The week of April 5th is Careers in Aging Week, an opportunity to explore career options in elder care, as well as to think about the needs of older adults. Various information sessions and visual displays will be offered around campus by gerontology students throughout the week. While our nursing students may already have looked into the many options for jobs in elder care, the field certainly isn’t limited to medical professionals. It includes everything from social workers, psychologists, dieticians, personal trainers, and home health care aides to more unexpected roles like architects, technology and design specialists, programmers, and communications professionals. All of us will age – and many of us will deal with aging issues earlier, as parents and people we care about reach the latter stages of their lives.
But the library has a wealth of information on the topic, too. Books include titles like Older Americans, Vital Communities: A Bold Vision for Societal Aging by W. Andrew Achenbaum, Social Integration in the Second Half of Life by Karl Pillemer, Geriatric Nursing: Growth of a Specialty by Priscilla Ebersole, Career as a Nurse (RN): Geriatric Nursing, Preparing for an Aging World, and Aging: Theories and Potential Therapies by Joseph Panno. And for more ebooks, try the Social Sciences eBook Collection.
For journals, medical and social science databases like CINAHL, OVID, ProQuest Social Science Journals or SocIndex are excellent resources. These let you limit to peer reviewed articles, full text, or by date. All have hundreds of full text journals, making them great places to start. And that’s just the beginning. All of our other social sciences-related databases can be found on this libguide, and our medical databases on this one.
And there are plenty of great resources on the internet, as well. The Association for Gerontology in Higher Education and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook might seem like obvious places to start, but there are lots more. Check out Senior Planet, a web site dedicated to ‘aging with attitude’ by equipping senior citizens with technological tools and skills to stay healthy and connected. And the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) both advocates for the elderly and offers programs and insurance to eliminate the vulnerability many older people feel, keeping them as anchors for their families and their communities.
If you need any help in your research, ask us at iueref@iue.edu!