The Howard University School of Social Work is among a few select accredited social work programs in the United States to provide it's students with on-site library services tailored to their information needs.

The Social Work Library, established as a formal campus branch library within the School of Social Work building in 1971 (first constituted in 1962 as a Reading Room within Founders Library), is a component of the Howard University Libraries System.

Our Purpose and Mission

The purpose of the Social Work Library is to provide resources and services to  facilitate and assist students, faculty, staff, and administrators of the School of Social Work, our primary clientele, in teaching and learning, research, practice, and service to the University and community. Faculty, staff, students, and administrators in the wider University community and others may also find this  resource useful. Our mission is to fulfill our purpose while providing quality customer service to our clients.

The Social Work Library's resources and services support the School of Social Work's MSW and Ph.D. curricula as well as faculty and student research and service. A strong professional collection [accessed via the Sterling online library catalog] is maintained on the:

• history and philosophy of social work/social welfare,
• social welfare policies and services,
• micro practice (direct services to individuals, families, and groups),
• macro practice (community organization and social service management), and
• social research and statistical methods.

The collections are also developed to support the following fields of practice/areas of specialization:

• Criminal Justice,
• Displaced Populations (refugees, immigrants, disaster victims, the homeless, etc.),
• Family and Child Welfare,
• Social Gerontology,
• Social Work in Health Care Setting, and
• Social Work in Mental Health Settings.

The Library also strives to comprehensively collect social work/social welfare materials related to African Americans and Blacks worldwide with a focus toward oppressed and underserved populations (e.g., women, persons with disabilities, gays and lesbians,  and other racial, ethnic and religious minorities).

The print and microforms collections are augmented by an extensive collection of electronic resources through the Digital Library and media resources -- computer diskette, CD-ROM, and free and commercial Internet-accessible databases -- providing bibliographic access, research data files for statistical information and/or secondary analysis, clinical and practice management software, and full-text journals. Multi-media resources (kits, games, audio tapes, transparencies, and videocassettes) are housed  in the Social Work Library and in the Undergraduate Library's Media Center (which provides individual and group audiovisual facilities).

Other research materials may be found in the central library complex (Founders & Undergraduate Libraries) and other branch libraries (Architecture,  Business and Divinity). These libraries along with the Social Work Library constitute the Howard University Libraries; they are administratively connected such that materials borrowed at any one of these locations may be returned to any location within this system. Other autonomous resources include the Health Sciences, the Allen Mercer Daniel Law Library, the Ralph J. Bunche Reference Library , the African-American Studies Resource Center, and the University's archives and world-renown collections of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (the latter two are currently housed in Founders Library).

University-wide library resources are enhanced by the Libraries' membership in the prestigious, national Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Chesapeake Information and Research Library Alliance (CIRLA). Our CIRLA membership entitles Social Work students to direct borrowing privileges at Georgetown University (Lauinger and Bloomer Libraries), Johns Hopkins University (Eisenhower Library), the National Agriculture Library (at Beltsville) which houses the Food & Nutrition Service and Cooperative Extension collections, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries (excluding Freer, Sackler, Hirshhorn and NMAA collections), the University of Delaware Libraries, and the libraries of the University of Maryland at College Park. Also, our Interlibrary Loan (ILL) office located in Founders Library will assist you in acquiring photocopies of journal articles, or borrowing books and other monographs from libraries world wide (delivery is often within 48 hours).

The library's web site provides an overview of the resources and services offered by the Library. It is designed to mirror the curriculum and the broader organization of  social work knowledge. Goal-oriented strategies for undertaking library and information research are presented. Traditional (print, microform, and audiovisual) and electronic (e.g., CD-ROM and Internet) social work resources -- including related health and human services, behavioral and social sciences, and other relevant professions and/or disciplines -- are identified, organized, and described to facilitate the research process.