Last revised: August 2008
Disability Studies
This guide provides information on print and electronic resources for the study of disabilities and people with disabilities. It includes resources for the evolving field of Disability Studies, as well as resources related to education, social history and policy, health and medicine, and more. Email the subject area specialist at thackman@umd.edu or call 301-314-8521 for more information.
Table of Contents
Finding Books in the UM Libraries
- UM Libraries Catalog: Use the Catalog to search for books, journal titles, government documents, nonprint media, and other materials owned by the UM Libraries. Check the box for "USMAI (All Campuses)" in order to search the entire UM System at once. For best results, use the Library of Congress Subject Headings (viewable within individual records or by using the "Subject Beginning with..." search) or consult a reference librarian.
Subject headings in Disability Studies will vary widely depending on your topic of interest. Some examples of relevant subject headings are:
Disability studies
Disabled persons
People with disabilities
People with mental disabilities
People with visual disabilities
People with disabilities in literature
People with disabilities in mass media
Computers and people with disabilities
Developmentally disabled children
Blindness
Blind
Deaf
Barrier-free design
Discrimination against people with disabilities
Sociology of disability
Artists with disabilities
Children with disabilities
Parents with disabilities
Students with disabilities
Women with disabilities
Communicative disorders
Hearing disorders
Movement disorders
Psychomotor disorders
Speech disorders
Mental retardation
Learning disabled
Many subject headings will also subdivide. For example, People with disabilities includes the following sub-divisions:
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People with disabilities -- History
People with disabilities -- Legal status, laws, etc.
People with disabilities -- Social conditions
People with disabilities -- United States -- Statistics
Cut and paste one of the subject headings above into the box below to open the Catalog and launch your search in a new window. Choose "subject beginning with..." to browse the catalog by subject, or choose "subject word/s" to perform a keyword search in the subject field.
Finding Books in Other Libraries
- WorldCat
OCLC catalog of books, serial publications, media, visual materials, musical scores, and archival materials in libraries worldwide. Items not owned by the UM Libraries may be requested by clicking on the "Find It" button. The free, public version of WorldCat may also be accessed at www.worldcat.org.
Reference Works
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Bibliographies
- Disability Awareness: A Selected Bibliography. Compiled by Carol Strauss. National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress, 2003.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: HV1568 .D573 2003
AVAILABLE ONLINE: http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS54150
- disABILITY and Professional Literature (http://www.museumofdisability.org/html/exhibits/media/exb_professional_lit.html):
Compiled by the Museum of disABILITY History, this bibliography contains numerous citations for books, articles and dissertations grouped into eight subject categories: Media, Education, Law, Advocacy, Cures, Eugenics, the Medical Establishment, and Sports. - Media & Disability Bibliography Project (http://pages.towson.edu/bhalle/m&d-biblio.html):
Lists academic journal articles, books and book chapters, government reports, language and reporting guides, and more related to media issues and disabilities. Compiled by the Media and Disability Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). - The Online Disability Studies Bibliography (http://www.instituteondisability.org/bib/):
Compiled by the Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University, the Online Disability Studies Bibliography attempts to "provide comprehensive listings of published scholarship and printed primary sources. It is multidisciplinary, cross-disability, global, and world historical in scope. Users can search by author, date of publication, keywords, or by topics including countries and geographical regions; genres of cultural representation; historical eras; prominent figures; themes in disability historical experience; and types of disabilities." - Ward, Marilyn. Voices from the Margins: An Annotated Bibliography of Fiction on Disabilities and Differences for Young People. Greenwood Press, 2002.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: PS648.Y68 W36 2002 - Dictionary of Developmental Disabilities Terminology. By Pasquale J. Accardo, et al.
Paul H. Brooks Publishing Co., 1996.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: RJ135 .A26 1996 - Encyclopedia of Disability. Ed. Gary L. Albrecht. Sage Publications, 2006.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: HV1568 .E528 2006 (5 vols.)
TABLE OF CONTENTS: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0515/2005018301.html - Encyclopedia of Disability and Rehabilitation. Ed. Arthur E. Dell Orto and Robert P. Marinelli. Prentice Hall International, 1995.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: HV1568 .E53 1995 - The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities, 2nd ed. By Carol Turkington & Joseph R. Harris. Facts on File, 2006.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: LC4704.5 .T86 2006 - Encyclopedia of Special Education: A Reference for the Education of Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Disabilities and other Exceptional Individuals, 3rd ed. Ed. Cecil R. Reynolds, Elaine Fletcher-Janzen. Wiley, 2007.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: LC4007 .E53 2007 (3 vols.) - Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deaf People and Deafness. Ed. John V. Van Cleve. McGraw-Hill, 1987.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: HV2365 .G35 1987 - Random House Webster's American Sign Language Dictionary. By Elaine Costello; illustrated by Lois Lenderman, et al. Random House, 1998.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Stacks
CALL NUMBER: HV2475 .C66 1998 - Resources for People with Disabilities: A National Directory. Ed. Elizabeth H. Oakes and John Bradford. Ferguson Publishing Co., 1998.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: HV1553 .R48 1998 (2 vols.) - EDM: The Educator's Diagnostic Manual of Disabilities and Disorders. By Roger Pierangelo and George Giuliani. Jossey-Bass, 2007
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: LC4019 .P524 2007 - A Guide to Disability Rights Laws. U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Disability Rights Section, 2006
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Government Documents: SU Docs
CALL NUMBER: J 1.109/2:D 63/2006
AVAILABLE ONLINE: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/cguide.htm (2005 edition) - Handbook of Disability Studies. Ed. Gary L. Albrecht, Katherine D. Seelman, Michael Bury. Sage Publications, 2001.
UMCP McKeldin Library Folio HV1568.2 .H36 2001 - Learning Disabilities Sourcebook: Basic Consumer Health Information about Learning Disabilities..., 2nd ed. Ed. Dawn D. Matthews. Omnigraphics, 2003.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: LC4705 .L434 2003 - The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Disability Rights Movement. By Fred Pelka. ABC-CLIO, 1997.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: HV1553 .P42 1997 
Rights of the Disabled. By David M. Haugen, with Susan Musser and Andrea DeMott. Facts on File, 2008.
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library Reference Stacks
CALL NUMBER: KF480 .H365 2008- Disability Statistics Abstract. Institute for Health & Aging, University of California, San Francisco, 1991- . (http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS50153)
- National Center for Health Statistics. International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/otheract/icd9/icfhome.htm)
Finding Periodical Articles
Use the following resources to find journal articles, book chapters, book reviews, etc. related to your topic. These and other databases may be accessed via Research Port. Within UM databases, be sure to click on Find It to locate the full text of an item.
- Academic Search Premier
Multidisciplinary database providing abstracts and indexing for over 7,000 journals. Includes full text of articles for over 4,000 scholarly publications, including more than 3,100 peer-reviewed publications. See also Periodicals Index Online, another excellent multidisciplinary database with a focus on arts/humanities and social sciences.
Useful For: Getting started. - America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts
America: History and Life provides information on articles, books, book reviews, and dissertations on U.S. and Canadian history from prehistory to the present. Historical Abstracts provides information on similar publications on non-U.S. and non-Canadian history from 1450 to present.
Useful For: Historical perspectives on disability and/or disabled persons. - Communication & Mass Media Complete
Combines two communication databases: CommSearch (bibliographic and keyword references to 26 journals in communication studies, plus full indexing of National Communication Association journals) and Mass Media Articles Index (citation coverage of over 40,000 articles related to mass media and published in over 60 research journals, as well as major journalism reviews, recent encyclopedias, and handbooks in the area of communications studies.) For more on speech and language-related disorders, see Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA).
Useful For: Representations of disability and/or disabled persons in the mass media, speech/language-related disabilities, etc. - ERIC
Provides access to information from over 1000 education and education-related journals as well as a variety of non journal materials, or ERIC documents. It also provides the full text of more than 2,200 ERIC Digests (short reports on topics of current interest in education.) See also Education Research Complete for more education-related materials.
Useful For: Disability issues in education, learning disorders, mainstreaming, etc. - Family & Society Studies Worldwide
A primary family studies resource, Family & Society Studies Worldwide provides more than 700,000 citations and abstracts to professional journals, books, book chapters, conference papers, theses & dissertations, websites & internet documents, selected popular literature, government reports, statistical documents, working papers, and unpublished material from 1972 to present.
Useful For: Aspects of disability related to families, parenting, children, and more. - GenderWatch
Full text database comprised of 175 titles, primarily of the many ongoing periodicals that deal with gender issues, including academic and scholarly journals, regional publications, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, booklets and reports. Subject areas covered include: government, history and politics, lesbian and gay studies, women's studies, and other humanities and social sciences disciplines. For lesbian and gay studies, LGBT Life with Full Text is also recommended.
Useful For: Intersections of disability with women's and gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, etc. - Medline (EBSCO) or Medline (PubMed)
The National Library of Medicine's Medline database provides abstracts and indexing for about 4,600 biomedical journals published in the U.S. and 70 foreign countries. Covers the fields of medicine, nursing, psychiatry, pre-clinical sciences, medical education and health care planning and administration of services. Also includes additional life science journals. Available in two different interfaces (Ebsco or PubMed) as well as in a publicly-available consumer edition known as Medline Plus.
Useful For: Excellent information on medical conditions and diseases. - MLA International Bibliography
Indexes journals, books, essay collections, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies published worldwide in the areas of literary criticism, language, linguistics, rhetoric, and folklore of all countries.
Useful For: Representations of disability and "the body" in literature, critical theory (e.g., interactions between disability and feminist theory, queer theory, etc.) - PAIS International and PAIS Archive
The PAIS International database contains references to more than 460,000 journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, microfiche, Internet material, and more. Newspapers and newsletters are not indexed. Coverage is international and multidisciplinary on a wide range of public affairs topics, including: business, education, government, health, law & legislation, political science, social issues, public administration and more. PAIS International contains citations from 1972 to present; PAIS Archive contains citations for 1915-1976. The CQ Public Affairs Collection is also highly recommended for government reports on disability issues, including legislative information, case summaries, bibliographies, links to related government organizations, and more..
Useful For:Disability-related social and public policy, disability issues in education, etc. - PsycINFO
PsycINFO is the most comprehensive index in psychology and related fields, with more than 1.7 million citations and abstracts of journal articles, book chapters and books, technical reports, and dissertations. Its holdings include material from 1,700 periodicals in over 30 languages. See also the Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection.
Useful For: Information related to psychological aspects of disability, developmental, communicative and mental disorders, attitudes toward various disabilities, etc. - SocIndex
The index features more than 1.3 million records with subject headings from a sociology-specific thesaurus designed by expert lexicographers. Contains informative abstracts for more than 620 "core" coverage journals dating back to 1895, data from more than 500 "priority" coverage journals, as well as over 1,390 "selective" coverage journals. Also includes extensive indexing for books, monographs, conference papers, and other sources. See also Social Sciences Citation Index.
Useful For: Information related to sociological aspects of disability.
Web Resources
- Untangling the Web: Disability Links ( http://www.icdi.wvu.edu/Others.htm )
"Your complete listing of disability information on the Web."
- Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) ( http://www.ahead.org/ )
- Canadian Centre on Disability Studies ( http://www.disabilitystudies.ca/ )
- Disability History Association ( http://dha.osu.edu/ )
- Disability Social History Project ( http://www.disabilityhistory.org/ )
- Disability Studies Association (UK) ( http://www.disabilitystudies.net/ )
- Institute on Disability Culture ( http://www.dimenet.com/disculture/ )
- National Center for the Dissemination of Disability Research ( http://www.ncddr.org/ )
- National Organization on Disability ( http://www.nod.org/ )
See especially the page on Information and Resources. - Society for Disability Studies (SDS) ( http://www.uic.edu/orgs/sds/ )
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Home Page ( http://www.ada.gov/ )
- DisabilityInfo.gov ( http://www.disabilityinfo.gov )
"The federal government's one-stop Web site for people with disabilities, their families, employers, veterans and service members, workforce professionals and many others." - National Council on Disability (NCD) ( http://www.ncd.gov )
More than 20 major reports about disability issues highlight this site from the NCD, an independent federal agency that makes recommendations to the president and Congress.
- Disability Support Service ( http://www.counseling.umd.edu/DSS/ )
"The mission of DSS is to coordinate services that ensure individuals with disabilities equal access to University of Maryland College Park programs." - Information for UM Library Visitors with Disabilities
( http://www.lib.umd.edu/PUBSERV/disabilities.html ) - President's Commission on Disability Issues ( http://www.president.umd.edu/PCDI/ )
"The Commission, established in 1986, advises the President on issues to improve the quality of life for students and employees with disabilities." - Other Library Resource Guides Available:
Diversity Mediagraphy --> Disabilities
List of disability-related films and videos in the Nonprint Media Services Library collections.Health and Medical Statistics
Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
Psychology (various guides)
- Guides to Deaf-Related Resources from Gallaudet University.
( http://library.gallaudet.edu/dr/deafguid.html ) - Disability History Museum ( http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/ )
"The Disability History Museum's mission is to promote understanding about the historical experience of people with disabilities by recovering, chronicling, and interpreting their stories. This virtual edifice is home to a searchable, theme-based digital collection of documents and images related to disability history in the United States. These artifacts are drawn from public and private collections around the country. They exist as primary source materials in the Library, and then are interpreted in Museum exhibitions and Education resources." [Note: Museum and Education pages are under construction, 8/13/07] - National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS)
( http://www.loc.gov/nls )
