Starting Points for Research in Women's Studies

Reference Materials
Items found in the Library's reference department can provide useful introductions to subject areas and offer
         selective bibliographic leads. Consult the following for background information on Women’s Studies
         related topics:

• Beaulieu, Elizabeth Ann. Writing African American women : an encyclopedia of literature by and
  about women of color. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006. [REF] PS153.N5 W756 2006
• Boynton, Victoria, and Jo Malin. Encyclopedia of women's autobiography. Westport, Conn.:
  Greenwood Press, 2005.  [REF] HQ1185 E 63 2005
• Heywood, Leslie. The women's movement today : an encyclopedia of third-wave feminism.
  Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006. [REF] HQ1115 .W644 2006 
• Joseph, Suad, and Afsaneh Najmabadi. Encyclopedia of women & Islamic cultures. Leiden ;
   Boston, Mass.: Brill, 2003. [REF] HQ1170 .E53 2003
• Shavarini, Mitra K., and Wendy R. Robison. Women and education in Iran and Afghanistan :
  an annotated bibliography of sources in English, 1975-2003. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press,
  2005.  [REF] LC2377 .S52 2005 

Monographic Sources

• The Libraries' book collection includes works that offer comprehensive treatments of Women’s Studies issues.
  Use Pilot  our online catalog to find books in our collection as well as links to the full-text of electronic reserve
   items and other valuable information on the Internet.

•  To search the catalogs of other Pennsylvania Libraries, and to borrow from them directly, choose  PALCI  from
  our web page. (To borrow items, log in using your 16-digit I-card number.)  

• World Cat--search the OCLC Database of paper and electronic titles. For items not owned by our library, use ILLIAD
  to borrow them from other libraries.

• Digital Dissertations -- Dissertation Abstracts and full text for all digital dissertations from 1997 to present. The
  database includes bibliographic citations for materials ranging from the first U.S. dissertation, accepted in 1861,
  to those accepted as recently as last semester.

Online books

• Netlibrary  -- collection of electronic monographs.
•   University of Pennsylvania On-Line Books Page -- online book collection.    
•  Internet Public Library  On-line Texts Collection  -- online book collection.  
• Google Book Search  -- includes scans of some complete books but a "searches for
   scholarly materials such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts
  and technical reports from broad areas of research. Google Scholar searches a variety of
  undisclosed academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities,
  as well as scholarly articles available across the web. The full text of many items is freely
  available online, although in some instances abstracts with links to pay-per-view document
  delivery services are displayed"

General Online Sources of Full-text Scholarly Journals and Magazines
Scholarly journals offer the most specific and current treatment of historic topics.  IUP patrons can
access large collections of such information through the following services. (To access these databases
from off-campus, use your 16 digit I-card number.) To if we have access to the full-text of an journal
electronically, do a journal title search in Pilot .

•   Ebsco Host--access to the full-text of over one thousand periodicals and newspapers, the
  bibliographic references to thousands more, and links to Internet sites and information on local
  holdings of periodicals.
• Infotrac-- access to the full-text of over one thousand periodicals and bibliographic access to
  thousands more.
•  Project MUSE -- provides more than 100 full-text online scholarly journals from academic presses
  covering the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies,
  education, political science, gender studies, and many others.
• JSTOR -- Online archives of over 125 journals in African-American Studies, Anthropology,
  Asian Studies, Ecology, Economics, Education, Finance, History, Literature, Mathematics, Philosophy,
  Political Science, Population Studies, Sociology, and Statistics. JSTOR is designed specifically for
  archiving journals, so it does not include the most recent 2-5 years of each title.
• Duke E-Journals  ON-CAMPUS ONLY or VPN -- includes online access to twenty-nine Duke humanities
  and social science journals

Specialized Electronic Indexes and Collections

• Women and Social Movements ON-CAMPUS ONLY or VPN --organized around the history of
  women in social movements in the U.S. between 1700 and 2000, the website seeks to advance
  scholarly debates and understanding at the same time that it makes the insights of women's history
  accessible to teachers and students at universities, colleges, and high schools.
   
•  Womens Studies International --Women’s Studies International, covers the core disciplines in
  Women’s Studies to the latest scholarship in feminist research. Coverage includes more than 548,220
  records and spans from 1972 and earlier to present. This database supports curriculum development
  in the areas of sociology, history, political science & economy, public policy, international relations,
  arts & humanities, business and education. Over 2,000 periodical sources are represented.
• Women's Studies resources are also found in databases and indexes that specialize in other disciplines. You will
   find many useful databases from our web page Articles and More/All Databases (Alphabetical) .

FILMS

• Listing of films from IUP Libraries collection relating to women's history, experience, sexuality, and family life.

Internet           

•   Women and Gender Studies Web Sites

•    Feminst Film Reviews

•    NWSA Guide to Graduate Work in Women's / Gender Studies

•   Google Scholar

Citing What You Have Found