Whatever aspects of Social Work you're studying, the library has books, journals and databases to suit your needs.

Welcome to our guide to library resources for Social Work students. As the Learning and Research Librarians for Medicine, Health and Social Care, we are here to support you in your learning and assignments.

Kate Davies and Michelle Crowther, Learning & Research Librarians for Medicine, Health and Social Care

Library Search lets you search all library resources, including books, e-books, journals, journal articles and more, in one quick and easy search. You can access Library Search from links on the portal or from the Library and Learning Resources web page. Many of the resources available via Library Search are not freely available on the web so if you search for information using only Google you will miss lots of quality resources. Make sure you search Library Search and Google Scholar for your assignment topics.

Use Library Search to find printed books and e-books. Additionally, try browsing the core social work book collection by looking at the shelves for classmark 361 onwards.

If you can’t get to the library, you can access the university’s e-resources via your wifi.  The library has hundreds of relevant e-books which you can access by logging into your account on Library Search. Simply limit your results in the left-hand pane of the search screen to e-books and click on the link to CCCU e-book to download or read online. You’ll find we have some amazing titles such as Georgina Koubel’s Social Work with adults students and Judith Milner’s Assessment in Social Work.

In addition to our academic textbooks, you may wish to explore the Experts by Experience (EbE) and the Professional Reflection collection of e-books and e-audiobooks. The Experts by Experience collection includes texts written by patients/clients/carers which shed light on their illness/condition/situation from their own perspective. The Professional Reflection collection includes texts by healthcare professions which reflect on life in the sector. Visit the Learning Skills Hub module on EbE to explore the collection further and see how to access the texts on the Libby app.

Journals provide an important source of information in addition to books as they publish articles on specific topics and often present and discuss results of research or case-studies. Depending on availability, you can access printed journals in the library (in Augustine House they are located on the second floor in the silent zone) and electronic versions via LibrarySearch.

You may see journal articles on your reading list – below is an example of a reference to a journal article:

Kaplan, D. and Berkman, B. (2011) ‘Dementia care: a global concern and social work challenge’, International Social Work, 54 (3), pp.361-373.

The above example shows that the article ‘Dementia care: a global concern and social work challenge’ was published in the International Social Work. This is one of the journal titles that will be useful for you, others available via LibrarySearch include:

  • British Journal of Social Work
  • Child and Family Social Work
  • Journal of Adult Protection

To make sure you are a carrying out a thorough search for your topic you should also try any/all of the following key, specialised databases. To access them use the Find Databases link on the LibrarySearch home page, find them in the A-Z list and click on the link.

ASSIA – ASSIA stands for Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts. It covers health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. It’s very good for social care topics.

Child Development and Adolescent Studies – Information about the growth and development of children up to the age of 21.

LexisLibrary and/or Westlaw – law databases

PsycINFO – Pyschological, social, behavioural and health health sciences journals. Very useful for mental health topics.

Psychotherapy.net – offers access to training videos in the fields of Psychotherapy, Counselling and Social Work. 100 titles from the psychotherapy and counselling video collection plus 41 titles focussing on social work.

SCOPUS - Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database containing both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources. With over 22,000 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers, Scopus offers researchers a quick, easy and comprehensive resource to support their research needs in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities.

Social Policy and Practice – Social Policy and Practice represents an important source of evidence-based social science research. Coverage includes topics such as social care, homelessness and older people. The database comprises over 320,000 bibliographic records, with a significant number citing important sources such as semi-published reports, surveys and statistics.

Social Work Toolkit – The Social Work Toolkit is an online resource which brings together a wealth of content designed to help social work students develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to succeed on their course and placements.

TRIP Database - Trip is a clinical search engine designed to allow users to quickly and easily find and use high-quality research evidence to support their practice and/or care.

Also available in LibrarySearch is Lexis+ Newspapers UK and the Oxford English Dictionary View the help guides for key LibrarySearch databases.

Please note you will be able to access the full text of many of the articles you find when searching the databases but will not be able to read the full text of all the results you find.

You could also try databases that are freely available on the web:

Gov.uk – use this site to find publications, consultation, policy, guidance and statistics from the Department of Health. Choose Department of Health from the drop-down menu on the left-hand side of the page.

 

Health Librarians
Learning and Research Librarians