Welcome to the IU guide for Social Work research. Social Work, like many other Social Sciences, draws on research from a number of different subjects.
Reference: Encyclopedia of Social Work, DSM-V, and other authoritative resources
Find Articles: Peer-Reviewed material that covers a wide range of Social Work
Find Books: Online catalogs as well as databases to find books at other libraries
Find Data: Statistics from the U.S. Government and consortiums
Newspapers: Current and historical newspapers and magazines
Citing your Sources: Help with properly formatting your research papers
Organizations: Professional Social Work organizations
OneSearch@IU searches most of the Libraries' databases. It is a great place to start your research.
Direct access at: libraries.indiana.edu/resources/onesearch
More databases can be found on the Libraries homepage under the "Research" tab or the "Top Recommended Resources" (bottom of the page).
Knowing where to start with your research is an issue faced by researchers at all levels. Often, simple Google searches are way to start, but you might find that information overwhelming or lacking the kind of detail and authority that you require. The Social Work Abstracts database listed under Find Articles is a large collection of peer-reviewed articles regarding Social Work. Please feel free to contact your librarian with any questions.
You will be writing a lot of papers, so keep in mind that IU has access to Endnote. Endnote is a citation management software that allows you to format papers easily. While there is a learning curve to using Endnote, you will find that using the software will greatly ease the task of having your papers properly formated.
IU Box is also freely available to all IU students and faculty. IU Box is cloud-based storage that allows users to safely store large amounts of files, making them available to the user wherever an Internet connection is available.
If you come across a book or journal article that IU-Bloomington does not own, do not despair. Interlibrary Loan can usually acquire that book or article for you for free. Articles are usually delivered to you as PDFs and books are requested from other libraries. Some exceptions apply. For example, IU does not request textbooks through Interlibrary Loan, but that is one of the few exceptions.
