SWK 440: Social Welfare Policy & Issues - Spring 2013

Choose Your Policy

• CQ Researcher - topical articles on policy issues

• Encyclopedia of Social Work

• Maine State Agencies

• Maine Newsstand - full-text access to some Maine newspapers

---

Finding the Specific Policy You Need

Once you know your policy topic, what kind of policy is it: is it a law? a court case? a regulation?  Then you need to know what body formulated the policy: U.S.Congress? Maine District Court? U.S. Department of Health and Human Services?

Once you have these answers, then you can choose a search tool:

ProQuest Congressional - Access to federal bills, laws, hearings, reports

LexisNexis Academic>US Legal>- for federal & state court cases, and state statures & regulations

 United States Law Guide

Maine Law Guide

---

Finding Background on Policy

The above refers to ways to find the actual policy - the primary source.  For interpretation of the policy, historical background, and implementation effects, you need to find secondary sources of information.  These can include books, Reference materials, news items, magazine articles, scholarly journal articles, and law review articles.

URSUS - for books and Reference materials

PAIS - an index to many kinds of policy-related materials

Social Services Abstracts - an index to articles in some Social Work journals, as well as related fields

 

Other possible sources:

Social Work Abstracts - indexes most of the journals in the field (limited to four users at once)

Academic Search Complete - a general, full-text index to magazines & journals

Lexis Nexis Academic>News - full-text newspapers
Also, the US Legal section includes law reviews; Finding Policy guide

Google Scholar - This web search engine does include many full text scholarly articles, but it is generally not as up to date, nor as comprehensive, as the above databases, and not everything is fulltext.  Using this link pulls up more full text, through Fogler Library's subscriptions.

Request (click for a demo) allows you to order books from other Maine libraries

Article Linker allows you to automatically check URSUS for electronic and/or print subscriptions in Academic Search, Social Services Abstracts, & PAIS International

Interlibrary Loan - use for journal articles we do not have access to

---

Citing Sources

It is very important to cite words and/or ideas you take straight from another work and put into your paper.  For information on APA and Legal styles you may consult the print guides at the Reference Desk, or  Citation Help for APA guidance, and Basic Legal Citation for legal sources.

---

Still Unsure...?

There are lots of ways to get help.  First, try the Help Desk - you can come in, call us at 581-1673, or use the Ask-a-Librarian chat or email service.

Nancy Lewis is the Social Work Librarian; you can send her an email on FirstClass (nancy.lewis@umit.maine.edu) or call her at 581-3613 to set up an appointment.

---

Created by: Nancy.Lewis@umit.maine.edu | Revised: 01/18/2013