Political Science

Locating by Call Number

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:42:36 -0700

Sometimes browsing a shelf can lead to some promising resources. OSU uses the Library of Congress classification system to organize and arrange materials in the library. Most political science materials fall into the "J" call number range and are located on the 5th floor of The Valley Library. More specific groupings of materials include:

JC - Political theory	JS - Local government
JF - Constitutional history	JV - Colonies and colonization
JK - United States	JX - International relations
JN - Europe

Finding Books

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:49:25 -0700

Don't neglect books when doing research in Political Science. Check the OSU Libraries Online Catalog first. More books can be found in the Summit Catalog, where you can request books from libraries in the Orbis Cascade Alliance to be sent to OSU for you to check out.

Keyword searching is possible, or you can search by author, title, call number, or ISBN if you have it.

Subject searching, however, is the most effective search. OSU uses the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Some examples of LC subject headings for political science are:

Elections
Federal goverment
International relations
Political parties
Public opinion polls
Social movements

Journal Article Searching

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:00:35 -0700

Electronic Journals

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:12:55 -0700

Many journals these days are electronic, or are included in full-text databases. The OSU Libraries Catalog links to these as well as to print resources.

If you are searching for articles about a subject, we recommended that you use a database to do your article searching. This allows you to search many titles at one time (and search print journal contents at the same time).

Another access point to our e-journals is the e-journals list from the main library page. Use this if 1) you have the citation to a specific article in a specific journal; 2) you wish to electronically browse a journal's contents; 3) you wish to verify that OSU has the journal online.

Smart searching

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:47:34 -0700

When searching in catalogs and databases:

Be creative in the words you use; if one doesn't work, try something else
Begin with keywords, and use the subjects found in the articles that come up to find more information
Use quotation marks around phrases
Use catalog and database features to limit by date, language, type of article, etc.

Internet Resources

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:50:09 -0700

Richard Kimber's Political Science Resources
A thorough compilation of political resources on the Web. A great starting point!
Political Resources on the Net
Another site that lists many useful websites on important political science topics, with an international scope.
International Relations and Security Network (ISN)
Covers international relations through subject and region indexing.
International Relations Research Resources
More basic sites on the study of international relations.
FindLaw
Thorough locator of all kinds of legal resources.
Public Policy Issues and Groups
Comprehensive offering of links to a wide variety of public policy issues, from gun control to animal rights.
Institute for Policy Research (IPR)
An interdisciplinary public policy research institute at Northwestern University. Their mission is to stimulate and support excellent social science research on significant public policy issues and to disseminate the findings widely.

American Policy Directory Links to various public policy organizations created and maintainted by the University of Oregon Libraries' Document Center.

American President: An Online Reference Resource From the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia .In-depth informatioin reviewed by prominent scholars on each president and administration.

Policy Agendas Project: Center for American Politics and Public Policy Collects and organizes data from various archived sources to trace changes in the national policy agenda and public policy outcomes since the Second World War.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:46:52 -0700

Some of the most reliable and in-depth research into topics relevant to current events is produced by the Congressional Research Service. CRS is a non-partisan public policy research group that works exclusively for the United States Congress, and although taxpayer-funded, does not make its reports available to the public. There has been a movement for many years to change this, and Congress is considering a law to mandate public access.

For now, several organizations (with the approval of Congress) have been collecting CRS Reports and making them available online. Some places you can look for these reports include:

Open CRS http://opencrs.com/ - a project of the Center for Democracy & Technology
CRS Reports at University of North Texas Libraries http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/
CRS Reports from the National Council for Science and the Environment http://ncseonline.org/NLE/CRs/ - primarily environmental and related topics

LLRX.com, a website offering access to law and technology resources for legal professionals, has a Guide to CRS Reports on the Web by Catholic University of America law librarian Stephen Young, with more information and links to further resources for finding CRS Reports.

Public Opinion Polls

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:33:26 -0700

RESOURCES IN THE LIBRARY
Gallup Poll: Public Opinion (1972-present) - Valley HN 90 .P8G32
Gallup Poll: Public Opinion (1935-1971) - Valley HN 90 .P8G3

The Gallup Poll Cumulative Index: Public Opinion, 1935-1997 - REF HN90.P8 G29 1999

The Gallup Poll (Tuesday) Briefing 1989 - present HM261.G34 (formerly The Gallup Poll Monthly). Electronic 2002- present (Business Source Premier)

An American Profile: Opinions and Behavior, 1972-1989 - HN90.P8 A53 1999

ONLINE RESOURCES
Voter's Guide to Election Polls (netLibrary eBook)
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
Public Opinion Poll Question Database (Odum Institute for Research in Social Science)
PollingReport.Com (The Polling Report, Inc.)
For more online resources, link to "Guide to public opinion poll Web sites: Polling data from around the world" by Gary Thompson and Sean Conley. C&RL News, October 2006 Vol. 67, No. 9.

Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:58:57 -0700

Specialized dictionaries define terms, concepts, and jargon used in a particular field or subject, sometimes in extended entries. Encyclopedias contain authoritative information on a variety of subjects in political science. The overviews they present will help you discover, develop, and narrow topics for research papers.

RESOURCES IN THE LIBRARY
Dictionary of Politics - D419 .L36
Encyclopedia of American Political History - E183 .E48
Encyclopedia of Democracy - JC423 .E53
Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics - E184 .A1E574
Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements - JX1977 .O8213
Encyclopedia of United States Foreign Relations - E183.7 .E53
International Relations: a Political Dictionary - JX1226 .P55

ONLINE RESOURCES
Blackwell Dictionary of Political Science: A User's Guide to its Terms (netLibrary eBook)
Illustrated Dictionary of Constitutional Concepts (netLibrary eBook)
International Conflict: A Chronological Encyclopedia of Conflicts and Their Management, 1945-1995 (netLibrary eBook)

Handbooks and Yearbooks

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:00:32 -0700

Handbooks are compact reference books, organized for easy access, that provide factual information on specific topics. Yearbooks are annual publications of facts and information about the preceding year, limited to a specific subject, country, or organization.

RESOURCES IN THE LIBRARY
International Year Book & Statesmen's Who's Who - JA51 .I5
Oregon Blue Book - ONLINE or JK9031
Political Handbook of the World - JF37 .P6
Who's Who - DA28 .W6
Who's Who in America - E663 .W5
Yearbook of the United Nations - JX1977 .A37Y4
ONLINE RESOURCES
Country Studies (Area Studies) (Library of Congress)
CIA World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)

Statistics

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:02:01 -0700

RESOURCES IN THE LIBRARY
American Statistics Index (1986-1999) HA154 .A431
[ASI since 1999 is included in LexisNexis Statistical]
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 HA195 .A3 1975
Statistical Abstract of the United States - ONLINE or HA202

ONLINE RESOURCES
USA.gov - Reference Shelf - Data & Statistics
The Data & Statistics section includes links to all the major government agencies producing statistics on topics ranging from aging to transportation.
LexisNexis Statistical
Comprehensive access to statistical information from Congressional Information Service, Inc. The service allows users to search summaries of statistical publications, and then link to the full-text of selected publications on Statistical Universe and government Web sites.
Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennial Edition Online, 1610-2000
Oregon Statistical Sources
Stat-USA (U.S. Dept. of Commerce)
University of Michigan Documents Center: Statistical Resources on the Web

ICPSR

Valery.King@oregonstate.edu (Valery King) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:42:53 -0700

The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is an international consortium of about 700 academic institutions and research organizations. ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community. ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences, and hosts 16 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.

As a member of ICPSR, OSU students, faculty, and staff have access to the ICPSR data archive, and to educational activities (including the Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research, classroom-ready data, web based instruction, and the Undergraduate Research Paper Competition). OSU researchers also have the opportunity of depositing their own data to take advantage of long-term preservation and worldwide dissemination.

ICPSR is a unit within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and maintains its office in Ann Arbor.

For questions regarding ICPSR, please contact Valery King at the Valley Library, phone 737-7318.