I. Some good Reference Sources

      A. Understanding Concepts

           1. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (REF H40 A2 I5)

               a. See entries beginning with word 'Political'

                   -- e.g. Political Theory, Political Sociology, Politics--Comparative

           2. World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties

               (REF JF2011 W67 1999)

           3. Dictionary of Modern Political Ideologies (REF JA61 D53 1987)

           4. Dictionary of Political Thought (REF JA61 S37 1982)

           5. Marxism, Communism, & Western Society; A Comparative

               Encyclopedia (AE5 M27)

           6. International Relations Dictionary (REF JX1226 P55 1988)

               a. Gives both definition and tells significance of terms

           7. New Palgrove Dictionary of Economics (REF HB61 N49 1987)

           8. Encyclopedia of Political Economy (REF HB61 E554 1999)

      B. Determining Facts

           1. Europa World Year Book, including Regional Volumes

               (REF JN1 E85 2000)

           2. Political Handbook of the World (REF JF37 P6 1997)

           3. Statesmans Yearbook (REF JA51 S7)

           4. United Nations Statistical Yearbook (REF HA12.5 U63 1997)

           5. United National Demographic Yearbook (REF HA17 D45 1997)

           6. UNESCO Statistical Yearbook (REF HA46 U65 1999)

           7. Internet is a good source for locating factual information

               a. U.S. State Department Background Notes

                   (http://state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/)

               b. CIA World Factbook

                   (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html)

               c. Country Watch (must be in Library to use)

                   (http://library.csudh.edu/ElectDB.php)

      C. Describing Events    

           1. Facts on File (REF D410 F3)

           2. Europa World Year Book (REF JN1 E85 2000)

               a. Contains excellent description of current political situation in

                   each country; updated annually   

II. Book Reviews

      Good idea to see what others have said about a book; also a good way to

      see if book has biases or represents a particular point of view

      A. Book Review Digest  (REF Z1035.A1 .B45)

      B. Book Review Index    (REF Z1035.A1 .B455)   

III. Journal Article Indexes (http://library.csudh.edu/electdb.php)

      A.  Social Sciences Abstracts (citations & abstracts only)

          1. Index about 400 English language journals

      B. Academic Search Premier (covers about 2300 English language full-text

            journals)

          1. A general purpose article index covering most academic subject areas

      C. Public Affairs Information Service (via OCLC FirstSearch) (citations and

           abstracts only)

           1. Covers Public Affairs, Law, and Social Sciences in most major Western

               languages. Indexes books, government documents as well as journal

               articles.

      D. JSTOR (full-text)

           1.  Covers about 30 journals in Political Science and related fields

                 a. However, in most cases coverage goes all the way back to volume

                     1 of each journal.

      E. Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe (full-text)

           1. Covers a wide range of newspapers, news-type periodicals,

                and news wire services. Primarily useful for current events.

                Not a good place to look for scholarly articles.

           2. Good for searching current and backfiles of newspapers

               a. Newspaper Websites generally only allow access to latest few weeks

                   of the newspaper (e.g. LA Times)

       F.  MoCat (citations and abstracts only)

            1. Catalog of U.S. Government Information Publications, including

                publications and hearing of US Congress

            2. Allows you to quickly find who physically has the publication if

                not available at CSUDH

            3. Provides Hyperlink to online resources when available

IV. Internet

      A. Internet Subject Guide tries to provide a structured subject approach to websites

           of possible interest to CSUDH students.

            http://library.csudh.edu/InternetRes.htm

      B. Current Newspaper WebSites

            Use Lexis-Nexis for older dates

             1. New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/)

             2. Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/)

      C. Country Web Sites

            1. Governments on the Web (http://www.gksoft.com/govt/)

                a. Comprehensive database of governmental institutions on the World

                     Wide Web: parliaments, ministries, offices, law courts, embassies,

                     city councils, public broadcasting corporations, central banks, etc.

            2. Can also just type in the name of a country in a search engine

                a. e.g. Botswana

       D. In any Search Engine (e.g. Google) enter Political Science Web

            Resources to connect to a wide variety of information sources

            1. e.g. University of Michigan "Political Science Resources on the Web"

                (http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/polisci.html)

J. Broude  10/05/01