Women Studies

About

The following bibliography is a selective guide to resources available in the J. Paul Leonard Library or through the Internet. Women Studies is an interdisciplinary field and the focus of this guide is on information sources related to women in the social sciences, humanities, and sciences.

Also, consult the research guides in other academic areas depending on your topic.

Locating Books

Books at SF State:

To find books go to the Library’s homepage: www.library.sfsu.edu, and select Find Books & More. You can search InvestiGator, the Library’s online catalog, by “Keyword”, “Author”, or “Title”. Also, you can search by “Subject,” using Library of Congress (LC) subject heading terms. Below is a list of LC subject terms used in the SFSU catalog. The following links take you directly to a current list of books and other resources for each topic in the SFSU Library.

Books at Other Libraries

1. From the Library homepage under “FIND: More”, select Link+, a union catalog of more than 30 California libraries, all in one searchable database; borrowing books is free, and they usually arrive within 3-5 days. To use Link+, SFSU students, faculty, and staff must go to the Library’s Home Page to set up a Library PIN.

2. From the Library homepage under “FIND: More,” select WorldCat. This database contains records for books in libraries nationwide and internationally. To order the books you locate, first search InvestiGator (the SFSU library catalog) to see if we have the book here. If we do not, SFSU students, faculty and staff may request (free of charge) books through Document Delivery Services. Try Link+ first; if it's not available there, use the iLLiad service. This process can take anywhere between 3 days - 3 weeks, so you need to plan ahead!

More info: Finding Books research guide

Locating Journal, Magazine, & Newspaper Articles

SFSU databases can be accessed from the Library’s homepage under “Find : Articles & Databases.” To access databases off-campus, SFSU students, faculty, and staff should create a Library PIN from the link “Library Services: Library Accounts & PIN” provided on the Library’s homepage.

More info on how to search: Finding Articles research guide

Electronic Journal List

In addition to using library databases to find articles, you can search specific journals online if they are covered in the Library’s Electronic Journal List. From the Library’s homepage, select “Find: Electronic Journal List.” You can search by title or by broad subject categories. Some relevant online journals for Women Studies include:

Retrieving Books and Articles not in the SFSU Library

If a book is not in the Library's collection or not "available," you may be able to request it through Link+, at the top of the screen where you were searching for books. If our library does not own the periodical, book or other publication you need, go to the Library's homepage and select“ Library Services - Requesting Items We Don't Have”. There is no charge for this service for SFSU students, faculty and staff.

Government Publications

The Government Publications Department, 5th floor, houses many useful publications relevant to women studies research. The collection includes materials published by city, state, federal, foreign, and international organizations. Government publications are particularly valuable as sources of statistical information.

For information on major indexes, databases, and Internet sites for locating government documents and statistical information, go to the Government Information and Finding Statistical Information: a Basic Toolkit.

Also, the Government Publications Department has U.S. government census data by gender and other social indicators in print and CD-ROM formats for various years.

Selected Documents & Sites:

• Agreed conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women on the critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action, 1996-2005 (Govt Stacks ST/ESA/304)
• Statistics and indicators on women and men (2007)(United Nations) http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/indwm/
• U..S. Dept. of Labor. Women’s Bureau http://www.dol.gov/wb/
• Women in the labor force: a databook (2006)(Govt Stacks L 2.71:996)

Media Access Center and Computer Lab

The Media Access Center (MAC), 3rd floor, houses non-print media and equipment for use by students and faculty. The collection includes DVD’s, CD’s, films, video cassettes, sound cassettes, and software. Most of the media collection is listed in the Library's online catalog. In addition, the Media Access Center's computer lab has an array of computers available for personal computing.

Academic Technology (AT), located on the ground floor of the Library, also has an extensive collection of films which may be used in SF State courses with the instructor present or by individual students and faculty members in viewing booths, in the Media Access Center.

The following titles represent examples from the collection related to Women Studies:

• Beyond killing us softly : the impact of media images on women and girls (MAC VideoTape 93393)
• Daughters of the dust (AT VideoTape 85322)
• Ida B. Wells: a passion for justice (A T VideoTape 82632 ) and (MAC VideoTape 90807)
• The quilts of Gee's Bend (MAC VideoTape 93462 )
• Under the willow tree : pioneer Chinese women in Canada (MAC VideoTape 92998)
• When food is the enemy : [eating disorders] (MAC VideoTape 93405)

Reference Sources

Bibliographies

Biographical Sources:

Chronologies:

Directories:

Encyclopedias, Handbooks, Dictionaries, Atlases:

Statistics:

Primary Sources

Also see the Library Guide: History: Primary Sources.

SF State Library Databases

The SF State library subscribes to the following databases that contain full-text (reproductions and/or transcripts) of historic documents:

SFSU Primary Resources in Microform

The following microfilm sets are located in Periodicals, 2nd floor.

• Herstory, 1972-76.(Microfilm Reels 1317-1319) Provides a compilation of articles from 821 newsletters, journals and newspapers published by women’s rights groups between 1956-1974. There is no subject index to this microfilm set, but the following printed guides provide more detailed information about the content of each microfilm reel in the collection:
  • Herstory Microfilm Collection:Table of Contents (Ref Z7962.H47x)
  • Reel Guide to Herstory. Supplementary Set (Ref Z7962.H472x 1956-73 & 1973-74)
• Women And/In Law, 1974-75.(Microfilm Reels 1321-1327) Periodical articles, clippings, and pamphlets arranged by topic.
• Women and Health/Mental Health, 1964-74. (Microfilm Reel 1320) Periodical articles, clippings, and pamphlets arranged by topic.

Primary Collections in Bay Area Libraries

Microform Sets in Gender and Women’s Studies (U.C. Berkeley) http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/doemoff/womstu/wsmicro.html

Selected Internet Resources

Aid and Career Opportunities (Resources for WMST Students) (University of Maryland)
http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/jobsetc.html

American Women's History: A Research Guide (Ken Middleton)
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women.html

Center for Women and Information Technology (University of Maryland)
http://www.umbc.edu/cwit/

Distinguished Women of Past and Present (Danuta Bois)
http://www.DistinguishedWomen.com/

Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement:: An On-line Archival Collection, Special Collections Library, Duke University.
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/

Feminist Bookstores, Publishers, Reviews, Lists and Electronic Versions of Women's Studies Books
http://www.Library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/books.htm

Feminist Majority Foundation
http://www.feminist.org/

National Women's History Project
http://www.nwhp.org/

National Women's Studies Association
http://nwsa.org/

San Francisco State University. Women Studies Dept.
http://www.sfsu.edu/~woms/

UNIFEM--(United Nations Development Fund for Women)
http://www.undp.org/unifem/beijing+5/index.html

Violence against Women Office (U.S. Dept. of Justice)
http://www.usdoj.gov/ovw/

Voice of the Shuttle: Gender and Sexuality Studies
http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2711

Women's Bureau (U.S. Dept. of Labor)
http://www.dol.gov/wb/

Women's Studies Database (University of Maryland)
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/

Women's Studies Librarian Office - U. Wisconsin
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/

Women's Studies Programs, Departments and Research Centers (Joan Korenman, University of Maryland)
http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/programs.html

Women's Studies Resources (Karla Tonella, University of Iowa)
http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/wstudies/

Women's Studies/Women's Issues Resource Sites (Joan Korenman. University of Maryland)
http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/links.html

WSSLINKS: Women and Gender Studies Web Sites (Women’s' Studies Section of The Association of College & Research Libraries)
http://libr.org/wss/WSSLinks/index.html

Yahoo's Women's Studies Links
http://www.yahoo.com/Social_Science/Women_s_Studies/