gender studies—core & general works

Return to Resources List | Library Links | NU Program in gender studies

See also primary resources & historical materials. For additional international resources on gender-related topics, see Africa, Asia & SE Asia, Caribbean, Eastern Europe & Slavic Studies, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Academic OneFile A collection of peer-reviewed, full-text articles from more than 5000 journals, plus indexing of an additional 4000+ journals, newspapers and wire services. Coverage from 1980 to the present. Extensive coverage of the social sciences and other disciplines. Use this database for a broad search to retrieve both first tier as well as second tier sources. For a less broad search of first tier sources only, use Expanded Academic ASAP (EXAC).
Africabib.org: Two bibliographic databases covering Africana periodical literature -- Bibliography of Africana Periodical Literature Database and African Women's Database. Indexes over 40,000 articles from over 325 English language and multi-lingual journals and periodicals that specialize in African Studies or consistently cover the African continent.
Alternative Press Index: Citations and some full text articles in the alternative and radical media.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index (Web of Science) Provides bibliographic information and some abstracts from articles from more than 1,100 in the arts and humanities. Search by topic, author, source title, or by cited reference: authors and titles from the bibliography of an article. Searches may also lead to related records: articles with citations in common. Results may be printed, saved to a text file, exported in a delimited format for import into personal bibliographic programs like EndNote or ProCite, or may be sent via email.
Biography Resource Center: A comprehensive database of biographical information on nearly 275,000 people from throughout history; includes some full-text feature-length biographical articles and links selected web sites.
Center for Research Libraries – CRL All materials in the CRL catalog are readily available to NU scholars. Titles include Masculinity, 1560-1918: Men Defining Men and Gentlemen (66 reels) and Women's Periodicals: Eighteenth Century to the Great Depression (150 reels).
Contemporary Women's Issues Citations and full-text access to global information about women in over 150 countries from journals, newsletters and research reports. Subjects include development, education, family life, gender equity, human rights, and others.
Defining Gender, 1450-1910, online When complete (in 2007) will have over 60,000 images of primary documents and rare printed literature for men and women in five areas: (I) Conduct and Politeness; (II) Domesticity and the Family; (III) Consumption and Leisure; (IV) Education and Sensibility; and (V) The Body. Fields of study include economics, education, history, the history of medicine, literatures in English, performance arts, philosophy, psychology, and religion. May trace changes over-time in, for example, advice literature, consumer consumption, the position of men within the family, and perceptions of the body, beauty, education, and the mind.
Dissertation Abstracts (ProQuest Digital Dissertations): Citations and some abstracts for doctoral dissertations and some master's theses, from accredited North American colleges and universities and some international universities.
Distinguished Women of Past and Present: Compilation of links to brief biographical sketches of women.
Documentary & Other Films at NU Long lists of documentary films categorized by subjects such as art, gender, the Middle East, and sexual orientation are available for check-out through the Library's Mitchell Multimedia Center. Television news specials (e.g., political conventions, Presidential debates and speeches, etc.) are collected on a comprehensive basis. Click on the link to see specific topic lists. See, too, information on the other collections—performing arts films, feature films, and spoken word recordings.
eHRAF Collection of Ethnography: Web-accessible version of the Human Relations Area Files ethnography collection.
Ethnic NewsWatch: Full-text articles from 200+ newspapers and magazines of the ethnic and minority press. Once connected, click on either 'English' or 'Español' to begin.
Expanded Academic ASAP (EXAC) This is an important database for social sciences (political economy, gender studies, development, etc) with more than 20 years of coverage of about 3,500 first tier, indexed, and full-text titles, of which 2,100 are peer-reviewed. For a broader search which will retrieve both first tier as well as second tier sources, see Academic OneFile.
Gallup Brain: A searchable database containing the results from over 125,000 Gallup opinion questions dating back to 1935.
Gay & Lesbian Abstracts, See Sexual Diversity Studies.
Gay and Lesbian Resources in the University of Chicago collections: An extensive, annotated, comprehensive and excellent bibliography of resources (up to 1998). See, too, Lesbian Resources in the University of Chicago collections. Note that NU faculty and students have access and borrowing privileges at the UofC libraries. See Library privileges.
Gender and Media Directory: Each user is responsible to use these electronic resources for individual, noncommercial use, without systematically DOWNLOADING, distributing, or RETAINING substantial portions of information.
Gender Studies Database: The Gender Studies Database (GSD) combines Women's Studies International, Men's Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies databases with relevant contributions from the Child Development & Adolescent Studies as well as Family & Society Studies Worldwide databases. GSD covers the spectrum of gender engaged scholarship inside and outside academia.
GenderWatch: Full-text articles from scholarly journals, regional publications, magazines, newspapers, and newsletters, etc., including ethnic and minority presses. Coverage of regional, national, and international issues from 1980 to the present.
Gerritsen Collection—Women's History Online, 1543-1945 A well-known and very important core resource which includes "books and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and women's rights." Spans four centuries and fifteen languages.
Historical and Current Resources in the University of Chicago collections on Women's Studies: Comprehensive list of current journals, reference titles, and others, including links to historical materials in print, microform, and other formats. (These lists are not exact duplicates of the set "Women, Gender Studies, and Sexuality."). Note that NU faculty and students have access and borrowing privileges at the UofC libraries. See Library privileges.
Historical and Other Resources in the University of Chicago collections on Women, Gender Studies, and Sexuality. Comprehensive list of current journals, reference titles, and others. (These lists are not exact duplicates of the set "collections on Women's Studies.") Note that NU faculty and students have access and borrowing privileges at the UofC libraries. See Library privileges.
Historical Resources on Gender and Women's Studies in the NU Library An electronic guide to important historical resources—e.g., Women, travel, and empire, 1660-1914; the gay rights movement, 1970-1983; the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, 1895-1992; women's journals, c1700-1832; and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force records, 1973-2000. See, too, the links to the area studies collections including Latin America, East and South Asia, Europe, and America for international resources on gender issues.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences: Citations to international literature in the social sciences.
International Index to Black Periodicals Full Text: Citations from over 150 scholarly and popular journals of Black Studies, including 40 with full text articles.
Lesbian Resources in the University of Chicago collections: "This guide identifies and classifies over 900 monographs and serials in the University of Chicago Library that deal primarily with lesbian themes. It is largely a subset of the Guide to Gay and Lesbian Resources in the University of Chicago Library, compiled in 1998; but it has been updated by the addition of approximately 180 lesbian-themed titles acquired in late 1997, in 1998, and in early 1999." See, too, Gay and Lesbian Resources in the University of Chicago collections Note that NU faculty and students have access and borrowing privileges at the UofC libraries. See Library privileges.
LGBT, Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America 3 volumes, 2004. "Provides a comprehensive survey of lesbian and gay history and culture in the United States. Includes approximately 545 articles ranging from short biographical entries to longer essays surveying topics such as the Stonewall riots, federal law and policy, same sex institutions, and AIDS."
Men's Studies Database: Accessed via: Gender Studies Database. Contains over 45,850 citations & abstracts. MSD covers 250 core and hundreds more important periodicals providing access to the full diversity of literature including journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, theses, dissertations, bulletins, newsletters, internet documents and numerous other sources on men's studies from 1990 to the present.
Natural History of Rape: Read Only Text available through MIT CogNet.
North American reference encyclopedia of women’s liberation. Main Library (L301.412 N867) and Special Collections (L Femina W589n)
PAIS International Bibliographic index to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. Journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, committee reports, directories, serials, reports of public, intergovernmental, and private organizations, and most other forms of printed literature from all over the world are indexed. This database covers 1972 to the present. Go to PAIS International Archive for coverage from 1937-1976. (The archive will eventually cover 1915 through 1976.)
Popline: More than 300,000 citations with abstracts to articles, books and reports fields of population, family planning, and related health issues.
Queer Science: Read Only Text available through MIT CogNet.
SEXBIBLIO – Bibliography of the History of Western Sexualtiy, 1700-1945 A rich database that contains "about 23.000 titles of the non-belletristic primary and secondary literature of the history of sexuality in Europe, the U.S. and Canada from 1700 to 2004. Beyond this the database offers important titles of the sexual history of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, including non-Western societies." (Institute for Economic and Social History, University of Vienna)
Sexual Diversity Studies: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Abstracts [formerly Gay & Lesbian Abstracts]: Access via: Gender Studies Database
Citations and abstracts of articles in the scholarly and popular press of interest to and about the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community.
Social Sciences Abstracts Comprehensive sets of citations and abstracts to scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. Includes many links to full text. Also includes databases for subjects in humanities and law.
Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science) Provides bibliographic information and some abstracts from articles from more than 1,700 in the social sciences. Search by topic, author, source title, or by cited reference: authors and titles from the bibliography of an article. Searches may also lead to related records: articles with citations in common. Results may be printed, saved to a text file, exported in a delimited format for import into personal bibliographic programs like EndNote or ProCite, or may be sent via email.
Sociological Abstracts: Citations and abstracts of articles in sociology journals and related fields which cover gender issues.
Studies on Women & Gender Abstracts Online 1995 to present.
WISTAT: Women's Indicators and Statistics Database version 4: Statistics on gender, population and social development on a wide range of topics for 206 countries or areas. (The Java client is required to run this database. Off-campus access requires VPN)
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000: Primary sources and "mini-monographs" on topics in women's history and American social movements. Currently includes 55 document projects, 33 lesson plans or document-based questions, and 20,000 pages of additional full-text documents. Updating continues.
Women Writers Online An ongoing, long-term project of the Brown University Women Writers Project "... devoted to early modern women's writing and electronic text encoding. Our goal is to bring texts by pre-Victorian women writers out of the archive and make them accessible..." Currently, over 200 e-texts available for browsing, searching, and SGML-supported analysis.
Women's Speeches from Around the World – Gifts of Speech A good base of speeches by contemporary leaders in politics, literature, and other fields.
Women's Studies: Core Books (ACRL/WSS)
Women’s Studies Encyclopedia. Also in print format in the Main Library, Reference Department (305.403 W872 1999).
Women's Studies International: Access via: Gender Studies Database. Comprehensive database of citations to literature in women's studies.
World Abortion Policies 1999: This web site provides the most complete and up-to-date information available on the abortion laws, practices and policies of 190 countries.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts Citations with abstracts from more than 1100 journals in political science and related disciplines. Coverage is international in scope.
WSSLINKS: Women and Gender Studies Web Sites These e-resources are carefully selected and maintained by librarians in the Women's Studies Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
WSSLinks: Women & Politics

For further information, contact:

Kathleen E. Bethel
African American Studies Librarian
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
:847.491.2173; fax: 847.491.5678
kbethel@northwestern.edu