDLINE (EBSCOhost)
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MEDLINE includes citations and abstracts on such topics as microbiology, delivery of health care (medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system and preclinical sciences), nutrition, pharmacology, and environmental health.
PubMed Central
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PubMed Central is a free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), developed and managed by NIH's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in the National Library of Medicine (NLM).

DSM-5-TR
Text Revision of the DSM-5 (5th ed), released in 2022.

DSM-5 (PsychiatryOnline)
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Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition is the guidebook used by clinicians and researchers to diagnose and classify mental disorders.
AgeLine
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Indexing of literature focusing on the population aged 50+ and issues of aging. Includes social gerontology and aging-related content from the health sciences, psychology, sociology, social work, economics, and public policy.

Legal & government resources

If you're looking for U.S. laws or government information about social and civil topics involving human rights, social justice, social welfare, and related topics, you might consider these resources. To use effectively, you'll often need to know which law(s), case(s), and/or publication(s) you're looking for.

Congress.gov
Official site of the U.S. Congress. Under "Help," use the Quick Start Guide and the Two-Minute Tips videos to learn how to get started.

Legislative Insight
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Federal legislative history service that makes available compilations of digital full-text publications created by Congress during the process leading up to the enactment of U.S. Public Laws. The histories are comprised of fully searchable PDFs of full-text publications generated in the course of congressional lawmaking, including the public law itself, all versions of related bills, law-specific Congressional Record excerpts, committee hearings, reports, and prints.
U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 (Making of Modern Law)
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Includes transcripts, applications for review, motions, petitions, supplements and other official papers of the most-studied and talked-about cases, including many that resulted in landmark decisions.
Government Periodicals Index
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Subject and author indexing to over 320 periodicals published by U.S. government agencies.
HeinOnline
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HeinOnline is a premier online research platform that provides more than 192 million pages of multidisciplinary periodicals, essential government documents, international resources, case law, and much more. Composed of fully searchable image-based PDFs and available at an affordable price, the wealth of material allows academic institutions, government agencies, law firms, court systems, corporations, and other organizations access to authoritative, true-to-print digital material without the hassle or cost of using multiple research databases.

Every document across HeinOnline’s 100+ databases is an exact facsimile of its print counterpart, providing access to original, authoritative sources as well as the ease and speed that accompanies online searching.

Understanding Journal Articles

How to Read a Social Science Journal Article
Guide from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
How to Read a Scientific Study
A (mostly) visual guide to types of studies and an explanation of the parts of a journal article.
How to Read a Sociological Journal Article for Beginners
From the Everyday Sociology blog.
Strategies for Reading an Academic Journal
Visual guide from the blog of the American Association of School Librarians.

Tutorials for Social Work Databases

Note: EBSCO tutorials pertain to Social Work Abstracts, PsycINFO, and Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection databases.

Are all articles full-text online?

Many journal articles to which UK Libraries has access are available to you full-text online in .PDF format.

However, sometimes you may encounter a bibliographic record for an article to which we do not have access. When this happens, you can request that we get the article from another library using Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

If you have questions about or need assistance with ILL, please contact them.

ILL contact info:

Borrowing: (859) 218-1880
Lending: (859) 218-2049
Document Delivery: (859) 218-1203
Fax: (859) 257-0502
Email: ILLBorrowing@uky.edu

Using the View Now Button

The Using the View Now Button animation explains what this button is and how to use it when you come across it in library databases.

Social Sciences Librarian

Margie Ruppel

she/her

Email Me

Contact:

margie.ruppel@uky.edu

Subjects: Anthropology, Psychology, Social Work, Sociology

Social Work: Databases