The 2016 Paralympic Games begin in Rio on September 7th. The Libraries offer a number of resources to explore competitive sports, adaptive technology and sports, the history of the Paralympic games, and more.
QuickSearch is an ideal place to start your research, and we’re not just saying that because QuickSearch is a brand-new service that allows you to search across our collections for books, articles, conference proceedings, theses and dissertations, videos, music, images, manuscripts, standards, maps, and more–all at once. While it may lack the exhaustive depth of some of our subject-specific databases, QuickSearch is a great place to explore interdisciplinary topics. A search here on topics such as paralympic athletes and training or wheelchair basketball and gender locates hundreds of scholarly articles, ranked by overall relevance of the article full text. QuickSearch also includes thousands of newspapers, wire services and popular magazines, making it easy to locate recent news and opinion on current topics such as the funding troubles for the Rio games or plans to re purpose Olympics venues for schools and community centers.
SportDiscus is a specialized resource covering scholarly and some popular magazines related to sports medicine, exercise, and training. Here you will find articles on the biomechanics of acceleration in wheelchair court sports (basketball, rugby, and tennis) as well as the mental outcomes of participation in adaptive sports. Use the Find it! button to locate full text for article citations.
The Physical Education Index covers similar ground to SportDiscus but is slightly more f on coaching, health and fitness education, and recreational programming. This resource indexes articles on topics such as coaching in adaptive sports and introducing visually impaired children to track and field sports. As with SportDiscus, se the Find it! button to locate full text for article citations.
You may also wish to consult ERIC for a focus on education and athletics, PsycINFO for resilience and persistence, or even a business database like ABI/NFORM for topics such as the market for adaptive sports equipment. Or explore even farther afield to look at an architecture or engineering database such as Avery Index or Compendex for articles on inclusive design and sports facilities or Historical Abstracts for the social history of sport.
No matter where your curiosity wanders, the Libraries have you covered. Let the Games begin!