Starting
What information do you need?
- Find Data - Research Data ServicesOur main site lists data organized by topic. This is a listing of our core collections, either publicly available or licensed through UVA Library.
- Newspapers & Other News MediaNews resources available at UVA covering current to history for local, state, national, international news outlets.
- Research Guides by FormatGuides for format-specific resources
Background
Background
You may need general information about a topic for a variety of reasons - you're starting your research, you need to know more about a topic that you don't know a whole lot about right now, or you could be looking for sources to use to lay out the basics for your reader.
Below are a variety of resources that the library offers that could help you get started with background information.
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new windowIn depth reports on selected issues in the news with lists of recommended books and articles.
- CRCnetBase This link opens in a new windowSearchable full-text of hundreds of reference handbooks in engineering, chemistry, biology, medicine, technology and the environment.
- EBook Central This link opens in a new windowOver 140,000 recent e-books from university presses and other scholarly publishers. Individual titles are listed in Virgo.
Includes Every Voice: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion collection. - Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics This link opens in a new windowThe articles consider both the professional ethics of science and technology and the ethical and political issues raised by science and technology in an increasingly complex and global society.
- Oxford Handbooks Online This link opens in a new windowOxford Handbooks Online brings together leading scholars to discuss research and the latest thinking on a range of major topics. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship in a particular field of study, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research. The articles review the key issues and major debates, and provide an original argument for how those debates might evolve. UVa has access to all subjects.
- Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new windowA large collection of basic information on many subjects drawn from reference books published by Oxford University Press.
- SAGE Knowledge Books & Reference Collection This link opens in a new windowSAGE Knowledge includes an expansive range of SAGE eBook and eReference content- including scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, series, professional development titles, business case studies, and streaming video.
- Social Science and Humanities Library This link opens in a new windowThe Social Science & Humanities Library provides online access to a broad range of journal content across 14 disciplines related to social sciences and humanities, including media and communication studies, library and information science, security and defense studies, business, management and economics, and education. Includes many journals published on behalf of associations, organizations, and societies related to these disciplines.
- Statistical Abstract of the United States This link opens in a new windowThe Statistical Abstract of the United States is a one-volume, comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Use the Abstract as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a guide to sources of more information both in print and on the Web.
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences by ISBN: 9780080970875Publication Date: 2015-02-17"Fully revised and updated, the second edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, first published in 2001, offers a source of social and behavioral sciences reference material that is broader and deeper than any other."
This title has an entire section on STS and includes chapters on topics like Citizen Science, Indigenous Knowledge, Technological Determinism,
Actor-Network Theory, Theory of Innovation and more! Each chapter offers an overview of the topic with a host of resources that can help find additional materials.
Exhibit (Evidence)
Evidence
Oftentimes in your research, you want to go to the source and find specific cases or examples of your topic.They're unique because they offer a viewpoint of a specific time period or point in time. Most importantly, these materials don't include evaluation or interpretation.
These are a variety of materials that include:
- Diaries
- Photographs
- Video footage
- Plays
- Novels
- Clothing
- Buildings
- Lab Notes
- Interviews
- Dissertations
- Patents
- Technical Reports
- Conference Papers
- Journal Article reporting a new study
- Journal Article reporting the methodology and research
- Artemis Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowAllows simultaneous searching of 4 primary source databases: 18th Century Collections Online, 19thCentury Collections Online, The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926, and Sabin Americana.
- GQuery This link opens in a new windowGQuery is NCBI’s primary text search and retrieval system that integrates the PubMed database of biomedical literature with 39 other literature and molecular databases including DNA and protein sequence, structure, gene, genome, genetic variation and gene expression.
- International Historical Statistics, 1750-2010 This link opens in a new windowUnique collection of statistics covering a wide range of socio-economic topics. IHS is a collection of data sets taken from hundreds of disparate primary sources, including both official national and international abstracts. Content is divided into three geographical areas: (1) Africa, Asia, Oceania, (2) Americas, and (3) Europe. Tables can be downloaded in Excel format.
- Polling the Nations This link opens in a new windowText of and responses to over 35,000 survey questions from over 14,000 polls taken in the US and 80 other countries since 1986.
- Social Explorer This link opens in a new windowInteractive Maps and Reports provide easy access to demographic information about the United States. Data comes from the Census beginning in 1790 and from the Religious Congregations and Membership Study beginning in 1980. Also has crime and health data.
- US History in Context This link opens in a new windowPrimary documents, secondary reference sources (Scribner's Dictionary of American History and the Dictionary of American Biography, etc.), and journal articles covering all areas of U.S. history from pre-colonial times to the present day.
- Women and Social Movements This link opens in a new windowWomen and Social Movements in the United States is a resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000, this collection includes 108 document projects and archives with almost 4,300 documents and more than 150,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by more than 2,200 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools.
- Special CollectionsA Virgo search for all items avaiable in Special Collections. These items include a variety of primary resources that may be of interest to your project.
- Gallup Analytics This link opens in a new windowGallup Analytics is an online platform that provides subscribers with access to nearly a century of U.S. data and a decade of global tracking data known as the Gallup World Poll.
Argument
Argument
These types of information are where you get into what scholars and experts in the field are concerned about and actively discussing. Don't be surprised if you find far more than you'd expect! Scholars are interested in everything so you'll find articles on topics from health care to Beyonce to social robots to comic books.
This is the point where you'll have to consider which discipline of scholars would be interested in answering the questions you have, and look in those related databases. Below is a link to the Subject Guides, and a few general databases to get you started!
- Subject GuidesMeet the subject liaisons and discover the best subject-specific resources.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowLarge general database of articles from scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers on many topics. Also includes reference books (World Almanac, American Heritage Dictionary), biographies, speeches, images, and other primary source documents.
- Web of Knowledge/Web of Science This link opens in a new windowIncludes Science Citation Index (1970-), Social Sciences Citation Index (1981-), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1981-), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present). Daily updates make it a good source for very recent information. Citations include number of times the article has been cited.
- Compendex (Ei Compendex*Plus) This link opens in a new windowA large interdisciplinary engineering database listing journal articles, technical reports and conferences. Includes book reviews.
Method
Method
Resources for the method will introduce you to ways of analyzing your topic and your overall research. For these resources, you can often look at similar studies or research that is on the same topic that you're interested in to see how other scholars structured their work. Your STS professor is also going to be a great resource for this type of information.
- SAGE Research Methods Online This link opens in a new windowSAGE Research Methods is a methods library with more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher.
- Routledge Handbooks Online This link opens in a new windowRoutledge Handbooks Online brings together leading scholars to provide a cutting-edge overview of classic and current research and future trends in the Social Sciences and Humanities, while at the same time providing an authoritative guide to theory and method, the key sub-disciplines, and the primary debates of today. The Library only subscribes to the Education titles
- Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics This link opens in a new windowThe articles consider both the professional ethics of science and technology and the ethical and political issues raised by science and technology in an increasingly complex and global society.