Library Resources and Services for Social Work Faculty and Instructors

I encourage you to share the following in your syllabus to advertise the research support the Social Work Librarian, Lucy Flamm, can provide: 

Available To You: Social Work Librarian

Boston University has a designated Social Work Librarian to support with finding, accessing, and engaging with resources. Lucy Flamm (she/her) is available by appointment to support with all aspects of research. Appointments can vary from finding materials on a specific topic for a paper, supporting with literature and systematic reviews, or perfecting citations. No question is too big or too small. To make an appointment, you can email LFlamm@BU.edu. Throughout the semester, you can also visit the Social Work Library Guide and subject guides which provide tutorials and connect you to sources. The Social Work Library Guide is available at: https://library.bu.edu/socialwork.

Content and tutorials are available to provide instructional information. Here are some tutorials available:

Accessing Course Materials

• Course Reserves: access your online course materials for classes
• Searching the BU Library: refining keywords, physically searching for materials, and accessing our results

Searching for Materials

• Planning Your Library Search: creating mind maps, planning our keywords, and thinking about what type of results we want
• Searching the BU Library: refining keywords, physically searching for materials, and accessing our results
• Advanced Search Strategies: using advanced search and Boolean search strategies
• Finding Frequently Cited Sources: using Web of Science to find frequently cited sources or important background sources
• Evaluating Your Results: reflective questions for student reflection on materials
• Databases for Social Work Research: using databases to find specialized results

Methods and Approaches

• Social Work Policy Analysis: reflective questions to think about policy and impact
• Literature Reviews: how to write a literature review 
• Scoping Reviews: crafting a scoping review
• Systematic Reviews: creating a systematic review
• Open Access for Social Work Research: open access materials for your research topics
• Tests and Measures: access tests and measures to integrate into your research (example: Geriatric Depression Scale)
• APA Citations: Creating APA style citations and best practices for formatting

To arrange a library instruction section for your class, contact Lucy Flamm, Social Work Librarian, by email at LFlamm@BU.edu. 

Reserves are library materials (including physical and electronic books, audio/visual materials, journal articles, media, and electronic resources) selected by a faculty member to support course instruction. Instructors can place books, articles, and other materials on reserve for their students using the Place Items on Reserves form. This form can be used for all library materials, both physical and electronic. 

A multitude of subject guides are available to assist the Social Work community in research and analysis: