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Library Resources for Political Science 101

Introduction to American Government
and Politics
Fall 2005 - Joseph Miller

Welcome!  We are providing this site to assist you in exploring library resources on your topic.  Our library is one of the largest in the United States and it can be very intimidating.  We will try to make things a little easier for you, but you have to ask questions.  It takes patience, curiosity, and a sense of adventure to use our resources and facilities so think of this page as a road map for your travels with us.

FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND

We have over 40 departmental libraries on our campus.  The libraries you will find most important are the Undergraduate Library (especially for reserves), the Education and Social Science Library , the Documents Library , and the History Library .  The last three reside in the Main Library building.  You might also hear it referred to as the Graduate Library, but don't let that stop you from coming in here and taking advantage of the resources we can provide.

Ask-A-Librarian for Help with Your Research

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR YOU?

You may think of the Library as a place to read, but it is much, much more.  We have several purposes.  The first purpose is as a repository for information.  We have been around a little longer than Google, so it is sometimes a little more difficult to find the information here.  That leads to our other two functions - discovery and location.  The Library is the place to discover resources that will be helpful to you in your studies and writing.  We use various tools to do this, both catalogs and article databases.  Explore these tools to see what exists in the collections that will be of help to you.  Finally, use the tools we provide to locate the materials you need.  Many of our databases include links to full-text articles.  What if they don't?  Use the Online Catalog to find out where the journals the articles are found in live.  It's similar to the good old game Tetris, you build, block by block to create the perfect paper.

A WORD ABOUT WORDS

The use of subject words is generally more helpful to you in the library.  We aren't very good about "natural language."  We just can't keep up with it!  If you have an article that you think will be of use to you, look at the subject headings listed after the citation to get an idea of the terms you can use to expand your search. 

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FINDING ARTICLES

For the purposes of your assignments in many classes, you may really need to find some good articles.  This is a two-step process.  First, you need to find the citation to the article you want.  You can use bibliographies or suggested readings lists, or you can search for the topic you are interested in by using one of the over 500 databases we provide to you.  The second step is to find the actual text of the article you want.  Some of our journals are available electonically, but most still live on the shelves.  You will need to use the Illinet Online catalog to look up the source of the citation you have retrieved from the article database if the citation is not available electronically.  

WHERE ARE THE DATABASES?

Search for Articles- How can you find the database you need for your research?  Try going to the Online Research Resources page.  This might look a little confusing at first, but we think you will like it.  If you are looking for a particular type of electronic resource, you can use the search function to see what is available.  You don't have to choose a type, but the opportunity is there.  Let's say you wanted an index and abstracting resource in order to search for articles.  Then, you can also choose the subject area you are working in.  These are very broad subjects.  You would probably want to choose "Political Science" or "Government" for this class.  If you hit the search button, you will go directly to the political science article indexes and abstracts.  Or, (for example) if you know that you just want to look at the PAIS database, just type in the name, or part of the name in the box that says "Words in Resource Name or Title of E-journal."  

If you are working off campus you can get into most of these resources by logging into the proxy server.  Just select the database you need and you will be automatically prompted for your netid and login.  These are the identifiers you use for your e-mail or to register for classes on UIDirect.  If you are working from a campus computer you should be able to connect without identifying yourself.

WHICH DATABASES WILL WORK BEST FOR RESEARCH IN POLITICAL SCIENCE?

America History and Life and Historical Abstracts - America: History and Life is a complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, the database comprises almost 400,000 bibliographic entries.  Historical Abstracts is your complete reference guide to the history of the world from 1450 to the present, excluding the United States and Canada.

EBSCO -  EBSCO online offers general, business, newspaper and health-related information. Provides full text for over 1,250 journals covering the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education, plus 960 journals covering business, management, economics, finance, banking, accounting and selected full text articles from 143 U.S. and international newspapers. 

InfoTrac -  Includes Expanded Academic ASAP (1996-Sep. 1999, backfile (1980-1995) and LegalTrac (1980-Sep. 1999) collections. EAI offers citations, abstracts and some full text articles with graphics from over 1500 magazines and journals. Subjects include astronomy, religion, law, history, psychology, humanities, current events, sociology,
communications and the general sciences.

JSTOR - Includes the full-text of over 100 journals in the areas of African American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, population studies, sociology, and statistics. Most include full texts of complete journals from their inception up to a “moving wall.” The moving wall is a fixed period of time ranging, in most cases, from 2 to 5 years, that defines the gap between the most recently published issue and the date of the most recent issues available in JSTOR.  

Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe -A comprehensive source for news, business, and legal information, with full text and abstracts. Includes foreign news sources, major U.S. newspapers, regional U.S. news services, radio and television transcripts, federal and state case law, medical, legislative and industry news, annual reports from Securities and Exchange Commission and many other sources. Newspapers are updated several times daily, and wire services hourly.  Other databases available from Lexis-Nexis deal with statistical resources and Congressional resources - be sure to check this out. 

P.A.I.S.(Public Affairs Information Service) - This is a bibliographic index with abstracts covering the full range of political, social, and public policy issues. Topics covered include economic, political, and social issues, business, finance, law, international trade and relations, public administration, government, political science, and any topics that are or might become the subject of legislation. The database covers selected journal articles, books, statistics, yearbooks, directories, conference proceedings, pamphlets, reports, government documents, and microfiche. More than 1,600 journals and over 8,000 monographs are indexed each year. Coverage includes documents published worldwide in any of six languages:  English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The subject headings and abstracts are in English. Covers 1972-present. 

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts - Bibliographic information and research within the political science discipline and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration/policy. The database covers over 1000 journals with links to the full-text of some articles.

CQ Voting and Elections - CQ Voting and Elections Collection integrates a wealth of data, authoritative analyses, concise explanations, and historical material to provide a powerful research and reference tool on the American voter, major and minor political parties, etc. 

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FINDING BOOKS

ILLINET ONLINE CATALOG - Our very own list of holdings plus much more.  Look here to find titles to books that you want to read, titles of magazines or journals containing articles that you need, and the location of these items. You can also access electronic reserves for your classes and check your library account here.   In addition to the 10 million volumes we have on this campus, you can connect to 65 libraries within the State of Illinois and request books be sent to you.  

WORLD-CAT - Still can't find it?  Look here to see if it exists.  This connection goes to something called OCLC and you can choose to look for your book in this database.  You have several sources here - WorldCat will take to to the place you want to go.

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GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

There is a great big world of information out there on the Internet.  It may or may not be helpful to you.  Before you try searching for materials, it might help you to decide what exactly you are looking for.  A super site to help you learn about assessing information on the Internet can be found here .  We have a selected list of internet sites that will be of particular importance to you listed under the Political Science section of the Education and Social Science Library home page as well.  Click here to see our entire menu of choices.

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9/7/05 - LR-DG-KH