Social Work
Federal Government
- Westlaw This link opens in a new window
Westlaw's research service redesigned for students. Legal sources, including the Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, United States Code Annotated (USCA), Federal and State court cases, American Law Reports (ALR), American Jurisprudence 2d, Black's Law Dictionary, Legal Guides, and more. Also includes more than 700 law reviews and journals.
Citations sent using Westlaw's email option do not provide a permalink that can be used to link directly to a case. Users are encouraged to log into Westlaw and then search for the citation(s) received via email, and when sending cases, to select the radio button for "documents" instead of "list of items" when using the email option.Added January 3, 2014.
- NexisUni This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to over 10,000 news, business, and legal sources, including both deep archive and up-to-the-minute stories in regional, national, and international newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, and non-English language news services. Company Dossier can be used to retrieve detailed company information and financial performance measures, or to identify and compare companies matching specific criteria. Also included is Shepard's Citations service for all federal and state court cases 1789-present.
NOTE: Users must register for a NexisUni account using their WMU email address in order to save content and searches on this platform. - HeinOnline: The Modern Link to Legal History This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline consists of major full-text legal collections including: the Law Journal Library, the Federal Register Library, the Treaties and Agreements Library, U.S. Code, the U.S. Supreme Court Library, and the Selden Society Publications and the History of Early English Law. These collections are image-based and fully searchable, with comprehensive coverage of each title, some going back to the 18th century.
- US CodeSearch or browse the compiled federal laws through the Government Publishing Office. The site includes historical editions of the US Code to 1994.
- Legislative Insight: Major Laws This link opens in a new window
Major Laws is a subset of ProQuest Legislative Insight, which provides resources for studying the process by which a bill becomes a law. Includes digital full-text primary source documents related to major laws enacted through U.S. history, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, USA Patriot Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and many others.
Michigan and Local Government
- Michigan LegislatureIncludes state laws (public acts), proposed bills, committee records, executive orders, the Michigan Manual, and more.
- Governing MichiganThis portal provides access to electronic versions of selected Michigan government publications collected by the Library of Michigan.
The documents found here originate from Michigan state government websites or as a result of digitizing existing print materials owned by the Library of Michigan.
This is not an exhaustive collection. - Government Departments of MichiganLink to Michigan government departments, including Health and Human Services, Civil Rights, Corrections, Education, and more.
- Kalamazoo Local Information DatabaseProvides several searchable indexes of local information, including an index of Kalamazoo area newspapers and magazines with information on area businesses, agencies, and organizations; a searchable index of social and human service organizations in Kalamazoo county; and more. Compiled by the Kalamazoo Public Library.
Policy Reports, Working Papers, and Think Tanks
- CQ Researcher Plus Archive This link opens in a new window
CQ Researcher is often the first source that librarians recommend when researchers are seeking original, comprehensive reporting and analysis on issues in the news. Founded in 1923 as Editorial Research Reports, CQ Researcher is noted for its award-winning in-depth, unbiased coverage of health, social trends, criminal justice, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and the economy. Reports are published online 44 times a year by CQ Press, an imprint of Sage Publications.
- PolicyArchivePolicyArchive is a comprehensive digital library of public policy research containing over 30,000 documents.
- IssueLabIssueLab gathers, indexes, and shares the collective intelligence of the social sector. It provides free access to thousands of case studies, evaluations, white papers, and issue briefs addressing some of the world's most pressing social problems. From the Foundation Center.
Think tanks are institutions affiliated with universities, foundations, advocacy groups, and other organizations that generate policy research. Many are ideological; others strive to be non-partisan. Use these tools to find more information from think tanks:
Think Tank Search Engine from Harvard Kennedy School Library)
Global Go To Think Tank Index Reports Comprehensive think tank overview from the University of Pennsylvania, last updated 2020.
- Brookings InstitutionThe Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization. Widely considered to be one of the top think tanks/research organizations in the world.
- Pew Research CenterNonpartisan institute conducting public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research.
- Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy - list of Institutes and Think TanksThe Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy (CRISP) is a non-profit organization representing the interests of social workers and social work to Congress. This page contains a list of institutes and think tanks, both non-partisan and partisan, that address issues of interest to social workers.