Library Guides: Sociology: Recommended resources

Dictionaries and encyclopaedias

The concise encyclopedia of sociology by Ritzer, G., & Ryan, J.M. (Eds.)
Publication Date: 2011
A dictionary of sociology by Scott, J.
Publication Date: 2014
International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences by Wright, J.D. (Ed.)
Publication Date: 2015
A dictionary of critical theory by Buchanan, I.
Publication Date: 2018

Quick links

eBook collections

Emerald Insight This link opens in a new window
A database of journals covering international management research, and eBooks covering business, management, economics, and social sciences.
All content is published by Emerald Publishing.

Specific business and management topics include: accounting; human resource management; industrial and organisational psychology leadership; library and information science; and marketing.There is also coverage of engineering, applied science, and technology.

The social sciences eBooks cover a range of sociology, education, politics, and psychology topics.

If you go to the Browse tab, you can browse the books and journals, with filters for journal or book title, subject, and publication type.

If you go to Advanced Search, you can filter your search by type of content, date, and, importantly, access type. The access type filter has options for:
• All content
• Only open access
• Only content I have access to.

Charles Sturt has full-text access to all of the journal content and some of the eBook content. Case studies are not included in our subscription. Items available in full-text are marked with a green tick.
Oxford Academic - Books This link opens in a new window
Previously available as Oxford Scholarship Online eBooks, this is the eBooks collection within Oxford Academic. Charles Sturt has access to approximately 2000 eBooks across a range of subjects, with unlimited user access.
In Oxford Academic - Books you can search using basic or advanced search, or browse the journals by subject area. The top-level subject areas are:
• Arts & Humanities
• Law
• Medicine & Health
• Science & Mathematics
• Social Sciences.

You can filter your results by various criteria, including availability, format, subject, and publication date.

Charles Sturt does not have full-text access to all content on the site. In results lists, availability is designated by icons: full-text availability is indicated by a green Unlocked (Purchased) icon, a green Free icon, or an Open Access icon. Items that are NOT available to Charles Sturt users are marked with a blue Get access label. You can filter results by availability.

The search box gives you the option to search across the whole of Oxford Academic or the Journals collection. You can also access these at Oxford Academic and Oxford Academic - Journals.
Springer eBooks This link opens in a new window
A collection of thousands of eBooks published by Springer, covering biomedical & life sciences, computer science, earth & environmental science, humanities, social sciences & law, and medicine.
These eBooks are available in the SpringerLink database, which contains journals and reference works as well as books. It also contains some content that Charles Sturt Library does not subscribe to.

The link here takes you to a browse list of available eBooks, and if you search using the search box at the top of screen, your searching should be across available eBook titles.

However, if you use the Search Options > Advanced Search at the right of the search box, your search will be across all content in SpringerLink, including journals and articles and unsubscribed ("preview-only") content.

You can limit your search to subscribed material by unticking the "Include preview-only content" box at the bottom of the search screen, and you can refine your results to show only book, or book chapter, material, by using the refiners in the panel at the left of a results list.
Taylor and Francis eBooks This link opens in a new window
A collection of eBooks on a range of topics, covering the humanities & social sciences.
Charles Sturt Library does not subscribe to all the eBooks in this collection, so you might get many results that are not available in full-text. These are marked with a locked padlock icon on a grey background.

You can filter (refine) your results to show only those that are available in full-text. These are marked with an unlocked padlock icon on a blue background.

When you have applied a filter, that filter persists in your searching until you remove it. This can assist in finding full-text material.

You can filter results by other criteria as well, including by subject and by date.

When you access an eBook, you can read it online (opens in a new browser window) or download it (opens the entire book in Adobe Reader).

See more tips on finding and using eBooks.

Library databases

Families and Society Collection This link opens in a new window
An Australian Informit database of entirely full-text content. It covers family and community, social services and public welfare, family law, and culture and institutions. The link here will take you to the Informit platform with Families and Society Collection selected. See more ... below.
Specific topics include non-traditional families, parenting, marriage, divorce, division of labour, working mothers, birth rates, and ageing.

Sources are mainly journals, while content providers include the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Australian Council of Social Service, Association of Children's Welfare Agencies, Australian Population Association, and the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law.

Your searching from this link will be within the Families and Societies Collection database only. You can change the database(s) you are searching using the Change Databases button. Unless you have changed databases, you will continue to search in Families and Societies Collection. When you have run a search, your results list will include, at the top, which database(s) you have searched in.

You can use Simple Search or Advanced Search. Advanced Search offers more options for searching, and more limiters. When you have run a search, there are further options for filtering your results. For searching help, there is a useful set of Search Tips at the bottom of the Advanced Search Screen.

Coverage is from 1976 - .
ProQuest Social Sciences Databases This link opens in a new window
A package of ProQuest databases all with social-sciences-related material. Includes databases covering criminal justice, education, library science, linguistics, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology.
ProQuest Social Sciences Databases is ProQuest's subject area package of 16 databases with social-sciences-related material. Some of these databases are the social-sciences subset of a larger database. For example, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: Social Sciences is a subset of ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Most of these resources contain full-text material. As with all ProQuest databases, where a record in your results does not have the full-text attached, you can use the Find a copy links to search for the full item elsewhere.

The main databases in this collection are:
* Criminal Justice Database
* Education Database
* ERIC
* Library & Information Science Abstracts (LISA) - does not include full-text material
* Library Science Database
* Linguistics Database
* Political Science Database
* ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global: Social Sciences
* Psychology Database
* Religion Database
* Social Science Database
* Sociology Database.

Once you are in the ProQuest platform, you can change to any other ProQuest database by clicking on the Change databases tab in the top menu. You can search all ProQuest databases individually or in any combination.
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
An EBSCOhost database of journal and other citations, with much available in full-text, covering all aspects of sociology.
SocINDEX with Full Text is a sociology research database with more than 2,035,000 records. As well as indexing and abstract records for thousands of journals, the database also contains the full text for 746 journals dating back to 1908, for more than 800 books and monographs, and for 11,991 conference papers. Full text is available in HTML or PDF format.

Subject coverage includes: abortion, anthropology, criminology, criminal justice, cultural sociology, demography, economic development, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, politics, religion, rural sociology, social psychology, social structure, social work, sociological theory, sociology of education, substance abuse, urban studies, violence, welfare.

The database features a sociology thesaurus with more than 19,600 subject terms.
EBSCOhost (Psychology) This link opens in a new window
A package of three EBSCOhost databases, all of which include Psychology-related material and a considerable amount of full-text content.
The databases are:

* Academic Search Complete;
* Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection;
* SocINDEX with Full Text.

All EBSCOhost databases can be searched individually or in any combination.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE is a collaboration between libraries and publishers which provides online full-text access to a comprehensive collection of humanities and social sciences journals.
This resource contains listings of eBooks and eJournals but Charles Sturt Library subscribes only to the eJournals, which are nearly 500 in number, and which are all available in full-text.

Note that, by default, you should see only results from these full-text journals.

You can conduct a basic search across the journals, and then refine or expand their search in various ways. Refiners include by research area, author, and language, while you can expand a search to show unsubscribed (eBook) material. You can also browse the entire collection by research areas, titles, publishers, or content types.
VAST: Academic Video Online: Social Sciences This link opens in a new window
A collection of online streaming videos from Alexander Street Press, covering politics, the criminal justice system, business, religion, psychology, public safety, anthropology, education, and studies of the environment and current events.
Content includes field recordings, documentaries, newsreels, and counselling transcripts and sessions.

The collection can be searched using Basic or Advanced Search, and/or browsed in a number of ways. The collection has a number of features that assist in its use as an educational resource:
* video browse and search capabilities
* multiple points of access: browses, searches, thumbnail images, transcripts
* synchronised, searchable transcripts
* video clip-making tools
* annotated playlists: users can make, annotate, and share playlists and clips, and can include links to materials or resources outside the collection
* sharing of video by embeddable links.

This database is part of the wider VAST: Academic Video Online collection, which in turn is part of Alexander Street Press Video. Once in this database you can search/browse in other collections or disciplines in Alexander Street Press, by clicking on the Search all content button at top left of screen.

See all Humanities, Social Work and Human Services databases.

Need some help with understanding how to use Library databases? See our Database Help Guide.

Websites

Sociology Central
Contains comprehensive links section, and online resources and study materials relating to issues, themes, and concepts in sociology.
The SocioWeb
Sociological resources available on the Internet.
Population Index
Reference tool to the world's population literature.
Australian Bureau of Statistics
The ABS is Australia's national statistical agency. It provides statistics on a wide range of economic, social and health matters.
Australian Data Archive: Social Science
National service for the preservation of and access to data relating to social, political and economic issues.
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS)
Current news and publications about Australian social services.

Professional organisations

TASA The Australian Sociological Association
The peak professional association for Australian sociologists. It holds an annual conference, produces two refereed journals, facilitates networks across specialist fields, and awards prizes for outstanding contributions to Australian sociology.
International Sociological Association
A non-profit association for scientific purposes in the field of sociology and social sciences.
The Society Pages
The Society Pages is an open-access social science project headquartered in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota and supported by individual donors.