- Home
- News
- Resources
- Subject Guides
- E-books
- E-journals
- New Acquisitions
- Journals
- EIB Collection
- Course Readings
- ORBilu - Open Access
- PhD Theses and Master Dissertations
- Register and borrow
- Your Visit
- Services
- Training / Book a Librarian
- Open Science
- Contact / Ask a Librarian
Social Sciences
The university library holds general reference works (encyclopaedias, dictionaries, handbooks, etc.), specialized publications on the Social Sciences subjects treated in the research and teaching departments. All documents and electronic resources can be found in the catalogue www.a-z.lu.
Examples:
|
|
Cultures of care in aging |
|
|
The SAGE handbook of applied social psychology
|
|
|
Communicating Europe: technologies, information, events
|
|
|
Renaissance responses to technological change |
|
|
Migrant resistance in contemporary Europe
|
You can get an overview of all new print acquisitions here.
Organization
Location
The Social sciences collections are available at the Luxembourg Learning Centre. Part of the holdings is in stacks and reservations are possible via the www.a-z.lu catalog (search by author, title, keyword).
Classification
The holdings of the library are arranged according to the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and organized according to content. The following DDC overview is an example of the main categories in the Social sciences:
300 Social sciences
301 Sociology, Anthropology
302 Social interaction
303 Social processes
304 Influences on social behavior
305 Social groups
306 Culture and institutions
307 Communities
308 [Unassigned]
309 [Unassigned]
310 Collections of general statistics
360 Social problems and social services; associations
361 Social problems and social welfare in general
362 Social welfare problems and services
363 Other social problems and services
364 Criminology
365 Penal and related institutions
Each medium belonging to the library holdings (books, journals, etc.) has a unique signature. The signature contains information, which allows library users to locate the medium within the library quickly.
Reference works
Furthermore, some reference works relevant to Social sciences are available at the Luxembourg Learning Centre:
Encyclopedias
Reference works which are available for free online can be of great use. The most popular free online encyclopedia is the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The University library has bought a license allowing free online access (Check under electronic resources).
| Ritzer, George. - Malden: Blackwell, 2007 |
Advanced :
| Baumeister, Roy. - Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2007 |
|
| Mizrahi, Terry. - Washington: NASW Press, 2008 |
|
| Caves Roger. - New York: Routledge, 2013 |
Dictionaries
Reference works in German:
| Kopp, Johannes. - Wiesbaden : VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010 |
|
| Fuchs-Heinritz, Werner. - Wiesbaden : VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011 |
Reference works in English:
| Turner, Bryan. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011 |
|
| Scott, John. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 |
Advanced:
| Vogt, Paul; Johnson, Burke. - Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2011 |
|
| Jupp, Victor. - Los Angeles: Sage, 2013 |
Reference works in French:
| Boudon, Raymond. - Presses universitaires de France, 2011 |
|
| Dortier, Jean-François. - Auxerre: Sciences Humaines Ed., 2008 |
Handbooks
| Bryant, Clifton. - Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2007 |
Advanced:
| Kennett, Patricia. - Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2013 |
|
| Hofferth, Sandra. - New York: Psychology Press, 2012 |
|
| Fiske, Susan. - Hoboken: Wiley, 2010 |
|
| Marschark, Marc; Spencer, Patricia. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 |
|
| Qvortrup, Jens; Corsaro, William; Honig, Michael-Sebastian. - Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 |
|
| Martin-Jones, Marilyn. - Abingdon: Routledge, 2012 |
Guides
| DeWalt, Kathleen; DeWalt, Billie - Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011 |
|
| Gottman, John; Roy, Anup. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008 |
Research methods
| Silverman, David. - London: Sage, 2013 |
|
| Bryman, Alan. - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012 |
|
| Walliman, Nicholas. - Los Angeles: Sage, 2012 |
Journals
Printed social sciences journals are available at Belval Campus.
The following core journals for Sociology at the Luxembourg Learning Centre:
- American journal of sociology
- British journal of sociology
- Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie
- Sociological Review
- Theory and society
Journals are available in the catalog under www.a-z.lu (search by title).
Articles, electronic journals, and databases
The following databases are accessible via the local library catalog www.a-z.lu. You receive information on how to access when you register at the University Library. (More info on training is available here).
A list of all available Social Sciences databases in the Luxembourg Digital Library is under find it. Lu (Search: Databases and categories).
Basic resources
An electronic library facilitates the search for available journals:
To fully enjoy the advantage of electronic journals - full-text access - we recommend the Electronic Journals Library Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek (EZB).
This reference database encompassing over 560 libraries worldwide contains more than 2,600 electronic journals in sociology with an emphasis on scientific journals. Apart from the title word search, you can search for journals in your subject area by keyword search in the advanced search. A traffic light system gives indications regarding full-text access (green for free access and red for no access via your library as a license is required).
Specialized databases
| SocINDEX with Full Text |
Bibliographical and full-text database on theory and applied sociology as well as related fields. Over 1. 6 million indexed records from ca. 4,000 journals. Sociological Abstracts: access via SocINDEX |
| Bibliographical database. Subject: sociology and related social sciences. Geography: worldwide coverage, ca. 55% English. A large percentage of references to literature published outside of the USA and GB. Timeframe: 1951 - present. Monthly updates. Features: own thesaurus. |
Further article databases
Multidisciplinary
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT): Theses from UK / USA
Citation databases
The Web of Science is a classic among citation databases with its SSCI: Social Sciences Citation Index (from 1956).
In the SSCI, which is significant for your research, the journals of a subject field are evaluated and presented in categories. (Gerontology, Social Work, Sociology, Urban Studies, etc.). The journals are mainly in English and measured against the citation rate.
The following resources may not be on a par with the Web of Science regarding quality, but they allow you to search for citations or list citations among the hits:
Scopus: Web of Science rival product.
Scopus is a multidisciplinary abstract and reference database for research literature and high-quality internet sources (peer-reviewed). It offers various tools to trace, analyze and visualize research information in social sciences.
Full-text access
Full-text databases and journal archives
| JSTOR is an interdisciplinary journal archive presenting over 1,400 journals, starting from the first year of publication. The most recent years of advertisements are subject to a moving wall in JSTOR, meaning that they are not openly accessible. Disciplines present the archive. Relevant subject areas are Sociology and Statistics. |
|
| Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
|
The DOAJ directory of journals gives you full-text access to 74,000 journals. There are around 400 Open Access Publications in the field of Social Sciences. |
To search and, if needed, gain free access to the most recent publications, the full-text databases of large publishers and information providers are available. The following online platforms are relevant for the Social Sciences:
- Cambridge Books Online (Cambridge University Press)
- De Gruyter Online (De Gruyter)
- Ingentaconnect (Publishing Technology)
- SpringerLink (Springer)
- Wiley Online Library (John Wiley & Sons).
Information resources: International organizations
The OECD and its library can be considered a leading example in the area of electronic information supply. Nearly 8,000 e-books, 480 databases with the statistical source material and thousands of works and research reports released by the OECD and its specialized agencies are in one place.
OECD iLibrary
In particular statistical information and country analyses in the areas of population, migration, etc. constitute impressive collections of resources for researchers.
Search in related disciplines
For interdisciplinary research, it is worth taking a broader view. The following examples are meaningful selection and complete the resources that are already known to you.
Psychology
| PSYNDEX is the most comprehensive abstract database of psychological literature, audiovisual media, intervention programs, and tests from the German-speaking countries. Created by the Leibniz-Zentrum für Psychologische Information und Dokumentation (ZPID), with around 200,000 references, reporting period for the recorded literature form 1977, weekly updates, search with the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms and Classification Codes (analog to PsycINFO) incl. Translation into German of keywords and classification are available. |
|
| PsycINFO: campus-wide access |
Reference database in English with abstracts from the field of psychology and related fields. Produced by the American Psychological Association (APA), around 3.2 million data records (80% journal articles, 51 million cited references), reporting period from 1806, weekly updates, search with the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms and Classification Codes. |
Education
| ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) |
Reference database in English with abstracts from all areas of education and psychology financed by the U.S. Department of Education containing around 1.4 million records (including 915,000 journal articles and more than 340,000 full-text records), reporting period from 1966, weekly updates, search with the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors. |
| FIS Bildung Literaturdatenbank (via Fachportal Pädagogik) |
Open online access, bibliographical database, mainly in German, on every aspect of the education system, coordinated by the German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF: Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsforschung und Bildungsinformation), ca. 780,000 records (including 430,000 journal articles and 15% electronic full text versions), quarterly updates, availability display via FIS Bildung database, search with keywords and index. |
E-journals
Multidisciplinary resource
Persée: Search for journals/articles in French
E-journals: Persée, the portal for scientific journals in the humanities and social sciences, aims to digitize and put online retrospective collections of a vast corpus of French journals. The temporary embargo for the most recent editions from the last 2 to 5 years is applied.
Oxford University Press Journals Collection
Taylor and Francis Social Sciences & Humanities Library (access only in UNI).
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
Brockhaus and Encyclopaedia Britannica are among the most popular and the complete compilations:
- Encyclopaedia Britannica in the a-z.lu catalog (Library user ID) and open online access
- Credo Reference in the a-z.lu directory (Library user ID): the reference database for e-books, encyclopedias, dictionaries (Explore Concepts, Find a Book by Subject: Social Sciences). A short list of reference resources available via Credo Reference: Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family, Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender, The A-Z of Social Research.
Online reference works
| A continuing project of the University of Graz offers bibliographical information on the significant scientists in the field of social sciences from the past three centuries. |
||
| In the Online-Handbook Demography of the Berlin-Institute for Population and Development renowned scientists publish contributions in the field of population, demography and population composition from a historical and current perspective. You find chapters on population dynamics, population politics, demography, development, and environment, and a comprehensive glossary, as well as secondary online information on research facilities, statistics, and openly accessible data sources. |
||
|
E-Books
More information on e-book searches here.
Multidisciplinary resource:
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): Academic peer-reviewed books from 139 publishers.
Degree programmes and research at the university
Official homepage of degree programmes at the university:
- Bachelor in Sozial- und Erziehungswissenschaften
- Master in Management and Coaching in Bildung- und Sozialwesen
- Master in Social Sciences and Educational Sciences
- Master in Gerontology
- Doctoral School in Humanities and Social Sciences
Research homepage:
- Research Priority Multilingualism and Intercultural Studies
- Integrative Research Unit on Social and Individual Development (INSIDE)
Research Institutes:
- Institute for Health and Behaviour
- Institute for Research on Generations and Family
- Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Work, Social Pedagogy, Social Welfare
- PEARL Institute for Research on Socio-Economic Inequality (IRSEI)
Useful links
Here are some interesting websites for studies in the area of social sciences (open online access):
| ALLBUS is a German General Social Survey. |
||
| Publications (ASA Style Guide) |
||
| The bibliographical database Ariadne is a part of the Portal for Women’s and Gender Research at the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek - ÖNB). It has extensive records of journal articles in German and English as well as books belonging to the ÖNB. |
||
| Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) via a-z.lu Katalog and free online access |
The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine operated by the university library holds open access documents from more than 2,000 scientific sources from the whole world. They mainly consist in document servers from institutes of higher learning and extramural research and information institutions and contribute more than 32 million documents to the index of the search engine - particular feature in BASE: automatic multilingualism. |
|
|
|
||
| CESSDA provides large-scale, integrated and sustainable data services to the social sciences. Multinational Surveys: European Social Survey (ESS), Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). |
||
| German Sociological Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie - DGS) |
The reading lists of the different sections can be useful to get acquainted with the subject. |
|
| The institute is specialized in the area of social sciences and offers much secondary information on databases etc., which relate to the European Union. |
||
| European Union Portal |
||
| European Social Survey (ESS) |
The European Social Survey (ESS) is an academically driven cross-national survey that has been conducted every two years across Europe since 2001. |
|
| Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union based in Luxemburg. It provides statistics to the European Union that enable it to make comparisons between countries and regions. |
||
| Similar but on an international level. |
||
| Database of the Federal Office for Statistics (see video) |
||
| GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences is one of Germany’s most significant infrastructure facilities for the social sciences (see publications). |
||
| HAL archives-ouvertes.fr : accès via a-z.lu (User ID) |
|
|
| Social Sciences Open Access Repository (SSOAR)
|
Open access document server of the German Initiative for Network research focuses on records of journal articles, collective works, and grey literature. Current research findings are available in books, which you can search in full-text versions. The portal contains the holdings of the document server Social Sciences Open Access Repository with around 20,000 full texts from the area of social sciences. |
|
| Under Children and Youth / Publications |
||
| Network Migration in Europe (open online access) |
The Network Migration is an essential platform for students, scientists, and actors in the field of migration research and practice founded in 2001. It offers extensive information on migration, integration and immigration policy all over the world (expert database). |
|
|
|
||
|
||
| OpenEdition is an electronic resources portal for the Social sciences and humanities. |
||
| The information portal for the Social sciences, Sowiport, is operated by several information agencies (Berlin Social Science Center, German Centre of Gerontology, German Central Institute for Social Issues) under the leadership of GESIS, Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. SOWIPORT gathers and links quality-tested information from national and international providers. There are currently 8 million references on publications and research projects from 18 databases available. By connecting the various database thesauri among each other, all databases and information supplies in SOWIPORT can be searched simultaneously across all databases. The following subject areas available in SOWIPORT: sociology, methods in the social sciences, political science, social policy, social psychology, psychology, educational research, communication, economics, demography, ethnology, historical, social research, employment research, gerontology, social work. The use of the social sciences thesaurus, which contains around 12,000 words, is recommended. It is multilingual (German, English, French, Russian). |
||
|
||
| Statistics portal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg |
||
|
||
|
|
||
| Biggest social sciences research entity in Germany (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung - WZB) |
