Use this guide to quickly find reputable sources and save time on your research! Contact your subject librarian or the reference librarians if you need more help. For an overview of how to research efficiently, see Steps of the Research Process.
Sociology
New in This Guide
Finding Materials in the Library
Search CityCat to find books, e-books, disks and more. There are many ways to search, such as Title, Author and Keyword.
Books in the library are organized by call number according to the Library of Congress classification system which groups items by subject, so you can often simply browse the shelves. Here are some relevant subjects and their call numbers:
General Sociology HM
Social History, Problems, & Reform HN
Family, Marriage, Women HQ
Societies and Clubs HS
Cities, Communities, Races HT
Social Service, Welfare, Criminology HV
Socialism, Communism, Utopias, Anarchism HX
Reference Sources
Reference books are great for short overviews and background information. There are also reference resources in our database section.
Use databases for specialized and the most up-to-date information, especially academic (scholarly) sources that are not available for free on the Web. See the Articles & Databases page for a full list of databases available.
Web Sites
Use Web sites for government information, statistics, and current events. It's very important to carefully evaluate Web sites for accuracy, currency, bias and credibility.
