BU Libraries Search
You can use the BU Libraries Search box to look for print and electronic resources available thru the Boston University Libraries. These resources include print books and journals available in the library stacks, as well as e-books and full-text journal articles.
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Featured eBooks
Below are selected ebooks relating to the subject of this course.
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Age in America: the colonial era to the present
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Eighteen. Twenty-one. Sixty-five. In America today, we recognize these numbers as key transitions in our lives--precise moments when our rights and opportunities change--when we become eligible to cast a vote, buy a drink, or enroll in Medicare. This volume brings together scholars of childhood, adulthood, and old age to explore how and why particular ages have come to define the rights and obligations of American citizens. Since the founding of the nation, Americans have relied on chronological age to determine matters as diverse as who can marry, work, be enslaved, drive a car, or qualify for a pension. Contributors to this volume explore what meanings people in the past ascribed to specific ages and whether or not earlier Americans believed the same things about particular ages as we do. The means by which Americans imposed chronological boundaries upon the variable process of growing up and growing old offers a paradigmatic example of how people construct cultural meaning and social hierarchy from embodied experience. Further, chronological age always intersects with other socially constructed categories such as gender, race, and sexuality. Ranging from the seventeenth century to the present, taking up a variety of distinct subcultures--from frontier children and antebellum slaves to twentieth-century Latinas--Age in America makes a powerful case that age has always been a key index of citizenship.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015 -
The Age of Dignity: preparing for the elder boom in a changing America
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One of Time's 100 most influential people "shines a new light on the need for a holistic approach to caregiving in America . . . Timely and hopeful" (Maria Shriver). In The Age of Dignity, thought leader and activist Ai-jen Poo offers a wake-up call about the statistical reality that will affect us all: Fourteen percent of our population is now over sixty-five; by 2030 that ratio will be one in five. In fact, our fastest-growing demographic is the eighty-five-plus age group--over five million people now, a number that is expected to more than double in the next twenty years. This change presents us with a new challenge: how we care for and support quality of life for the unprecedented numbers of older Americans who will need it. Despite these daunting numbers, Poo has written a profoundly hopeful book, giving us a glimpse into the stories and often hidden experiences of the people--family caregivers, older people, and home care workers--whose lives will be directly shaped and reshaped in this moment of demographic change. The Age of Dignity outlines a road map for how we can become a more caring nation, providing solutions for fixing our fraying safety net while also increasing opportunities for women, immigrants, and the unemployed in our workforce. As Poo has said, "Care is the strategy and the solution toward a better future for all of us." "Every American should read this slender book. With luck, it will be the future for all of us." --Gloria Steinem "Positive and inclusive." --The New York Times "A big-hearted book [that] seeks to transform our dismal view of aging and caregiving." --Ms. magazine
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2009 -
Aging in America
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The aging of America will reshape how we live and will transform nearly every aspect of contemporary society. Renowned life course sociologist Deborah Carr provides a lively, nuanced, and timely portrait of aging in the United States. The US population is older than ever before, raising new challenges for families, caregivers, health care systems, and social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Organized in seven chapters, Aging in America covers these topics: the history of aging and the development of theoretical approaches how cultural changes shape our views on aging the demographic characteristics of older adults today older adults' family lives and social relationships the health of older adults and social disparities in who gets sick how public policies affect the well-being of older adults and their families how baby boomers, Gen Xers, and millennials will experience old age Drawing on state-of-the-art data, current events, and pop culture, this portrait of an aging population challenges outdated myths and vividly shows how future cohorts of older adults will differ from the generations before them.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2023 -
Aging in America: a Cultural History
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Aging in America traces the story of aging over the course of the last half century, demonstrating our culture's negative attitudes toward a natural and inevitable human process and offering a deep understanding of the subject's past in order to help anticipate its future.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2017 -
Challenges of Latino Aging in the Americas
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This book examines one of the most important demographic changes facing the United States: an overall aging population and the increasing influence of Latinos. It also looks at the changing demographics in Mexico and its impact on the health and financial well-being of aging Mexicans and Mexican Americans. The book provides a conceptual and accessible framework that will educate and inform readers about the interconnectedness of the demographic trends facing these two countries. It also explores the ultimate personal, social, and political impact they will have on all Americans, in the U.S. as well as Mexico. Challenges of Latino Aging in the Americas features papers presented at the 2013 International Conference on Aging in the Americas, held at the University of Texas at Austin, September 2013. It brings together the work of many leading scholars from the fields of sociology, demography, psychology, anthropology, geography, social work, geriatric medicine, epidemiology, and public affairs. Coverage in this edited collection includes working with diverse populations; culturally compatible interventions for diverse elderly; the health, mental health, and social needs and concerns of aging Latinos; and the policy, political, and bi-lateral implications of aging and diversity in the U.S. and Mexico. The book provides a rich blend of empirical evidence with insightful, cutting-edge analysis that will serve as an insightful resource for researchers and policy makers, professors and graduate students in a wide range of fields, from sociology and demography to economics and political science. ​
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015 -
The End Game: How Inequality Shapes Our Final Years
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Winner of the Outstanding Publication Award, Section on Aging and the Life Course, American Sociological Association Senior citizens from all walks of life face a gauntlet of physical, psychological, and social hurdles. But do the disadvantages some people accumulate over the course of their lives make their final years especially difficult? Or does the quality of life among poor and affluent seniors converge at some point? The End Game investigates whether persistent socioeconomic, racial, and gender divisions in America create inequalities that structure the lives of the elderly. "Avoiding reductionist frameworks and showing the hugely varying lifestyles of Californian seniors, The End Game poses a profound question: how can provision of services for the elderly cater for individual circumstances and not merely treat the aged as one grey block? Abramson eloquently and comprehensively expounds this complex question." --Michael Warren, LSE Review of Books "The author's approach situates inequality experienced by older Americans in a real world context and links culture, social life, biological life, and structural disparities in ways that allow readers to understand the intersectionality of diversity imbued in the lives of older Americans...Abramson opens a window into the reality of old age, the importance of culture and the impact it has on shared/prior experiences, and the inequalities that structure them." --A. L. Lewis, Choice
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2015 -
Handbook of Minority Aging
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"The array of topics covered is amazing, making this book a valuable, significant resource for many disciplines...This multidisciplinary review of the literature on minority aging presents the scholarship related to public health and 'social, behavioral, and biological concerns' of aged minorities like no other publication. Graduate students will certainly be well-served by this book, as would faculty teaching aging at both undergraduate and graduate levels...Highly recommended."--Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries "...while practitioners of gerontology, family medicine, and any professional involved in the care of the elderly will find some practical guidance in the second part of the book, it will really earn a place on the bookshelf of anyone and everyone with an interest in US sociology and the development of public policy for the elderly. With the general aging of the population and the book's accentuation of current issues, this outstanding review will become an indispensable tool."Healthy Aging Research This text provides up-to-date, multidisciplinary, and comprehensive information about aging among diverse racial and ethnic populations in the United States. It is the only book to focus on paramount public health issues as they relate to older minority Americans, and addresses social, behavioral, and biological concerns for this population. The text distills the most important advances in the science of minority aging and incorporates the evidence of scholars in gerontology, anthropology, psychology, public health, sociology, social work, biology, medicine, and nursing. Additionally, the book incorporates the work of both established and emerging scholars to provide the broadest possible knowledge base on the needs of and concerns for this rapidly growing population. Chapters focus on subject areas that are recognized as being critical in understanding the well being of minority elders. These include sociology (Medicare, SES, work and retirement, social networks, context/neighborhood, ethnography, gender, demographics), psychology (cognition, stress, mental health, personality, sexuality, religion, neuroscience, discrimination), medicine/nursing/public health (mortality and morbidity, disability, health disparities, long-term care, genetics, dietary issues, health interventions, physical functioning), social work (caregiving, housing, social services, end-of-life care), and many other topics. The book focuses on the needs of four major ethnic groups: Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, African American, and Native American. Key Features: Provides current, comprehensive information about minority aging through a multidisciplinary lens Integrates information from scholars in gerontology, anthropology, psychology, public health, sociology, social work, biology, medicine, and nursing Emphasizes the principal public health issues concerning minority elders Offers "one-stop shopping" regarding the development of a substantial knowledge base about minority aging Includes recent progressive research pertaining to the social, cultural, psychological and health needs of elderly minority adults in the US
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2013 -
New Topics in Aging
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Ageing or aging is the accumulation of changes in an organism or object over time. Ageing in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of ageing grow and expand over time, while others decline. Reaction time, for example, may slow with age, while knowledge of world events and wisdom may expand. Research shows that even late in life potential exists for physical, mental, and social growth and development. Ageing is an important part of all human societies reflecting the biological changes that occur, but also reflecting cultural and societal conventions. This book examines several important issues in the field.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2008 -
Queer Aging
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As the first generation of gay men enters its autumn years, these men's responses to the physical and emotional tolls of aging promise to be as revolutionary as their advances in AIDS and civil rights activism. Older gay men's approaches to friendship, caregiving, romantic and sexual relationships, illness, and bereavement is upending conventional wisdom regarding the aging process, LGBTQ communities, and the entire field of gerontology. Queer Aging comprises scholar Jesus Ramirez-Valles's probing conversations with 11 racially and economically diverse representatives of this pioneering generation of gay men - the gayby boomers. Through candid, first-person narratives, Ramirez-Valles's subjects reflect on their varied experiences as late career professionals, retirees, AIDS survivors, caregivers for ailing partners, and witnesses to profound social and cultural change. Framed within a larger introduction to both Queer Theory and its history, these reflections provide context for understanding the aging arc and experience of older gay men.Spanning sociology, history, cultural studies, and social work, Queer Aging will be a vital resource for students as well as health professionals who serve the gay community and communities of color.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2016 -
Through Japanese Eyes: thirty years of studying aging in America
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In Through Japanese Eyes, based on her thirty-year research at a senior center in upstate New York, anthropologist Yohko Tsuji describes old age in America from a cross-cultural perspective. Comparing aging in America and in her native Japan, she discovers that notable differences in the panhuman experience of aging are rooted in cultural differences between these two countries, and that Americans have strongly negative attitudes toward aging because it represents the antithesis of cherished American values, especially independence. Tsuji reveals that American culture, despite its seeming lack of guidance for those aging, plays a pivotal role in elders' lives, simultaneously assisting and constraining them. Furthermore, the author's lengthy period of research illustrates major changes in her interlocutors' lives, incorporating their declines and death, and significant shifts in the culture of aging in American society as Tsuji herself gets to know American culture and grows into senescence herself. Through Japanese Eyes offers an ethnography of aging in America from a cross-cultural perspective based on a lengthy period of research. It illustrates how older Americans cope with the gap between the ideal (e.g., independence) and the real (e.g., needing assistance) of growing older, and the changes the author observed over thirty years of research.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2020
- Books on Population Aging - United States
- Books on Aging - United States
- Books on Older People - United States
- Books on Older People - Health and hygiene - United States
Film and Video
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Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Academic Video Online delivers more than 67,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. It includes documentaries, films, demonstrations, and other content types.
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HistoryMakers: African American Video Oral History Collection This link opens in a new windowHistoryMakers is a collection of video oral history interviews with historically significant African Americans. Transcripts are included with the interviews.
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Kanopy This link opens in a new window
Kanopy is a provider of documentaries, training films, and theatrical releases available as streaming video. Clips from the videos can be embedded in presentations or shown in class. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
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TED: Topics Browse TED topics from A to Z.
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Vanderbilt Television News Archive This link opens in a new window
Streaming video of news and commercials from NBC and CNN plus searchable archive of abstracts of news broadcasts from ABC, CBS, Fox News, and other channels.
Articles
Search across disciplines
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BU Libraries Search This link opens in a new window
BU Libraries Search provides a single place to search for a wide variety of research material provided by the library. Resources covered by the search includes books and eBooks, journals, scores and sheet music, video and audio recordings, and other physical and electronic items held by the library. Coverage encompasses materials relating to the prehistoric and antique world through to the present.
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Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar provides access to academic literature from many disciplines. The sources include articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions and come from diverse places including academic publishers, online repositories and other websites.
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JSTOR This link opens in a new window
This database provides full text access to the back issues of core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Book reviews are included as well as journal articles. Abstracts are available for some of the articles.
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Project Muse This link opens in a new windowProject Muse provides digital access to scholarly journals and books in the humanities and social sciences. The scholarly content comes from non-profit scholarly publishers, including university presses and societies. The full text resources include journal articles, book reviews and book chapters.
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses This link opens in a new window
This database contains indexing and abstracts of American doctoral dissertations accepted at accredited institutions since 1861 and a selection from other countries. Masters level theses are included selectively.
Social Sciences
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Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Premier contains indexing, abstracts and full-text articles for scholarly publications, most of them peer-reviewed. The subjects covered include topics in the social sciences, humanities, general science, education and most areas of academic study.
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APA PsycInfo This link opens in a new window
Provides access to articles, books and book chapters, and dissertations that cover the scholarly literature in the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes material of relevance to psychologists and professionals in related fields such as psychiatry, management, business, education, social science, neuroscience, law, medicine, and social work.
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Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
CMMC indexes journals covering communication, mass media, linguistics, discourse, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, communication theory, language, logic, organizational communication and other closely related fields of study.
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Humanities Full Text / Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window
These combined databases provide access to journal articles, book reviews, performance reviews, interviews, bibliographies and more from a broad range of humanities and social sciences journals.
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Social Sciences Full Text This link opens in a new window
Social Sciences Full Text provides access to hundreds of English language journals in the social sciences. About two-thirds of the journals are peer-reviewed.
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Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Sociological Abstracts indexes and abstracts the international literature of sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews. It also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Forty percent of the content is published outside of North America.
Getting Items Not Available at BU Libraries
Even if BU Libraries doesn't own something you need for your studies, we can get it for you pretty quickly from another library.
- Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Interlibrary Loan is a service that allows current BU students, faculty, and staff to request books, articles, book chapters, and other materials from other libraries. Visit our Interlibrary Loan page to find forms to request items.
- BU Libraries Search and WorldCat Discovery. You can look an item up on BU Libraries Search or you can use an external search, like WorldCat Discovery, which will offer you a link to "Find@BU" and this will bring you to BU Libraries Search. When you log in to request the item, some of the item's information will pre-populate in the ILL form for you.
Want to borrow an item in person?
- Books from Boston College, Northeastern, and Brandeis. Books can be borrowed from the libraries of these three institutions using your Terrier card.
- Boston Library Consortium (BLC) Card​s. A BLC Card allows you to borrow circulating material from member libraries, just as you would from BU Libraries. Boston University faculty, staff, and students on the Charles River Campus may obtain a Consortium Card by filling out an application form.
