Social Work: A Guide to Library Research

1923-present. Each single-themed, 12,000-word report is researched and written by a seasoned journalist, and contains an introductory overview; background and chronology on the topic; an assessment of the current situation; tables and maps; pro & con statements from representatives of opposing positions; and bibliographies of key sources.

Covers 1995-present. A Read Aloud button is available for text-to-speech for much of the content.

Covers contemporary social issues, from Offshore Drilling to Climate Change, Health Care to Immigration. Helps students research, analyze and organize a broad variety of data for conducting research, completing writing assignments, preparing for debates, creating presentations, and more. This resource helps students explore issues from all perspectives, and includes: pro/con viewpoint essays, topic overviews, primary source documents, biographies of social activists and reformers, court-case overviews, periodical articles, statistical tables, charts and graphs, images and a link to Google Image Search, podcasts (including weekly presidential addresses and premier NPR programs), and a national and state curriculum standards search correlated to the content that allows educators to quickly identify material by grade and discipline.

Keyword(s): United States

Includes quick links to:

• Budget of the U.S. Government  
• Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR) | (annual)  
• Congressional Bills, Committee Prints, Hearings, Reports  
• Congressional Directory  
• Congressional Record  
• Constitution Annotated  
• Economic Indicators  
• Federal Register  
• Public and Private Laws  
• United States Code  
• United States Courts Opinions  

Policy Commons links to more than 2.8 million+ policy reports, briefs, analyses, and datasets from 21,000 IGOs, NGOs, think tanks, and global research organizations. Content is harvested and indexed comprehensively on trending research topics across various disciplines—public policy, urban affairs, agricultural & environmental sciences, economics, social justice, gender equality, international development, sustainability, public health, law policy, and more. 

As a preservation project, Policy Commons serves as a growing repository that includes member-contributed items, hard-to-find local and regional collections, at-risk content, and the document histories of 450 organizations that have closed their doors. Much of Policy Commons is open access. The Thompson Library has rights to the rescued collection, harvested content, and premium content including documents of the Council of Europe, African Books Collective, and books of the Environmental Law Institute.

Offers full-text coverage of information relevant to many areas integral to health policy, including: access, administration, economics, planning, reform, insurance, law, research, ethics, public health, and social medicine. The database features coverage of more than 300 full-text titles and indexing for more than 375 publications. Searchable cited references are also provided.

Creating a personal account is optional. For papers not publicly available in this repository, please search Primo VE, or consult a librarian for assistance.