[HLS] Future of the Family: Adoption, Reproduction and Child Welfare

This guide is designed to pull together sources that are useful for writing papers in the class Future of the Family: Adoption, Reproduction and Child Welfare.  The paper topics for this class are often very interdisciplinary in nature.  You might want to start with a book for background reading and to contextualize your topic.   This section highlights some books in our collection on a variety of topics, but you could also search Hollis.  For articles, you might want to start with some general interdisciplinary sources listed to left (e.g. Google Scholar) but then move to databases more specific to your discipline, such as the ones listed on this tab. 

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The following books are some recent books on more narrow topics.  Make sure you check the Hollis record before going to the shelf in case it has been checked out.

Depending on your topic, you might want to check out regional studies and regional news databases.  See research guides or Find Databases and E-Resources and Helpful HLSL E-Resources.

Sometimes the best way, or fastest way, to an answer is by calling or emailing someone to ask a question, rather than searching for hours on the web or in databases. Think of individuals or organizations who might be interested and/or knowledgeable about your topic. If you need help finding either, contact the reference desk at 617-495-4516.

If so, think of limiting factors such as:

• Geographical Units (i.e. Country Names, Regional Parts of the World, i.e. Latin America)
• Time Periods (i.e. 19th century, 20th century)
• History

Some databases, although not all, have a field called the Abstract or Summary, which is generally about 1-2 paragraphs, describing the contents of the article.  If you have a hard time determining the subject terms that are best for you paper, and keyword searching just returns way too many results, try looking to see if the database includes an Abstract field. Oftentimes, these abstracts are provided by the author. If you start to find your search terms popping up in abstracts, then you really might be on the same wavelength as the author.

Add "site:.org" to search. ("site:.edu" for educational institutions)

Think about country/jurisdiction and who might keep or be interested in such statistics.  News searching may also be useful in identifying statistics. 

News sources are also useful for identifying polling data.

Many of our online databases have alerting features so you can save a search and be alerted for future results.

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HLS students are entitled to receive special research instruction. 

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Note:  There is not always a librarian to answer your question, but you will receive help within 24 hours if you leave an email address.

Email Michelle Pearse at mpearse@law.harvard.edu. You can also request an appointment for a one-on-one research consultation in general via this form.

Visit the reference desk on the 4th floor of the library.

Call the reference desk at 617-495-4516.