Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies by email moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

Other library guides of interest: Public Policy, Urban Housing Policy, Government resources

Research process

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Use encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks to obtain definitions and overviews of a topic and also to identify key authors.

• International encyclopedia of housing and home
• Palgrave Handbook of Intersectionality in Public Policy
• Palgrave Handbook of Women’s Political Rights
• Sage eReference

Databases for journal articles, policy papers, government reports

How to find journal articles

Search for journal articles on your topic using the databases, below.  From within the database, use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.  

• Women's Studies International -- Main database for GSWS topics. Scholarly journal articles.
• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Academic Search Premier. Multidisciplinary index to academic & popular journals. 
• Social Sciences Full Text - indexes social sciences journals
• Political Science Complete - Scholarly journal articles,Journals, reference books and monographs, and conference papers on political topics with a worldwide focus, reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse.
• CBCA Complete - Comprehensive Canadian periodical collection for reference and current events. Publications include scholarly journal articles, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines.
• Canadian Research Index - (1982-) Access to "all depository publications...federal government and the ten provinces and three territories". Note: For older reports, check the "Microlog Collection" (on microfiche) which is on the 6th floor of the Bennett Library.  To find a report, make note of its Microlog Number.
• Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - Canadian health and public policy documents, and Canadian e-books. 
  • The "Boolean operators" (AND, OR) must be in capital letters.
  • If you don't want variations of a term then put the term in quotation marks ("term")
  • E.g. Basic search engine
    • gender AND policy AND "housing" - results sorted by "newest first"
    • gender AND policy AND "housing" - results further limited by country (Canada) and language (English):
  • Advanced search engine: policy AND gender AND title:"housing"  - results for the word "housing" in title of publications
  • Tip: Once you identify an organization that has done analysis on your research topic, it may also be worthwhile to also search the organization's website. 
    • Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
    • Their projects:
      • Making Women Count
      • Economic Security Project (BC)
    • Keyword search:
      • housing (limited to documents from their BC Office)
      • labour (limited to documents from their BC Office)
• ECONLIT : Your best place to start with any research in Economics

Multiple database search:  Academic Search Complete, Anthropology Plus, EconLit, Political Science Complete, Social Sciences Abstracts (H.W. Wilson), Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) 

( (hous* OR condo* OR townhouse* OR "town house*") )
AND afford*
AND ( sociolog* or anthropol* )
AND ( (Surrey OR "lower mainland" OR GVRD OR Vancouver OR Burnaby OR Richmond OR "White Rock" OR BC OR "British Columbia") ) 

results

E.g.

Zhu, Y., Yuan, Y., Gu, J., & Fu, Q. (2021). Neoliberalization and inequality: disparities in access to affordable housing in urban Canada 1981–2016. Housing Studies, 1–28. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1080/02673037.2021.2004093

Newspapers

• Canadian Newsstream - Full text access to major Canadian daily newspapers (such as the Globe and Mail, National Post, The Gazette (Montreal), and Vancouver Sun) as well as small market newspapers and weeklies published in Canada. Full text for the local BC newspapers is limited, and if available, they may not be indexed cover-to-cover so try searching the internet for their online editions.
  • Search strategy for coverage of BC elections: 
    • (election* OR name-of-your-candidate) AND (BC OR British Columbia OR "name of your city or municipality")
    • [issue you are researching] AND (BC OR British Columbia OR "name of your city or municipality")
       
• Vancouver Public Library's British Columbia Index (2002 - ) Courier, WestEnder, Georgia Straight, etc.
• Legislative Library of British Columbia Indexes Selective index to newspapers and magazines published in British Columbia

Selected local newspapers 

• Aldergrove Star
• Burnaby Now
• Chilliwack Progress
• Maple Ridge News
• Mission City Record
• North Shore News 
• Province
• Surrey Now Leader

Find books

The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue, using the Basic or the Advanced search

Note: In the searches below, you can limit search results to "Resource type" of "Books"and by "Subject" (left-hand column)

• (childcare OR "child care" OR daycare) AND (bc OR british columbia)
• affordable housing AND (BC OR British Columbia OR Vancouver OR Surrey OR Burnaby OR Richmond)
• (housing crisis OR modular housing OR affordable housing) AND (BC OR British Columbia OR Vancouver OR Surrey OR Burnaby OR Richmond)
• (climate change OR  climate emergency OR heat wave* OR flood* OR earthquake*) AND (bc OR british columbia)

Government

Federal

• Statistics Canada
  • Gender, diversity and inclusion statistics hub
  • Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces
  • Women in Canada: A gender-based statistical report, 7th edition
  • To buy or to rent: The housing market continues to be reshaped by several factors as Canadians search for an affordable place to call home
• Women and Gender Equality Canada 
  • Gender-Based Analysis Plus

British Columbia

• Government of British Columbia - Source of information for BC
  • Housing and tenancy
  • Family and social supports
  • Poverty reduction strategy
• British Columbia. Chief Electoral Officer. Statement of votes. [print or online] - voting results for elections
• BC Housing. Their Research Centre provides housing data
• CivicInfo BC - "an incorporated not-for-profit society with a membership that includes nearly all local governments in the province." 
  • Planning Guides - "The resources in this database provide legal mechanisms, innovative policies, and best practices that planners can use to help their communities adapt to climate change, protect green infrastructure, and carry out sustainable land and water use practices."  
    • Healthy Housing Action Guide 
    • Election results by year and municipality 

Municipal related

• Local government websites - selected list of BC local (municipal) government websites from the Urban Studies guide. For a complete list see Local municipal government websites from the guide Finding Government Resources & Information
  • City of Vancouver, including its Open Data Catalogue  and Green Vancouver
  • City of Burnaby including Maps and Open Data
• Metro Vancouver  (also known as GVRD means Greater Vancouver Regional District) 
  "collaboratively plans for and delivers regional-scale services...drinking water, wastewater treatment and solid waste management"
  including their Harry Lash Library catalogue with internally-produced reports and historical materials
  • MV_Affordable_Housing_plan2019.pdf
• Union of BC Municipalities  provincial union for local governments, providing resources such as policy papers, including the extremely useful Local Government fact sheets "easy-to-read and easy-to-understand information on local government operations. Subjects include the role and powers of elected officials, taxation, planning process, policing, and bylaws"
  • Policy areas and Policy papers
  • (E.g. housing, policy documents and services, poverty reduction, etc.)

International

• UN Women
  • Progress of the World’s Women (series)
• World Economic Forum. Global Gender Report 2022

Organizations

• Women Transforming Cities

Library guides

• Library Research Skills [interactive tutorial]
• Popular versus scholarly sources [video]
• What is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal?
• What is plagiarism? [guide]
• Evaluating sources
• How to Write an Annotated Bibliography
• Referencing and citation management software For help, please contact us at citation-managers@sfu.ca 
• Tutorials
• Student Learning Commons & Writing help

Writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.