Research help

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 guides

• GSWS Graduate students Library  research guide
• Primary Sources for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS)
• Research methods for Gender, Sexuality. and Women's studies
• Services for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows

Feminist theory websites

• Feminist Theory Website - "provides research materials" - fields within feminism; national and ethnic feminisms; Individual feminists
• Women’s Studies: Feminist Theory

Find journal articles

Databases index several hundred core journals of a discipline and selected journals from other disciplines.  If fulltext is not within the database then use the Get@SFU link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

Doing "multiple database" searching can be a good strategy to cover a vast amount of literature. Use "Choose databases" in the Ebsco Platform databases (Women's Studies International) and use "Change databases" in the Proquest platform databases (Sociological Abstracts).

• Women's Studies International - Start with this database for topics related to gender, sexuality, and women's studies.  After that, if you topic relates to a health issue, for example, then select the databases related to health (see image above).
   
  • For journal articles on "research methods", try entering the names of methods or terms such as "qualitative research", "research method*"
    You can also limit the search term by "Subject"
• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.

For a more complete list of databases, try: Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies databases

Primary source databases

A primary source is a document or other sort of evidence written or created during the time under study, or by one of the persons or organizations directly involved in the event. Primary sources offer an inside view of a particular event.  They include original documents (excerpts or translations are acceptable) such as diaries, speeches, letters, minutes, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, and official records.  In addition they include creative works (poetry, drama, novels, music, art, films) and relics or artifacts (jewelry, pottery, furniture, clothing, buildings, tools). 

Guides:

• Primary Sources for the Humanities: General sources and how to find sources
• Primary Sources for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS)

Search SFU databases for "databases by content type" of "Primary sources"

Databases

• AM explorer [Adam Matthew]
  Search for primary source material covering the social sciences and humanities from multiple Adam Matthew Digital databases. Includes monographs, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, photographs and archival documents covering history, literature, culture and politics. List of Adam Matthew databases available through SFU Library

  • Defining Gender 1450-1910: Five Centuries of Advice Literature Online  [Adam Matthew]

    British source material, including books, letters, diaries, government papers, ledgers, ephemera (pamphlets, manuscripts, ballads, cartoons), medical journals, conduct books, and periodicals on gender, leisure and consumer culture.

  • Empire Online  [Adam Matthew]

    Manuscripts, print, and visual primary sources on colonial history, politics, culture and society around the world from 1492-1969. Collection also includes scholarly essays, which provide background information on materials.
     
• Artemis Primary Sources  Search across multiple Gale collections for monographs, manuscripts, newspapers, photographs, maps, and other primary sources.

   

  • Archives Unbound [Gale]  Historical documents from three digital collections: Global Missions and Theology (19th century missionary activities in the US); Tiananmen Square and U.S.-China relations, 1989-1993; and Women, War and Society, 1914-1918.
     
  • Archives of Sexuality & Gender [Gale]
    A collection of primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world since 1940.  Rare and unique content from newsletters, organisational papers, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets, and other types of primary sources sheds light on the gay rights movement, activism, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and more.  Under "Essays and resources", check the "finding aids" on different topics.

Archives

An archive preserves the historical records (evidence) and they can be found at local (municipal), provincial or national levels. They could be private or public. Not everything in an archive is available in the digital format.  In addition, some material may have restricted access or have an embargo period before the material is allowed to be viewed.  An archivist tries to maintain the "organization" of the collection which was created by a donor of a collection.  Materials are organized by "fonds" (collections) and usually archivist create finding aids for these collections.

• Library and Archives Canada (LAC) - "acquires, processes, preserves and provides access to our documentary heritage." National Library of Canada and the National Archives were combined into one unit.  The search engine, below, searches both the Library and Archival collections.
  • Collections search - an integrated search engine. Use the "Advanced search" 
  • Browse by topic
     
• Archives Canada - to search archival holdings across Canada
  Archives Canada is an official archival portal maintained by The Canadian Council of Archives (CCA) and is a joint initiative of CCA, the Provincial – Territorial Archival Networks, and Library and Archives Canada. Use the View option halfway down the main screen to look at digital collection images.
  • Search archival holdings across Canada

• Search Engine - SFU Atom to search the SFU Archives (University) and Special Collections and Rare Books (SFU Library)

  SFU Atom contains more than 54,000 descriptions of files, documents, photographs, audio and video recordings and ephemera housed at either the Archives or Special Collections and Rare Books.  Holdings include records of the university, faculty members, campus community organizations, local organizations, businesses and community groups, writers and other notable individuals, and collections documenting historically significant movements and places in British Columbia.  Some examples:  First nations, Robert Bringhurst fonds, Women, Maggie Benston collection (Sue Cox collector), Maggie Benston fonds 

• MemoryBC: The British Columbia Archival Union List  Descriptions of archival materials preserved in archives and repositories across BC, with links to digitized materials where available; includes in-person access information. Some examples:
  • First nations, Labour   
• Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that offers permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. The Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages.
• Library of Congress - Acts like a national library and archives for the United States.  Digital Collections, World Cultures and History
  • Women's history
    • National American Women's Suffrage Association
      • Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers
      • Susan B Anthony Papers
    • Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party
    • African American History
      • Rosa Parks Papers
      • Zora Neale Hurston

Newspapers and magazine sources

Union catalogues

Union catalogues provide shared cataloguing information of holdings among their member organizations. They can be a useful source for searching for information on your topic.

Government documents, statistics and data sets

Governments collect and produce information on a variety of topics. You many need to find laws, legislation, regulations, data, statistics, policy documents, reports, budgets & expenditures, etc. The documents may be produced by different levels of the government. This section provides some links to Canadian, USA and international levels of governments.  In addition to searching for documents from different governments, also try seaching the Statista database (captures freely available government data), and the two special search engines from Google (NGO Search, IGO Search)

Guides: 

• Home: Data & statistics information resources
• Government resources
• Government resources - other countries
• Research Commons - Research Data Services
• Canadian census
• Census - Which Census Product Should I Use?
• BC Statistics
• Statistical sources databases
• Datasets

In addition to using some of the databases for government publications, it may be advisable to do internet searches for government information.  The Statista database gathers statistical data and often points to the original source of information. 

Canada

While much of the newer Canadian publications may be available in electronic format, some older material may only be available in print or microform formats.  They may be found using SFU Catalogue search or searches of catalogues of larger libraries such as the UBC.

Databases

• Canadian Research Index - Canadian government publications.  For current publications, once you have identified something relevant within the database, search for the publication by doing an internet search for it by department name and title of the publication.  There is a corresponding Microlog Microfiche Collection which is shelved on the 6th floor of W.A.C. Bennett Library.  Find the "Microlog Number" for a particular publication and then search for the publication in the Microlog Collection.  There are printers which can make a print copy from microfiche.
   
• Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - for public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks and research groups.
• British Columbia Government Publications Index
   
• Government of Canada Publications
   
• Statistics Canada Products and Services  Data and statistics provided by the Government of Canada, covering the population, resources, economy, society, and culture of Canada. : Includes: data tables, statistical analyses and reports, survey methodologies and documentation, and census information
  • Subjects
    • Families and households and marital status
    • Immigration and ethnocultural diversity
       
  • Census - done every 5 years
     
  • Gender, diversity and inclusion statistics  - this hub aims to address gaps in the availability of data by sex, gender and intersecting characteristics.  Definition: Gender of person

United States

• USA government publications 
   
• Data and Statistics about United States
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)  An international consortium of more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations. Maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.

International

• United Nations
  • UNdata A compilation of United Nations and agency statistics, covering economic, social, financial and development topics. In most cases time series are available from 1970 or 1980 and many series are disaggregated to show underlying distributions.
  • UN Women
    • Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women
    • Progress of the World’s Women (series)
       
• OECD iLibrary - provides electronic access to books, periodicals and statistics published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
   
• World Economic Forum. 2018 Gender gap report
• Statista a simple to use statistics portal that integrates statistics from thousands of sources, on topics related to business, media, public policy, health and others. Statistics can be exported in PPT, XLS, PDF, and PNG formats.

Google custom search for government publications

Type your search terms into these pre-built searches to limit results to specific organisation types. Use Search tips for Google and Google Scholar to create your search strings. 

• NGO Search  - NGO Search is a Google Custom Search that searches across hundreds non-governmental organization (NGO) websites. NGO Search is a project of the International Documents Taskforce (IDTF) and the Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT) of the American Library Association (ALA). This is a spreadsheet of NGOs included in the project.
   
• IGO Search
  International governmental organizations (IGOs) are organizations made up of more than one national government—examples include NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the WHO (World Heath Organization). The governments are the members. IGO Search is a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) that searches across IGO websites. It is a project of the International Documents Taskforce (IDTF) of the American Library Association (ALA), please see the IDTF wiki.
• Example: "gender gap"
   

• Simple Google searches - search for documents from a particular country's domain.  The example below is for India, with country code of ".in"
    Web country codes

  site:.in  intitle:(sex* OR porn*) intitle:(laws OR regulations)

Datasets

Guide: Datasets

Research Data sets are available through the databases, below.

• Abacus Dataverse Network

  Research data repository run by the British Columbia Research Libraries' Data Services. It contains SFTP access to data files such as Social survey files, DLI data, GIS datasets, and geospatial data.

• Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)

  A central repository and dissemination service for machine-readable social science data. ICPSR supplies social science data files for use with statistical software, such as SAS or SPSS.