Resource of the Week

CSA Social Services Abstracts provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. The database abstracts and indexes over 1,300 serials publications from 50 countries and includes abstracts of journal articles and dissertations, and citations to book reviews. The database is updated monthly, adding more than 5,500 records each year, and contains more than 107,000 records. Journals covered in CSA Social Services Abstracts cover 50 countries world-wide and more than 20 languages. Links to cited references can be found in records dated from 2004 to current.

Search tips:

• Author names may appear in the following ways:
  Lastname, AB Lastname, Firstname B
  Lastname, A B Lastname, A Firstname
  The best way to search for an author is to use the Author Name Index. Use the drop-down list to select the author index. You will find an alphabetical listing of terms used in the author field of the database. This list includes any alternative spellings or formats that have been used. For co-authors, it is usually sufficient to use just the last names, e.g. Wilson and Swanson.

• Use the * to truncate. This expands a search term to include forms of a root word, e.g. patent* retrieves patent, patents, patentable, patented, etc. You can also use the * to find an unlimited number of characters within a word, e.g. h*ophilia retrieves haemophilia and hemophilia, and behavi*r retrieves behaviour and behavior. Use the ? to find alternative spellings. The ? represents any single character; ?? represents two characters, and so on. Use within or at the end of a word, e.g. wom?n finds woman as well as women, and carbon fib?? finds records containing carbon fiber orcarbon fibre.

• You can use standard Boolean operators to combine terms when searching Social Services Abstracts. If you do not use an operator, the system will assume you want all the words immediately adjacent to one another and in the same order you entered them.
  The AND operator narrows a search and retrieves records containing all of the words it separates. The OR operator broadens a search and retrieves records containing any of the words it separates.
  

Quick Link: http://www.csa.com/htbin/dbrng.cgi?username=lasv7&access=lasv77&db=ssa-set-c