Answered Questions

What an interesting topic!

To find books and eBooks, go to our library's online catalog at https://brenau.on.worldcat.org/discovery. In the search box, type in elderly AND living, and click the button to search. You'll find thousands of titles at first - way too much to handle! To narrow your results, find the Format option on the left side of the page and click the checkbox for Book. You'll see books that are available at the library as well as eBooks that you can view immediately at your computer, like the title below:

Zimmerman, S., Sloane, P. D., & Eckert, J. (2001). Assisted living: Needs, practices, and policies in residential care for the elderly. Johns Hopkins University Press.

To find relevant articles for this subject, visit our Gerontology LibGuide at http://libguides.brenau.edu/gerontology. Click the yellow Articles tab at the top of the page, and you'll find a variety of databases for this kind of information. Here's a few tips for your searches!

• Try synonyms. Search for elderly, but also search "senior citizens" to see what other results are returned by phrasing the search differently.
• When you are using a specific phrase of two or more words, put quotation marks around the phrase so your searches will keep those two words together. For example, it could look like this when you type it into the search box: "senior citizens" AND "living arrangements" or "senior citizens" AND "assisted living"
• Notice the AND between those two terms. This is a Boolean (BOOL-ee-un) search technique that allows you ask the database for articles that have both those terms in it, not just one or the other. 
• Make sure to click any check boxes for Peer Reviewed and Scholarly Journals to ensure that the database returns items from only academic and scholarly sources. Another handy button is for Full Text - this makes sure it will return only items that you can read right away! Use more buttons on the sides of the page to narrow your results even more.

When I ran the search for "older people" AND housing in Sociological Collection (the fourth database listed on the Articles page), I found articles like these below:

Means, R. (2007). Safe as houses? Ageing in place and vulnerable older people in the UK. Social Policy & Administration, 41(1), 65-85.

Pynoos, J., Caraviello, R., & Cicero, C. (2009). Lifelong housing: The anchor in aging-friendly communities. Generations, 33(2), 26-32.

Rosenfeld, J. P., & Popko, J. (2010). Home, community, and gerontocracy: Forcasting the future of senior housing. Generations, 34(3), 61-69.

Warren, C., & Williams, K. (2008). Interviewing elderly residents in assisted living. Qualitative Sociology, 31(4), 407-424.

Each database is a unique collection of articles. Try different ones to find the best resources for your topic!