LibGuides: WGS 210: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies: Doing Research in Women's and Gender Studies

Resources for exploring topics and background information

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Description: Gale EBOOKS is a collection of searchable subject encyclopedias and reference books from Gale Publishing and many other publishers.
Time Period: Current
Sources: Searches across nearly 500 reference sources.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Law, Philosophy & Religion, Science, Social Sciences, Technology (Reference books)
Primary Materials: Reference Resources

Daily Life of Women: An Encyclopedia from Ancient Times to the Present
This reference book provides an overview of the daily life of women through history, and a timeline highlights key events in women's history. It draws upon a wide array of cultural settings and time periods in which women displayed agency by carrying out their daily economic, familial, artistic, and religious obligations.
Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World
Looks at women today and delves into contexts of being female in the 21st century. Focuses on women's status starting approximately in the year 2000 and going forward and covers the spectrum of defining women in the contemporary world.

Databases for finding articles

Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Sociological Abstracts provides access to U.S. and international literature on sociology and related disciplines and may be useful for research in social work and women and gender studies.
International in scope.
Description: Sociological Abstracts provides access to U.S. and international literature on sociology and related disciplines and may be useful for research in social work and women and gender studies.
Time Period: 1952 to present
Sources: Indexes more than 1,800 journals.
Subject Headings: Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Social Sciences (Sociology)
Primary Materials: Journal Articles, Dissertations and Theses, Books, Conference Papers
APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
Description: PsycInfo is a key database in the field of psychology. Includes information of use to psychologists, students, and professionals in related fields such as psychiatry, management, business, and education, social science, neuroscience, law, medicine, and social work.
Time Period: 1887 to present
Sources: Indexes more than 2,500 journals.
Subject Headings: Education, Mobile, Psychology, Social Sciences (Psychology)
Scholarly or Popular: Scholarly
Information Included: Abstracts, Citations, Linked Full Text
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Description: Good database for most research topics and contains lots of full text and peer reviewed articles.
Time Period: 1909 to present
Sources: Indexes nearly 20,000 Academic and peer reviewed journals and magazines and provides full text for more than 5,700.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Business, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Law, Music, News, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science, Social Sciences, Technology
Primary Materials: Abstracts, Case Studies, Citations, Conference Papers, Images, Journal Articles, Magazine Articles, News, Other, Reviews

Wondering how to find the full text of an article? Find it @ Ball State can help out. Here's more information about it.

Databases for locating primary sources

Women's History Resources in Ball State Archives and Special Collections
Explore women's issues close to home!

During the late 19th and 20th centuries, millions of American women of all classes, races, and ethnic backgrounds created and joined a wide variety of women’s organizations. Like-minded clubs created federations on the local, state, and national levels. The women of Muncie and Delaware County were active participants in that development, beginning with the organization of the Woman’s Club of Muncie in 1876. They created dozens of women’s organizations of all kinds.

Gender: Identity and Social Change This link opens in a new window
Description: According to the publisher Gender: Identity and Social Change provides access to primary resource materials "for the study of gender history, women’s suffrage, the feminist movement and the men’s movement." Materials reveal gender roles and relations during the 19th and 20th centuries. Some subjects included are women's suffrage, feminism, the body, sex and sexuality, domesticity and the family, employment and labor.
Time Period: 19th to 21st centuries
Sources: Approximately 2,800 documents.
Subject Headings: History, Social Sciences, Political Science, Gender Studies
Primary Materials: Archival Materials, Periodicals, Newsletters, Correspondence, Pamphlets
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 (scholar's edition) This link opens in a new window
Description: Women and Social Movements in the United States provides access to an online journal of the same name, a chronology of U.S. women's history, more than historical 4,000 documents, a dictionary of social movements, and book and website reviews. Documents include 90,000 pages of federal, state, and local publications on the status of women between 1961 and 2005. Other documents are articles, editorials, book chapters, speeches, biographical portraits, proceedings, ephemera, photographs, charts, and tables.
Time Period: 1600 to 2000
Sources: Contains the full text of more than 4,350 documents.
Subject Headings: History, Social Sciences
Primary Materials: Archival Material, Journal Articles

OneSearch: For finding books

OneSearch This link opens in a new window
OneSearch is a tool that cross searches much of the content our databases and other online sources. You can search across many collections in one search box simplifying the resource discovery process.
To limit to just books, look under "Refine your search" for the "Physical Books in Library Catalog" limiter.
Description: OneSearch is a tool that cross searches much of the content our databases and other online sources. You can search across many collections in one search box simplifying the resource discovery process.
Time Period: 1600 to Present
Sources:
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Business, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Music, News, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science, Social Sciences, Technology
Primary Materials: Abstracts, Citations, Government Documents, Journal Articles, Books

Database for finding documentaries

Kanopy Streaming Films This link opens in a new window
Description: Kanopy is a film database containing more than 30,000 films from more than 1,000 producers. It includes the Criterion Collection, Media Education Foundation, The Great Courses, News Day Films and more.

Note: Creating a profile allows you to access your Dashboard, where you can create and share a watch list. Here's how you do it, see Creating a Kanopy account near the bottom of the page. Also, Kanopy blocks video viewing on mobile devices in the device's native browser.
Time Period:
Sources: Select from more than 30,000 films.
Subject Headings: Art & Architecture, Business, Education, English & Linguistics, General, Health, History, Humanities, Music, Philosophy & Religion, Psychology, Science, Social Sciences, Technology
Primary Materials: Videos

Find It @ Ball State: Helping you find the full text of the title you want

What's "Find It"?

When you' button with this text: "Find It @ Ball State" re using a database, and can't find a link to the full text of an article, look for a Find It @ Ball State button, sometimes under "Access Options."

Find It helps you to search the Libraries' other databases and subscriptions to see if the full text is available through another resource.

If it is available, Find It provides a link to the text of the article.
If it cannot find the full-text, Find It provides a link to Interlibrary Loan so that you can request that we get a copy of the article from another library.

To use Find It, click on the red Find It @ Ball State button. (Sometimes you must click on "Access Options" to see "Find it @ Ball State.")

If we DO have full text access to the article, a page will be displayed with options for access under "Full Text Format Options." The typical options are:

PDF: the file format reflecting the formatting for a printed page
Link: taking you to the webpage version of the article

red arrow pointing to area with Full Text Format Options

If we do NOT have immediate full text access to the article, the OneSearch record for the article will be displayed.

Look under "Links" for "Request this item with InterLibrary Loan / ILLiad."
Click there, and log in with your Ball State username and password.
More information about placing an Interlibrary Loan request.

Links "Request the item with Interlibrary Loan / ILLiad"