Women’s Studies 125
Women and Healthcare in the
Library Research Guide
Ellen Broidy
Librarian for Women's Studies
(310) 825-1324
This guide is designed as
an introduction to print (“real”) and online ("virtual") resources
critical for conducting research on topics related to women and healthcare in
the United States located at the UCLA Library and beyond. It is extremely
selective, both in terms of the sources cited and the research strategies
recommended (or implied). All reference and "finding" sources listed
are available at UCLA, although not necessarily in the same library; however, a
number of these point to materials, both real and virtual, beyond the campus
borders.
The guide covers the
following areas:
1. Basic Research Strategies and Tips
3. Finding Books / Monographic Materials
5.
Full-Text Journals on the Web
a. Search tips ~Systems
and Serendipity: Successful research is often a combination of systematic
approaches and, when appropriate, serendipity.
b. Topic Identification
and Description: Identify a topic of
interest and describe it as narrowly/focused as possible. Consider subtopics, perspective you wish to
take, geographical and/or chronological focus.
Ask: What? Who? When? Where?
c. Search
Vocabulary: Make a list of search terms
(keywords) that describe your topic.
Include synonyms, relevant proper names, etc. Avoid very common words if possible, but also
include some general (e.g., healthcare) as well as precise descriptors.
d. Truncation: Use truncation symbols (?,
*, or #) building on the root of a word or within a term to expand your
retrieval. Specific symbol depends on the system you're using (UCLA Library
Catalog or MELVYL®).
Examples:
wom#n =
woman or women
heal? = heals, healing, health
e. Call Numbers: Call numbers are determined by the
first/primary subject heading of the publication. Thus, most (but not always necessarily all)
books on women’s healthcare, for instance, will be classed and shelved
together. Once you find a promising call
number(s) for your topic, browse the shelves in this area for serendipitous
discoveries of other items that might be of interest/use.
f. Search Documentation:
Keep careful track of your research process: sources consulted, date ranges
covered, search terms used, as well as promising citations. Use a notebook, index cards (paper or
electronic), and/or email messages to yourself, etc. to document your research
process.
g. Some things to
consider when assessing the quality and usefulness of an item (for print and
electronic resources):
·
Author: Credentials? Scholar? Academic
field? Other publications?
·
Publisher: University press? Other scholarly
publisher? Trade? Other?
·
Notes,
etc.: Bibliography? Footnotes? Use
to refine and/or expand research.
·
Periodical: Scholarly journal? Popular magazine?
·
Date: Original publication date
(unless revised) – critically important!
·
Reviews: If a book, can you locate book
reviews?
This is the front door to
a wide variety of print and electronic resources in Women's Studies; MELVYL®,
the union catalog for the
Identifying and locating
books on your topic is most conveniently done through a keyword or subject
(heading) search using the UCLA Library Catalog or the UC systemwide
MELVYL® Catalog. Keyword searching (when available) is
the most flexible, usually producing the largest retrieval (often including
"false
drops"), while
subject searching can often be more precise since it relies on authorized
Library of Congress Subject Headings.
a. Library of Congress
Subject Headings
Although the advent of
online catalogs with keyword search capabilities has sounded the death knell
for rigidly structured subject heading/classification schemes, it is still
worth considering how language is used to organize materials in a research
library. For example, it is possible (and frequently extremely beneficial) to
do a subject search in the UCLA Library Catalog or MELVYL® using Library of
Congress subject headings.
A subject heading is a
word or term that describes, often quite broadly, the contents of a book,
journal article, videotape, dataset, etc. All nonfiction books and media are
assigned one or more subject headings, allowing for multiple points of access
to the same item. "Authorized" headings are found listed in Library
of Congress Subject Headings, a four-volume set with a bright red cover located
in YRL Reference (Z695.Z8 L524a).
One of the best and most
efficient ways to identify subject headings for your topic is to do a keyword
or title search in the UCLA Library Catalog or MELVYL® and then display results
in a format that shows subject headings. Note the subject headings for the most
promising items then click on the subject heading (a live link) to execute a
search on that subject.
b. UCLA Library Catalog
http://catalog.library.ucla.edu
The UCLA Library Catalog
provides quick and efficient access to the holdings of the UCLA Library. The
catalog should be your first stop for books and other monographic materials,
periodicals, and media.
The UCLA Library Catalog
is directly accessible from the UCLA Library homepage; Click on the
"search and find" tab. The catalog is the first item on the drop-down
menu.
The UCLA Library Catalog
offers the following unique features:
·
Circulation
status of material -- the catalog tells you whether a book is available (on the shelf), checked out (and
date it's due back), or missing;
·
Serials
information -- catalog lists both print and electronic serials publications with
UCLA holdings
·
Personal
circulation data -- the catalog allows you to keep track online of materials
you have checked out of the Library. Click on My Account and key in your UCLA
Bruin Card number.
·
Electronic
reserves -- from the Services button at the top of the page you can go to
course reserves and from there link to a specific course and check to see what,
if anything, is "on-reserve" for the class in electronic format. .
c. UC MELVYL® CATALOG
If your UCLA Library
Catalog search does not produce the desired results, you may want to search the
holdings of other libraries, particularly other UC libraries. The UC MELVYL®
Catalog opens doors to worlds beyond UCLA
To use the MELVYL®
Catalog, click on Search and Find and then on Other Catalogs. To research a topic, you may use either the
default Basic Search screen or click on Advanced in the gold bar at the top of
the page. Subject searches require
word(s) from authorized LC subject headings but word order does not
matter. If you are unsure of a subject
heading, try a Keyword search instead.
The most convenient
direct access to periodical indexes and abstracts is through the UCLA Library
Homepage. Click on search and find and then on article databases or electronic
resources. If you know a particular title, you can search for it here.
An interdisciplinary
database combined from Women Studies Abstracts (1984-present), Women's Studies
Database (1972-present), New Books on Women and Feminism (1987-present), Women
of Color and Southern Women (1975-present), The History of Women and Science,
Health, and Technology: A Bibliographic Guide to the Professions and Disciplines
(1970-1995), Women's Health and Development: An
Annotated Bibliography
(1995), Women, Race, and Ethnicity: A Bibliography (1970- 1990), WAVE: Women's
Audiovisuals in English: A Guide to Nonprint
Resources in Women's Studies (1985-1990).
The Contemporary Women's
Issues database provides full-text access to global information on women.
Journals, newsletters, and research reports from non-profit groups, government
and international agencies are easily accessed through CWI. Information on
women in over 190 countries is compiled in a single
collection bringing
together such disciplines as sociology, psychology, health, education, business
administration and political science. Coverage: 1992-present
.
Contains the full text of
publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of
subject areas from the 1970's to the present.
Provides in-depth coverage of subjects that are uniquely central to
women's lives.
CHID: Combined Health Information
Database.
An index to health
information and health education resources produced by health-related agencies
of the federal government. Coverage is 1985 to the present.
National Library of
Medicine Population Information
Provides worldwide
coverage of population, family planning, and related health issues, including
family planning technology and programs, fertility, and population law and
policy from 1970 to the present with selected citations dating back to 1886. In
addition, POPLINE focuses on particular developing-country issues including
demography, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, maternal and child
health, primary health care communication, and population and environment.
POPLINE :
Your connection to the world's reproductive health literature
Citations from 1970 to
the present on population, family planning, and related health issues.
This search system
provides access to the PubMed database of
bibliographic information, which is drawn primarily from MEDLINE, which indexes
articles from about 3,900 journals covering the fields of medicine, nursing,
dentistry, veterinary medicine, and the preclinical sciences, dating from 1966
to the present.
The Sociological
Abstracts database contains citations for articles from over 2,600 journals,
books, conference papers, and dissertations in the sociology and related
disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Journal articles after 1974
contain abstracts. Also includes Social Planning/Policy and
Development Abstracts
(SOPODA) as a sub-file, providing additional literature on policy issues topics
ranging from violence to aging to disaster preparedness.
Both an index and
abstracting database as well as a source for full-text on the web. You can
limit retrieval to full-text.
Access from either the
UCLA Homepage E-Resources site (use dropdown menu; click on Women’s Studies and
then on either Electronic Journal Collections or Electronic Journals) or search
by title in the UCLA Library Catalog.
Includes many full-text
journals; click on pdf file for full-text online
or UC-elinks
to connect either to electronic version held by UC or to find out whether
UC/UCLA subscribes to the journal in which the article appears.
Online access to full back-runs
of academic journals across the disciplines. Includes:
Feminist Studies
1972-1997
Signs 1975-2002
Gender and Society
1987-2001
Journal of Health and Social Behavior
1967-2002
Sociological
Methodology 1969-2002
Full text of current
issues (from about 1990) of scholarly journals published by university presses,
chiefly in the arts, humanities and social sciences, includes
differences:
A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (fall 1998-2004; archive only)
Frontiers: A Journal of
Women Studies (2001-)
GLQ: A Journal of
Lesbian and Gay Studies (n.3, 1999;2000-)
Journal of Healthcare
for the Poor and Underserved (2004-)
Journal of Healthcare
Politics and the Law (Aug.-Oct. 1999;2000-Dec. 2004;
archive only)
Journal of the History of Sexuality (2001-)
Full-text articles from
the Nation beginning in 1865. Quite a good resource for current
views/debates on major domestic issues, with a particular interest in
healthcare issues.
Institute for Women's Policy Research
(IWPR)
IWPR focuses on issues of
poverty and welfare, employment and earnings, work and family issues, the
economic and social aspects of health care and domestic violence, and women’s
civic and political participation. Site includes links to many web resources
useful in research.
Women's Studies /
Women's Issues Resource Sites
Women's Studies / Women's
Issues Resource Sites is a selective, annotated, highly acclaimed listing of
web sites containing resources and information about women's studies / women's
issues, with an emphasis on sites of particular use to an academic women's
studies program. If you're looking for sites on a specific
women-focused topic, you may prefer to use the following subject
sections rather than scroll through the all-inclusive alphabetical listing (the
"last updated" sections are marked )