Library Resources for Political Science 398

Multi-disciplinary indexes, including some full text articles online—

Academic OneFile (a larger version of Expanded Academic ASAP)

Academic Search Premier

ArticleFirst

The databases listed above cover a large number of scholarly journals in a wide variety of disciplines and are often good places to start your literature search. They allow searching by keywords, but also have subject thesauri for more precise searching. Academic OneFile and Expanded Academic ASAP in particular have good searching capabilities. The databases include links to online, full-text versions of many of the articles indexed. Dates of coverage vary for each journal, but in general each database has indexing dating back to the mid-1980s.

Indexes to articles in specific subject areas or disciplines —

History

America: History and Life
Citations and abstracts from more than 2,100 journals published in approximately 50 languages covering the history of the United States and Canada.

Historical Abstracts
Citations and abstracts from more than 2,100 journals published in approximately 50 languages covering modern world history outside of the United States and Canada.

Political Science

PAIS International
This is a bibliographic index to literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. Can select both the archive (1937-1976) and the full database (1972-present). This index is available in paper in the reference room for the years 1915-1936 (call #: 016.3 P97).

International Political Science Abstracts
International Political Science Abstracts (IPSA), produced since 1951 by the International Political Science Association, is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from periodicals published throughout the world.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Citations with abstract from more than 1100 journals in political science and related disciplines.

Sociology

Sociological Abstracts
Citations and abstracts of articles from approximately 2500 journals, as well as conference papers, dissertations, book reviews and selected sociology books. The database covers sociology and sociological topics in fields such as anthropology, economics, education, medicine, community development, philosophy, demography, political science and social psychology.

International Studies

CIAO: Columbia International Affaris Online
Citations, abstracts and selected full-text articles covering topics in international affairs, collected largely from university- and foundation-funded research institutes, non-governmental organizations and academic conferences. Updated each month, CIAO includes working papers, conference proceedings, journal and book abstracts, links to related resources, and a schedule of events in the international affairs scholarly community.

HAPI: Hispanic American Periodicals Index
Provides citations to worldwide information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States. Coverage is 1970 to the present.

Index Islamicus
Citations to over 240,000 articles and monographs dealing with all aspects of Muslim life and Middle Eastern studies, including history, economics, religion and theology, law, art and architecture, and philosophy. Also included are citations to conference papers and presentations, memorial volumes and collected essays.

Public Opinion

Gallup Brain
This database provides the results from over 125,000 Gallup opinion questions dating back to 1935.

Polling the Nations
Searchable and browseable database of over 350,000 questions from more than 14,000 public opinion surveys conducted by more than 700 different organizations in the U.S. and abroad. Records include the question asked and the tabulated responses, as well as the name of the polling organization, date published, sample size and method of data collection.

Find additional indexes to articles or browse indexes by subject

Sources for articles from newspapers—

The NU libraries offer several ways to access articles articles from newspapers.

LexisNexis Academic

LexisNexis Academic offers a news search that covers many U.S. and international daily papers. Coverage of the some of the papers begins in the early 1980s, though some begin later. To check on the coverage of individual papers, click on "about this title" on the source list. The Chicago Tribune is not available through LexisNexis but is available in Access World News.

Access World News

Access World News from NewsBank provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources, each with its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues. Date coverage varies with individual newspaper. The Chicago Tribune is included in this database.

Sources for government information —

The Government and Geographic Information and Data Services Department (Gov Info) houses maps and data collections, workstations for GIS and data work, and is a depository library for U.S. government, State of Illinois, United Nations, Organization of American States, European Union, and World Tourism Organization publications in all formats. Many materials in the department are not included in NUcat, the library’s catalog. To provide better access to resources, non-depository resources, indexes, and other access tools are acquired. Contact the department in person, by phone (1-847-491-3130), or by email (govinfo@northwestern.edu).

Government Information Department

Locating books and other full-text materials—

Use NUcat, the catalog of all the Northwestern libraries, to search for books on your topic, using either the Subject Heading search or one of the Keyword search options. You may need to use broader, less specific terms than you would when searching one of the article databases.

Also, remember to use NUcat to verify whether or not the NU Libraries have access to items you identified using the article databases listed up above. The button works very well in locating journal articles, but it isn't foolproof. You would be wise to double-check in NUcat for articles the button can't find. Use the Journal Title search and type in the name of the journal or magazine, not the name of the article. If a citation is for an association paper or other report, try a guided search in NUcat on either the citation title, name of institute, or name of association.

WorldCat
If an item of interest is not available from NU, either electronically or in hard copy, you may be able to locate it locally at another institution by searching it in WorldCat, a consortial catalog of holdings from hundreds of libraries around the US and the world.

Research Libraries Group Union Catalog (RLIN)
Lists more than 22 million books, periodicals, recordings, scores, archival collections, and other materials held in over 100 major research libraries. Bibliographic information about more than 20 million books, periodicals, recordings, musical scores, machine-readable data files and archival collections held in major research libraries.

Interlibrary Loan for materials not owned by Northwestern

Materials can be requested directly via WorldCat. The requests go through our ILL department.

Interlibrary Loan Department at NU Library
You may also request materials from other universities and institutions from our ILL department. You do not need to know the holding institution. ILL can locate the nearest, quickest copy for you.

Help available from the Reference Department

The Reference Department offers walk-in assistance, research consultations, email help, and other services.

EndNote Resources

EndNote is a software program designed to store and manipulate bibliographic information. With EndNote you can:

• store references in one place
• keep reading notes linked to sources (no more index cards!)
• download citations directly from databases
• automatically format bibliographies and citations in MLA, APA, or over 1000 other styles.

Northwestern University licenses EndNote for all current Northwestern students, faculty and staff with valid Net IDs. Click here for more information from the Reference Department about how to get EndNote, how to use it, and how to get assistance with it.

Natalie Pelster
Reference Librarian
847-491-8735
n-pelster@northwestern.edu

Geoff Morse
Reference Librarian
847-467-1866
gmorse@northwestern.edu

Reference Department
Reference Desk: 847-491-7656
refdept@northwestern.edu