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JOMC 154 Pathfinder

SELECTED RESOURCES FOR RESEARCH IN ADVANCED REPORTING

TOPIC: "Kids in Crises"

Key words: Kids, child or children, adolescence or teens, dropouts, emotionally disturbed, disadvantage, poverty or poor, hunger, homeless, pregnancy or sexual behavior, physical fitness, children & crime (victims or perps), child abuse or molestation, child care, child health, child neglect of violence, minorities, drug or alcohol abuse, suicide, other terms?

1. Check JOMC library's special collection of feature articles from various newspapers.

2. For local/N.C. news on this topic, check Herald-Sun Newspaper IND-EX from 1981-1990 for features/series on keywords. After you get your relevant citations for news articles, microfilm for these newspapers are in this library. The JOMC library, regrettably, does not have clip files on this topic.

2a. For national news on this topic check the annual news indexes in Davis Library for these newspapers: The New York Times Index, the Washington Post Index, The Wall Street Journal Index and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Index. Once you select the articles you want, go to the microforms department in Davis (2nd floor) to make prints from the newspaper microfilm.

3. CD-ROM at Davis Library. Check with the Humanities Reference Desk for the CD-ROMs "Newspaper Abstracts". Check with BA/SS for CD-ROMs on "P.A.I.S" or "ERIC" or "Social Abstracts". These products contain substantial abstracts of hundreds of scholarly and professional journals. They do not include popular magazine. Remember, you must sign up in advance for search time.

Sample search using key words: child OR children AND poverty (or key word of your choice) (Note: seek help from Reference Librarians for guidance using CD-ROMs.)

4. Check Davis Library for the following journals (and others) on your topic. These current articles will give you the issues, trends and contacts to further your research.

Child Abuse & Neglect
Child Life
Child Welfare
Child & Youth Care
Children's Health Care
Response to the Victimization of Women and Children

5. Check "Experts on Call" in JOMC library for key contacts in Child Advocacy, Child Health, Child Abuse, Single-Parent Families and Child Development.

6. Check with the N.C Center for Public Policy (Raleigh phone: (919) 832-2839) for clues about features they MIGHT have published in its INSIGHT periodical on your topic. The N.C. Collection in Wilson Library might be able to help you discover state government reports on your topic.

7. Check the JOMC 154 reserved readings (in the file drawers) for very useful material on this subject.

8. Check with BIS, UNC-CH's online bibliographic catalog using the following search strategy: (Note: It is vital to consult the Library of Congress Subject Heading List to select the correct headings.)

? su child advocacy [return]
or
? su child abuse [return]
or
? su child health services [return]

10. Online, full-text searching. Be certain to complete the online search request form before asking the JOMC librarian to initiate a search for you.

NEXIS sample search:

NEXIS; Mags; headline ( child! or kids or adolescence) and education or disadvantage! or poverty or hunger or drugs and section (cover story)

NEXIS sample search:

NEXIS; Papers; headline (child! or kids or adolescence) and poverty or crime or homeless and terms (series)

11. Consult the Statistical Abstract of the United States in JOMC library or Davis Library under the index headings of "Children...." Remember that the numbers following the headings are NOT page numbers, rather they are TABLE numbers.

12. Do not neglect these valuable research tools at the BA/SS Reference Desk in Davis Library:

Government Reports Catalog
GPO (Government Printing Office) on Disc
Monthly Catalog

13. A good resource to call (long distance) is IRE (Investigative Reporters & Editors). This organizations keeps an index of investigative reports, features and series from newspapers all over the country. Give the librarian your topic, he/she will search the IRE database and let you know if or how many stories are available and quote you a price for copying and mailing the articles to you. The IRE number is (314) 882-2042.

Barbara Semonche, Director of the JOMC Library, 1991.

Copyright 2003 - The Park Library - School of Journalism and Mass Communication - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill