Library Resources for Political Science 315

Legislatures and Legislation

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, the Education and Social Science Library, the Documents Library, and the History Library.  The last three reside in the Main Library building. 

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.  In addition to the 9 million volumes we have on this campus, you can connect to 43 libraries within the State of Illinois and request books be sent to you.  There is a tutorial you can try if you want to become a really great user of this resource.  You can also sign up for a variety of workshops.

CIC-VEL - Can't find it in Illinet Online?  Try here next.  This is an electronic catalog providing access to the libraries of the Big Ten institutions as well as the University of Chicago.  You can use this database to request books and journal articles.

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.

FINDING ARTICLES

Books don't always give you all of the information you want.  Sometimes you 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 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 online, 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.  Another tutorial is available to help you understand the process of looking for journal articles.  It refers specially to databases available through FirstSearch and OVID, but the principles can generally be applied to any of the other databases we provide.

WHERE ARE THE DATABASES?

Search for Articles - Here is where you will find the huge list of electronic databases that the Library purchases.  The list is divided four ways - by subject, by alphabet, by vendor, and a list of all fulltext databases.   

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 THIS CLASS?

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.  Use this site to access Congressional Universe as well.

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. 

WHERE ELSE CAN YOU GO FOR INFORMATION?

The United States Government Printing Office is one of the largest publishers in the world.  In addition to providing printed items, our government has been very active in providing web links to their (or our) many resources.  The following links should lead you to sites that will be useful in your research on congressional foundations, structure and processes, and even campaigns and elections.

Thomas Legislative Branch Information Services - Here you will find web sites listing House and Senate members, committee membership, information about the history, operation, and composition of the U.S. Congress,  and other information sources to assist your legislative research including voting records, government records and publications and much, much more.

Federal Election Commission - The elections watchdog for the federal government, this site includes campaign finance reports and data, law resources, links to information about the electoral college, the U.S. federal election system, and the administrative structure of U.S. elections to name a few.  The site also provides separate guides to elections for citizens, the media, and candidates and committees.

History of Bills - From the Government Printing Office access site, this contains the history of bills from 1983-2001.

National Journal - "Leading nonpartisan weekly on politics, policy and government."

Government Documents Library at UIUC - This library provides access to a wide variety of items published by the U.S. government and others that should provide a great deal of assistance in your research.

Please remember that our reference desk in the Education and Social Science Library is there to help you.  If you ever want to set up an appointment with me to discuss your research process, feel free to call me at 244-1868 or drop me a note at rudasill@uiuc.edu