Sociology: A Guide to Research Resources

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and Guides in Sociology and the Social Sciences

• International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences provides authoritative, foundational, interdisciplinary knowledge across the wide range of the behavioral and social sciences fields.
• Oxford Bibliographies Online is a series of selective, discipline-focused, online guides to the essential literature in a subject.
• Oxford Handbooks Online is a series offering introductions to topics and critical surveys of the current state of scholarship in a discipline.

This is a selective list of databases relevant to Sociology research. You can find these and additional electronic resources on the Databases page of the Library website.

• Sociology Database provides access to the international literature in Sociology.
• ERIC  is an online library of education research and information, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.
• Race Relations Abstracts is an essential resource for ethnic and racial studies.
• Women's Studies International is a database for women’s studies and feminist research.
• Econlit is a reliable source of economic research citations and abstracts from the American Economic Association.
• America History & Life is the primary bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.

• Web of Science indexes core journal articles in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. A key feature of the database is citation searching which enables you to find who has cited an article since it was published.
• Google Scholar enables you to search for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, etc. Google Scholar also provides information on who has cited an item since it was published.
• Social Science Premium is an index and full text database in the social sciences, including politics, sociology, and education.

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United States

• Statistical Abstract of the United States - The "National Data Book" contains statistics on social and economic conditions in the U. S. There is also a section on Comparative International Statistics, including information on finance, agriculture, and population.
• Fedstats - A gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies. Data includes economic, healthcare, education, and crime.
• Proquest Statistical Insight - Statistical tables from selected Federal, state and international inter-governmental publications as well as business and association publications.

International

• International Historical Statistics Series / B.R. Mitchell; Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York, N.Y. : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
• Africa, Asia & Oceania, 1750-2005
• Europe, 1750-2005
• the Americas, 1750-2005
• Proquest Statistical Insight  - Statistical tables from selected Federal, state and international inter-governmental publications as well as business and association publications.
• UN Data - from the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Topics include agriculture, education, employment, energy, environment, industry, national accounts, population, trade and tourism.
• World Development Indicators/WDI Online - Contains statistical data for over 1,100 development indicators and time series data from 1960 for over 200 countries. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources, and environmental indicators.

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• For materials not available at Harvard,
  • Borrow Direct - If the book is available from this network, you should receive it within 4 days. 
  • Interlibrary Loan (ILL) - For items not available through Borrow Direct.
• Research Management and Citation Tools - collect citations and organize your sources, notes and pdfs in one place. The Library offers classes to get you started.
• Harvard Library Research Guides - handy guides to subjects, tools, and services compiled by Harvard Librarians.