Library resources: Social studies

The latest reserarch and insight is often published in academic journals. There are tens of thousands of academic journals worldwide. About 33 000 journals and publishers are quality checked and approved by the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers.

You can find an overview of the journals the library subscribes to in Oria. Use remote access to access the journals when you are not on campus.

Some recommended journals:

• British Journal of Social Work
• European Journal of Social Work
• Narrative Inquiry
• Child and family social work
• Social work
• Nordic social work research
• Journal of comparative social work
• Nordisk välfärdsforskning (Nordic Welfare Research - Scandinavian and English language)

Pro tip! Use Browzine to get easy access to the journals you need, and create a virtual bookshelf to keep you updated.

• Statistics Norway: National statistics (SSB)
  
• Eurostat: Official statistics from EU
  
• OECD iLibrary: Statistics, e-books, articles from OECD
  
• Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI)
  
• The directorate of integration and diversity (IMDi)
  
• Norwegian centre for research data (NSD)
  

• Government.no: Official website for the Norwegian Government (Regjeringen). Access to official documents documents such as The National Budget, reports, draft resolutions and bills, guidelines, white papers and much more.
  
• NAV: Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration.
  
• FHI: Norwegian Institute of Public Health
  
• UDI: The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration
  
• Barneombudet: The Norwegian Ombudsperson for Children
  
• Publications from Nordic Cooperation: The Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council

Norwegian language:

• Barne- ungdoms og familiedirektoratet (Bufdir)
• Nettbiblioteket (Bufdir)

• Convention on the Rights of the Child text (UNICEF)
  
• European Court of Human Rights

Norwegian legal sources:

• Lovdata Pro: Norwegian Laws and regulations
  
• Rettsdata: Norwegian legal comments and much more
  
• Juridika: Univesitetsforlagets collection of juridical journals and legal comments

Research- and knowledge centers often publish research reports on their web sites.

Research centres/institutes:

• Norwegian Social Research (NOVA)
  
• FAFO (Social science research foundation)
  
• SINTEF: one of Europe’s largest independent research organisations
  
• Centre for Welfare and Labour Research (OsloMet)
  
• NTNU Social Research

• Telemark Research Institute
  
• Nordland Research Institute
  
• Frisch Centre
  
• Norwegian Centre for violence and traumatic stress studies
  
• The Norwegian Center for Child Behavioral Development (NUBU)
  

Sources in Norwegian language:

• Regionssenter for barn og unges psykiske helse
  
• Korus: Regional competence centres within drug abuse in Norway
  
• Forandringsfabrikken (Change Factory)
  
• Stine Sofies Stiftelse

• Idebanken - inkluderende arbeidsliv

Search for the book in Oria and find the location under "Get It" in the library.

The library uses the Dewey system to organize our books. The Dewey number lets you know he location of the book in the library.

How to read a Dewey number:

1. Find the exact numbers before the dot. (example 361.___)
2. Find the exact letters after the dot. (example 361.3)
3. When the numbers are correct, find the letters, organized in alphabetical order. (example 361.3 HEA)

Please ask at the help desk if you need help with finding the book.

Relevant books:

Books relevant for social studies will be located on various shelves in the library. Some relevant Dewey-numbers are:

• 150. - Psychology
• 300.72 – Research Methods
• 301 – Sociology and anthropology
• 344.03 - Justice: Social care
• 361.3 – Social work
• 362.7 – Child protective services
• 610 – Medicine and health
• 808.066 – Academic writing

• Presents new knowledge
• Has a reference list, the research presented should be replicable
• Is peer-reviewed, meaning that other researchers have quality checked it
• Published in journals (physical or digital)
• Often has a structure which contains:
  - Abstract
  - Introduction/theory
  - Method
  - Results
  - Analysis/discission
  - Conclusion
  - Reference list

Example:

Ylvisaker, S., Rugkåsa, M., & Eide, K. (2015). Silenced stories of social work with minority ethnic families in Norway. Critical and Radical Social Work, 3(2), 221–236.

• Are published regularly with new issues
• Publish studies in the form of articles.
• Can also contain book reviews, interviews, debates and more within the subject area. These parts of the journal are not peer-reviewed.

Example:

British Journal of Social Work

• Popular magazines and journals within certain subjects can also publish popular science and relevant information.
• These journals can be very useful to keep up with. However, the articles published have not the same academic quality as articles in academic journals. (No peer-review etc)

Multidisciplinary databases

• Academic Search Premier
• SocINDEX
• Scopus
• Social Science Premium Collection
  

Databases in:

• Psychology
• Law
• Nursing and Health Sciences

Full overview of all databases available through UiS.

The only database for searching in Norwegian is Oria. Choose "All Norwegian Academic Libraries" to search all academic libraries in Norway. You can request any material it in Oria, even though it is not physically at UiS.