Political Science
Finding Books
Locating by Call Number
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 | |
Journal Article Searching
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LexisNexis Academic
Comprehensive index to newspaper and magazine articles, radio and TV news program transcripts, legal material and other reference sources. Primarily focused on news, business and legal topics.
Includes full-text.
Concurrent Users: unlimited
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LexisNexis Congressional
From Congressional Information Service (CIS) offers access to a variety of information by and about the United States Congress.
Index of congressional publications: 1789-present
Concurrent Users: unlimited
Coverage Dates: 1789 - present
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Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier provides full text for nearly 4,600 scholarly publications, including full text for more than 3,500 peer-reviewed journals. Coverage spans virtually every area of academic study and offers information dating as far back as 1975. This database is updated daily on EBSCOhost.
Full-text and abstract/index: 1975-present
Concurrent Users: unlimited
Coverage Dates: 1975 - present
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America: History and Life
America: History & Life is the definitive index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. With indexing for 1,700 journals from 1964 to present, this database is the most important bibliographic reference tool for students and scholars of U.S. and Canadian history. Strong English-language journal coverage is balanced by an international perspective on topics and events, including abstracts in English of articles published in more than 40 languages.
Coverage Dates: 1964
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Social Science Citation Index (ISI Web of Science)
The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in over 1,700 of the world\'s leading scholarly social sciences journals covering more than 50 disciplines. Coverage is from 1970-present.
Coverage Dates: 1970
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Sociological Abstracts
Index to articles from journals in sociology, social work and other social sciences.
Abstracts and index: 1963-present
Coverage Dates: 1963 - present
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Homeland Security Digital Library
The HSDL collection provides quick access to important U.S. policy documents, presidential directives, and national strategy documents as well as specialized resources such as theses and reports from various universities, organizations and local and state agencies. The resources are reviewed and selected by a team of homeland security researchers and organized in a unique homeland security taxonomy. HSDL content includes state-of-the-art multi-media offerings and other valuable assets identified by CHDS master\'s degree participants and instructors.
Electronic Journals
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
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
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports
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:
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.
Statistics
ICPSR
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.
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ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political & Social Research
Handbooks and Yearbooks
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)
Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
Public Opinion Polls
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.