Skip to Main Content

Demography: Get Books

Resources for research in demography

Get Books

Search our library catalog to find books and ebooks purchased by the UC Berkeley Library, as well as those at all UC campuses (Use a proxy login if off-campus.)

Search WorldCat for books on your topic around the world, especially if doing a major literature review.

Finding Books on the Shelf

We use the Library of Congress system to shelve books by topic. When you find a book in the catalog, check which library it's in and write down its call number:

  HB881 .S526 1980 

Books are shelved in alphabetical order (HM books before HQ books), and then in numeric order (31 before 308). Demography is diverse, and so we have several main groupings, each with a subject or subjects as part of it:

G: General Geography, Atlases & Maps

GF: Human Ecology, Anthropogeography

HB: Economic theory, Demography

HB848.8 3697 Demography, Population, Vital events

HM: Sociology (General)

HM435-477 History of sociology
HM481-554 Theory and method
HM621-656 Culture
HM661-706 Social control, systems, and structure
HM711-806 Groups and organizations
HM826 Social Institutions
HM831-901 Social Change
HM1001-1281 Social psychology

HN: Social history and conditions, Social problems, Social reform

HQ: Family, Marriage, Women

HQ12-449 Sexual life
HQ503-1064 Family, Marriage, Home
HQ1101-2030.7 Women, Feminism

HT: Communities, Classes, Races

HT101-395 Urban sociology
HT401-485 Rural sociology
HT601-1445 Classes
HT1501-1595 Races

JV: Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration

JV6001-9480 Emigration and immigration, International migration

Get eBooks!

The library has purchased access to a wide range of sociology e-books for your use. Nearly all are subscription-based UCB access only and require you to be on campus / to login to your CalNet account to access:

Proquest ebooks can be read online, or download for 1-14 day loans. (You can permanently save some unrestricted books depending on the publisher's agreement).

Project Muse and JSTOR ebooks slant to the humanities; download and save chapters to read later.

Springer and Science Direct ebooks tend towards the sciences, and can often be downloaded and saved permanently.

Taylor & Francis ebooks are a mix of lending and permanent downloads.

UC Press and ACLS Humanities ebooks allow online reading only.

Proquest Dissertations and Theses is a good place to find detailed research not yet published as a book.

Google Books and HathiTrust  have digitized thousands of Berkeley books, which you can download if not in copyright.

Using "subject headings" to find books

Every book in our catalog has several "subject" headings which describe its main topic. Samples:

  • Emigration and immigration – Government policy
  • India -- Population -- Mathematical models
  • Family size -- United States

Subjects and keywords are different. Search by "keyword" to find matching words in any title, author, subject, or book description. Search by "subject" to find books cataloged in a specific area--then click on the subject link to find similar books!  Here are some subject headings which will give you good results for topics in demography:

  • (Country name) -- Census
  • Vital Statistics -- (country name)
  • (Country name) -- Statistics, Vital
  • Demographic surveys -- (country name)
  • (Country name) -- Population
  • (Continent/Country name) -- Population -- History
  • Demography -- (Country name)
  • Demography -- Methodology
  • Marriage -- (country name) --  Statistics
  • Marriage age -- (country name) -- Statistics
  • Divorce -- (country name) -- Statistics
  • Mortality -- (country name) -- Statistics
  • Mortality --  (country name) -- Tables
  • Fertility, Human --  (country name)  -- Statistics
  • Birth Intervals -- Statistics
  • Contraception -- Statistics
  • Birth control -- (country name)
  • Family planning -- (country name)
  • Reproductive health -- (country name)
  • Immigration and emigration -- (country name)
  • Migration, Internal -- (country name)
  • Immigrants -- (country name) -- Statistics
  • Population forecasting -- (country name)
  • (Country name)  -- Mathematical models

Always cite your sources! This list of subject headings for finding demography books comes from librarian Joann Donatiello at Princeton University