Subject Guides: Rural Sociology

Leading Journals in Rural Sociology

Follow the title links below to find an electronic or paper copy on campus, courtesy of

Agriculture and Human Values
Culture & Agriculture
Gender, Work, and Organization
International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food
Journal of Comparative Family Studies
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (formerly American Journal of Alternative Agriculture)
Rural History : Economy, Society, Culture
Rural Sociology
Social Forces
Sociologia Ruralis

General and Popular Journal and Research Databases

Core Resources:
	Family & Society Studies Worldwide (1970 - )	Topics include the educational, medical, psychological and sociological aspects of family literature.
	JSTOR: The Scholarly Journal Archive (dates vary)	This archival journal collection includes such topics as African-American studies, anthropology, demography, education, folklore, history, and sociology. Coverage begins with vol. 1 of each title and continues to within 3 to 5 years of the present. Current issues are not included.
	Proquest Research Library (1988 - )	Indexes scholarly and popular journals in many academic disciplines, including sciences, humanities, and social sciences.
	ProQuest Newspapers (1989 - )	Indexes over 500 national, international, and Wisconsin newspapers, plus other news sources and news wires. Includes full text for many beginning about 1995.
	SocINDEX with Full Text (1895- )	A leading sociology database, this resourcer indexes some 4000 journals, as well as books. dissertations and conference papers. It encompasses all sub-disciplines of sociology and closely related areas of study, including rural sociology.
	Sociological Abstracts (1963- )	A leading sociology database, this resource indexes and abstracts research journals and dissertations in sociology.
	Web of Knowledge (Web of Science) (1970- )	Indexes scholarly literature in sciences and social sciences, including more than 8,000 peer-reviewed journals. Supports citation searching.
More Resources:
	Academic Search (1984 - )	Indexes some 3,000 scholarly and popular journals from every academic discipline many with full-text.
	Academic Universe (LEXIS/NEXIS)	Includes approximately 5,000 legal, news, reference, and business sources.
	GEOBASE (1980 - )	Indexes scholarly literature on geography, geology and ecology. It includes human and cultural geography.
	Google Scholar	Searches specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed articles, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports in all subject areas. Useful for multidisciplinary topics.
	International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (1981- )	Topics include economics, political science, sociology and anthropology. Approximately 70% of the records are in English.
	PsycINFO (1872 - )	Includes information about the psychological aspects of related disciplines including sociology and education.
	Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) (1972- )	Indexes scholarly literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general.
	Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG)	SOSIG is a freely available Internet service which provides selected, high quality Internet information. It is part of the UK Resource Discovery Network.
	Social Sciences Full Text (1983- )	Topics include economics, politics and foreign affairs, public administration, public health, sociology, criminology, environmental and urban studies, psychology and anthropology.
	Social Work Abstracts (1977- )	Contains citations and abstracts to articles from journals in the areas of the social work profession, theory and practice, areas of service, social issues, and social problems.

Agrofood Systems - Journal and Research Databases

Core Resources:
	CAB Abstracts (Agriculture & Veterinary) (1910- )	Indexes journals, books, technical reports, and other documents related to agriculture and veterinary medicine each year. Also includes rural development and rural sociology.
	Sociological Abstracts (1963- )	The leading sociology database, this resource indexes and abstracts research journals and dissertations in sociology.
	Web of Knowledge (Web of Science) (1970- )	A combination of three databases: Science Citation Index Expanded (1970- ), Social Sciences Citation Index (1982- ), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1982- ). It Indexes more than 8,000 peer-reviewed journals.
More Resources:
	ABI Inform (1971- )	Indexes scholarly and trade business publications, covering such topics as management techniques, corporate strategies, marketing, and business trends and conditions.
	AgEcon Search: Research in Agricultural and Applied Economics	Topics include agribusiness, food supply, natural resource economics, environmental economics, policy issues, agricultural trade, and economic development.
	AGRICOLA (National Agriculture Library) (1970- ) ( Free internet version also available)	Includes animal and veterinary sciences, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, agricultural economics and earth and environmental sciences.
	Agris (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) ( Free internet version also available)	International coverage of agricultural and rural issues; good for finding hard-to-find information, particularly on developing countries.
	Biological & Agricultural Index Plus (1983- )	Includes trade and industrial publications, journals of professional and learned societies, and specialized subject periodicals.
	CropMAP	CropMAP is a site-specific retrieval system to identify current and alternative crops.
	TROPAG & RURAL (1975- )	Covers international agricultural economics, agroforestry, crop processing and storage, environmental issues, rural development, and farming systems.

Community and Population - Journal and Research Databases

Core Resources:
	Family & Society Studies Worldwide (1970- )	Topics include the educational, medical, psychological and sociological aspects of family literature.
	Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) (1972- )	Subjects covered include public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general.
	POPLINE (POPulation information onLINE)	The POPLINE database on reproductive health provides more than 300,000 citations with abstracts in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues.
	Sociological Abstracts (1963- )	The leading sociology database, this resource indexes and abstracts research journals and dissertations in sociology.
More Resources:
	ABI Inform (1971- )	Indexes scholarly and trade business publications, covering such topics as management techniques, corporate strategies, marketing, and business trends and conditions.
	Alternative Press Index (1991- )	Indexes approximately 300 alternative, radical, and left publications that report and analyze the practices and theories of cultural, economic, political, and social change.
	America: History and Life (1964- )	Includes more than 1700 social science and humanities journals in the field of United States and Canadian history.
	Chicano Database (1967- )	Includes all types of material about Chicanos and incorporates the Spanish Speaking Mental Health Database, a comprehensive resource covering psychological, sociological, and educational literature.
	Child Welfare Information Gateway	Use "Library Search" to access a database of somer 50,000 documents relating to child abuse and neglect. Site also provides access to statutes, statistics, and other useful information.
	Contemporary Women's Issues (1992- )	CWI provides full-text materials on a broad array of women and gender-related issues around the world.
	Criminal Justice Abstracts (1968- )	Covers crime trends, crime prevention and deterrence, juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, police, courts, punishment, and sentencing.
	Digest of Education Statistics (1990- )	Topics include the number of schools and colleges, teachers, enrollments, and graduates, educational attainment, finances, federal funds for education, libraries, and international education.
	ERIC - Educational Resources Information Center 1966- )	Covers all aspects of education and related fields. Indexes more than 980 journals plus educational reports, project descriptions, curriculum guides, and dissertations.
	Ethnic NewsWatch, Ethnic NewsWatch: A History (1960- )	Ethnic NewsWatch is a full-text collection of more than 200 newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Spanish language publications are presented in Spanish. Ethnic NewsWatch: A History provides additional older years of coverage from 1960-1989.
	GenderWatch (1980- )	A women's and gender issues database.
	Health and Wellness Resource Center (1994- )	Provides health information for nursing and allied health students, as well as consumer health research.
	Human Population & Natural Resource Management (1995- )	Topics include human population dynamics, demography, population - environment relations, population statistics, poplulation policy, ecotourism, sustainable living, sustainable consumption, environmental awareness and environmental education.
	International Index to Black Periodicals Full Text (IBTFP) (1998- )	Coverage is international in scope and multidisciplinary--spanning cultural and artistic, economic, historical, religious, social, and political issues of importance to the Black Studies discipline.
	Medline Plus	An extensive consumer health site with access to information about specific diseases and conditions from the NIH, other government agencies, health organizations and academic medical centers.
	National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts (1970's- )	Subject areas include corrections, courts, drugs and crime, law enforcement, juvenile justice, crime statistics, and victims of crime.
	Parenthood in America	Proceedings of the Conference held in Madison, WI in April of 1998.
	Philanthropic Studies Index (1991- )	The Philanthropic Studies Index indexes books and periodical articles about the field of philanthropy.
	PubMed (1966- )	Includes information from the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, allied health, health care systems, and pre-clinical sciences.
	Sloan Work and Family Research Network Literature Database	A cross-disciplinary collection of approximately 5,000 records consisting of bibliographic citations with selected annotations that provide information about work and family research.
	Social Work Abstracts (1977- )	Contains citations and abstracts to articles from more than 450 journals in the areas of the social work profession, theory and practice, areas of service, social issues, and social problems.
	Speaking Out: Women, Poverty, and Public Policy	A full-text collection of twenty-six papers from the 1998 UW System Women's Studies Consortium's Annual Conference that offer a variety of viewpoints on the topic of "welfare reform."
	Women's Studies International (1972- )	Covers women's studies, women's issues, and gender-focused scholarship from throughout the world. More than 500 academic, popular, and grassroots periodicals are selectively represented.

Environment - Journal and Research Databases

Core Resources:
	CAB Abstracts (Agriculture & Veterinary) (1910- )	Indexes journals, books, technical reports, and other documents related to agriculture, veterinary medicine, and natural resource management worldwide. Includes rural development, rural sociology, and recreation.
	Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management (1967- )	Collection of databases covers all areas of air, land, water, and noise pollution as well as ecology, toxicology, environmental engineering, environmental biotechnology, waste management, water resources, environmental impact statements, and natural resource management.
More Resources:
	Animal Diversity Web	Contains thousands of species accounts about individual animal species. These may include text, photographs and movies of specimens, and/or recordings of sounds.
	Biological Abstracts (1969- )	Includes anatomy, bacteriology, behavioral sciences, bioengineering, biotechnology, cell biology, clinical medicine, genetics, immunology, microbiology, nutrition, parasitology, pathology, pharmacology, physiology, radiation and systematic biology, toxicology, virology, and zoology.
	Ecology and Natural Resources Collection	Contains primary and secondary writings about research in ecology and natural resources conducted by University of Wisconsin faculty and staff; as well as unique or valuable titles in these fields held by the University of Wisconsin Libraries.
	GEOBASE (1980 - )	Indexes scholarly literature on geography, geology and ecology. It includes human and cultural geography.
	GEOREF	Indexes the earth sciences literature of the world. It contains more than 1.9 million references to literature covering North America since 1785, and other areas of the world since 1933.
	National Environmental Publications Information System(NEPIS)	NEPIS is a database of more than 7,000 full-text EPA documents from the early 1990's to the present.
	Wildlife and Ecology Studies Worldwide (1935- )	Indexes English language literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Subjects include animal behavior, conservation, habitats, and management techniques, in addition to scientific topics such as genetics and toxicology.

International Issues - Journal and Research Databases

Global Resources:
	CAB Abstracts (Agriculture & Veterinary) (1910- )	Indexes journals, books, technical reports, and other documents related to agriculture and veterinary medicine each year. Includes rural development and rural sociology.
	CountryWatch	Provides social, political, environmental and economic information about all of the countries in the world, including narrative, statistics, and current news.
	Eldis Gateway to Development Information	Includes materials about strategic, policy or practical interest for development practitioners based in both the North and South. The target audience includes development professionals, donor agency staff, policy-makers, NGOs, researchers, students, information workers, journalists and development-focused web-service providers.
	GEOBASE (1980- )	This database abstracts scholarly literature on geography, geology and ecology. It includes human and cultural geography.
	Global NewsBank (1996- )	Ideal for researching a wide variety of international developments related to politics, economics, science & technology, culture and business.
	Global Development Network	A global network of research and policy institutes working together to address the problems of national and regional development.
	International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (1981- )	Topics include economics, political science, sociology and anthropology. Approximately 70% of the records are in English.
	Sociological Abstracts (1963- )	The leading sociology database, this resource indexes and abstracts research journals and dissertations in sociology.
	SourceOECD	SourceOECD is the online library of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
	World Bank Documents and Reports	Over 15,000 free, downloadable documents, including project documents, formal and informal research papers, and most World Bank publications.
Additional Resources by Region:
Africa - Additional Journal and Research Databases
	Africana Digitization Project	Along with well-published documents, includes materials that were published in limited, sometimes very limited, quantities, but which have produced a demand beyond the capacity of their initial print run to satisfy. Fewer than ten copies were produced for at least three of the titles in this collection.
	Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a Continent	Contains digitized images and sounds of Africa contributed over the years to the African Studies Program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and includes digital representations of more than 3000 slides, 500 photographs, and 50 hours of sound from forty-five different countries.
	Quarterly Index of African Periodical Literature (1991- )	Most journals covered are scholarly, but journals have also been selected in order to cover subject areas not found in widely available literature (for example, prisons), to include organizations which do not frequently circulate their publications.
Americas - Additional Journal and Research Databases
	Brazil's Popular Groups (1987-2000)	Contains a body of primary materials, mostly non-commercially produced and difficult to acquire and obtain, which is basic to the study of grass-roots political and social movements in Brazil.
	Chicano Database (1967- )	Includes all types of material about Chicanos and incorporates the Spanish Speaking Mental Health Database, a comprehensive resource covering psychological, sociological, and educational literature.
	HAPI Online (Hispanic American Periodicals Index) (1970- )	HAPI Online contains worldwide information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States.
	LANIC: Latin American Network Information Center	Gateway to over 12,000 websites in Latin America, compiled and selected by experts in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
	Latin American Studies (available in campus libraries only) (1986- )	Contains more than 200,000 citations from INFO-LATINAMERICA (formerly INFO-SOUTH), the Latin American Data Base (LADB) , and the World Law Index, Part 1 (Hispanic Nations).
Asia - Additional Journal and Research Databases
	ISI Emerging Markets, Russia	Included are company news and financials, industry profiles, and macroeconomic reports. It also contains legal news and laws; including Kodeks Law Database (Russian) and Garant Law Database (English).
	Official Publications of India	Official Publications of India. Government documents related to pre- and post-Independence South Asia.
	PAIR: Portal to Asian Internet Resources	Offers an entry point to quality Asian materials that too often are neither easily identifiable nor usable due to the limitations of existing search engines.
	SARAI: South Asia Resource Access on the Internet	Subject Gateway from Columbia University Libraries
	South & South East Asian Video Archive	The tapes acquired for this collection are produced by Asians for Asians, thus providing a far different cultural perspectives than those produced by Westerners about the region.
	South Asian Studies Guide	Subject Gateway
	SouthEast Asian Images and Texts Project (SEAiT)	Contains digitized images, including photographs and slides, that librarians, scholars, and other subject specialists have deemed important to these fields of study will be added to the collection on an ongoing basis.
	Southeast Asian Serials Index (1990's- )	Provides access to information on Southeast Asia through the indexing of major academic and current affairs journals published in a range of countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, and The Netherlands.

Knowledge Systems - Journal and Research Databases

Core Resources:
	Communication Abstracts (1977- )	Topics include general and mass communication; communication theory; interpersonal, intrapersonal, small group, and organizational communication; and public opinion.
	Communication and Mass Media Complete (CMMC) (dates vary)	Contains CommSearch and Mass Media Articles Index along with numerous other journals.
	Web of Knowledge (Web of Science) (1970- )	A combination of three databases: Science Citation Index Expanded (1970- ), Social Sciences Citation Index (1982- ), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1982- ). It Indexes more than 8,000 peer-reviewed journals.
More Resources:
	CQ Researcher (1991- )	Topics include health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology, and the U.S. economy.
	National Journal Group's Policy Central	Covers various aspects of U.S. government, public policy, and business. Includes National Journal, The Hotline, Congress Daily, Poll Track and the Almanac of American Politics.
	New Communication Technologies, Their History and Social Influence (19th century- )	This annotated bibliography covers scholarship on the history and social influence of new communication technologies.
	New Dictionary of The History of Ideas	Explores new thinking in areas previously covered (communism, linguistics, physics) and present cross-cultural perspectives on more recent topics such as postmodernism, deconstruction and post-colonialism.

Historical Resources - Journal and Research Databases

Core Resources:
	America: History and Life (1964- )	Includes more than 1700 social science and humanities journals in the field of United States and Canadian history.
	History of Wisconsin Agriculture and Rural Life	Digitized collection of primary and secondary materials about Wisconsin published through 1945
	JSTOR: The Scholarly Journal Archive (dates vary)	This archival journal collection includes such topics as African-American studies, anthropology, demography, education, folklore, history, and sociology. Coverage begins with vol. 1 of each title and continues to within 3 to 5 years of the present. Current issues are not included.
	Pre 1970 Agricultural Indexes	Provides links to pre-1970 print indexes and databases for agricultural topics.
	Pre-1970 Databases	Provides links to pre-1970 databases in all subject areas.
	Sociological Abstracts (1963- )	The leading sociology database, this resource indexes and abstracts research journals and dissertations in sociology.
More Resources:
	American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library	This gateway to the Library of Congress’s digitized American historical materials comprises more than 9 million items that document U.S. history and culture. It is organized into over 100 thematic collections based on original format, subject matter, etc. Includes printed matter, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.
	David Rumsey HIstorical Map Collection (1880's-1900's)	The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America cartographic history materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented. The collection categories include old and antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall, children and manuscript maps. Genealogy and family history can be studied on the maps.
	Documenting the American South (1608-1920)	Iincludes five digitization projects: slave narratives, first-person narratives, Southern literature, Confederate imprints, and materials related to the church in the black community. Another project featuring North Carolina is in development.
	Ethnic NewsWatch; Ethnic NewsWatch: A History (1960- )	Ethnic NewsWatch is a full-text collection of more than 200 newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Spanish language publications are presented in Spanish. Ethnic NewsWatch: A History provides additional older years of coverage from 1960-1989.
	Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project	An online collection of some of the most influential and important American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. Digital images of the pages of each cookbook are available as well as full-text transcriptions and the ability to search within the books, across the collection, in order to find specific information.
	New Communication Technologies, Their History and Social Influence (19th century- )	This annotated bibliography covers scholarship on the history and social influence of new communication technologies.
	State of Wisconsin Collection	Digitized primary and secondary materials about the history and ongoing development of the State of Wisconsin. It includes published and archival materials digitized from books, manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs, and maps.
	ViVa Women's History (1995- )	A bibliography of citations for scholarly articles about women's and gender history. Related topics such as prostitution, witchcraft, housework, sexuality, birth control, infanticide, gynecology, and masculinity are also included.
	Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records: Original Field Notes and Plat Maps	The field notes and plat maps of the public land survey of Wisconsin are a valuable resource for original land survey information, as well as for understanding Wisconsin's landscape history. The survey of Wisconsin was conducted between 1832 and 1866 by the federal General Land Office. This work established the township, range and section grid; the pattern upon which land ownership and land use is based.
	WWW-VL History (World Wide Web Virtual Library)	A megasite providing links to freely-available World Wide Web resources covering all aspects and periods of world history.

Multimedia Resources

	Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds of a Continent	Contains digitized images and sounds of Africa contributed over the years to the African Studies Program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.. The completion date was March 1, 2000, at which time the site contained in its searchable database the digital representations of more than 3000 slides, 500 photographs, and 50 hours of sound from forty-five different countries.
	American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library	This gateway to the Library of Congress’s digitized American historical materials comprises more than 9 million items that document U.S. history and culture. It is organized into over 100 thematic collections based on original format, subject matter, etc. Includes printed matter, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.
	David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (1800's-1900's)	The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America cartographic history materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented. The collection categories include old and antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall, children and manuscript maps. Genealogy and family history can be studied on the maps.
	FAO Country Profiles and Mapping Information System	A variety of topical maps and statistics on agriculture, food, and natural resources for each of the 187 member countries of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
	Smithsonian Global Sound	Smithsonian Global Sound is a service that streams music over the internet on demand. It is produced in partnership with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and is a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions.
	South & South East Asian Video Archive	The tapes acquired for this collection are produced by Asians for Asians, thus providing a far different cultural perspectives than those produced by Westerners about the region.
	SouthEast Asian Images & Texts Project	Please note that full-text searching for the electronic texts in our collections is based on uncorrected OCR (Optical Character Recognition) results. While such text is often highly accurate, it will contain errors that may affect your search results.
	USDA Agricultural Research Service Image Gallery	The Image Gallery is provided as a complimentary source of high quality digital photographs available from the Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
	USDA Online Photography Center	The USDA Online Photo Center provides a complimentary source of high-quality digital photographs, a select few of which appear on these web pages. Our historical section features photographs from the Farm Security Administration's renowned collection of the 1930s and 1940s
	Wisconsin Folksong Collection	The database documents nearly 800 performances during the summers of 1940, 1941, and 1946 representing over thirty ethnic or geographical sources. While vocal music predominates, instruments such as the accordion, guitar, Hardanger fiddle, psalmodikon, and tamburica were also recorded.
	Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records: Original Field Notes and Plat Maps	These notes and maps are a valuable resource for original land survey information, as well as for understanding Wisconsin's landscape history. The survey of Wisconsin was conducted between 1832 and 1866 by the federal General Land Office. This work established the township, range and section grid; the pattern upon which land ownership and land use is based.
	WisStat (1960- )	This database contains thousands of demographic and economic variables for the state of Wisconsin, its counties and smaller communities. It can be used to generate online maps (as well as tables and county or topical profiles).