CATALOGS

For books, journals (but not specific articles), government and NGO/IGO documents in the Yale Libraries.

Orbis (Yale Library catalog)
MORRIS (Yale Law Library catalog)

WorldCat (Catalog of library holdings around the world)
Items not held at Yale can often be obtained through Borrow Direct or Interlibrary Loan

DATABASES

For journal articles; some databases also index book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference reports, government documents, and other materials. Databases provide citations and sometimes full text (or links to possible sources of full text – look for the Yale Links button in the search results).

• click a letter to browse the A-Z list of databases
• search by database title
• click “Other Options” tab and search “Any Word” to find relevant databases (e.g. search for “africa”).

PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service)
IBSS (International Bibliography of the Social Sciences)
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
EconLit
These four databases can be searched together. Choose one, then click "Specific Databases" to add the others. Use to find references to articles, books, government documents, research reports, conference reports, and publications of international agencies. Use the “descriptors” (i.e., subject headings) to focus searches or launch new searches—but note that descriptors may vary from database to database. Use the Thesaurus (under the Search Tools tab) to find database-specific descriptors.

International Political Science Abstracts
Use “Index” of “Subject Terms” to find exact subject terminology. Use “narrow results by subject” (on left side of results screen) to refine search results; or click on title of a search result to see its subject terms, and then click a subject to launch a new search.

Praeger Security International
Full text books, encyclopedia articles, and analytical reports. A search on the term “democracy” AND [name of country] illustrates the range of material in this database.

EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) databases
In particular, Country Reports, Country Profiles, and ViewsWire provide in-depth analysis about a country’s political and economic situation.

Jane’s Online
Full text global geopolitical analysis. Use the Advanced Search to limit results to a specific country or region.

International Crisis Group
Full text of analytic reports.

Freedom House
Freedom House’s four annual surveys, Freedom in the World, Freedom of the Press, Nations in Transit, and Countries at the Crossroads are available in their entirety on the Internet, along with numerous special reports.

Political Risk Yearbook
Full text of 100 country reports.

Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO)
Includes full text of working papers from university research institutes, NGO occasional papers series, foundation-funded research projects, conference proceedings, books, journals, and policy briefs. Advantage: can search within full text. Disadvantage: lack of subject headings makes it hard to focus.

JSTOR
Full text of journals in a wide range of disciplines, including political science, anthropology, history, and area studies. JSTOR’s mission is to provide a trusted archive of scholarly journals; it is not a database for current journal issues. There is typically a gap of one to five years between the most recently published journal issue and the back issues available in JSTOR. Useful features: “Articles citing this article” and “Related articles.”

Dissertations and Theses
Search for words in “Citation and abstract” field. To narrow search results, add a “Subject name/code” (e.g., political science) and/or “Index Terms (keywords)”—but note that Index Terms are assigned by dissertation authors, and so are not a consistent, controlled subject vocabulary. (The abstracts often provide richer and more comprehensive terminology than the Index Terms). Many titles published since 1997 are available in full text; for earlier years, use Interlibrary Loan.

GOVERNMENT / IGO PUBLICATIONS

Government and intergovernmental publications can often be found via the catalogs and databases listed above; listed here are a few government- or IGO-specific resources.

U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse
Full text of United States Agency for International Development-funded technical and program documentation.

United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID)

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)

GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit)

World Bank Documents and Reports
It is also possible to browse World Bank documents and reports by country/area or by topic.

LexisNexis Congressional
U.S. Congressional hearings, reports, and other publications. Most are in full-text online; for those that are not, contact govdoc@yale.edu to get access to materials in print or microfiche.

UNBISNET (United Nations Bibliographic System)
Indexes United Nations documentation published since 1979, earlier for selected documents; includes the Dag Hammarskjöld Library catalog (which includes many non-UN publications, and so can be a good resource for secondary literature). Use the Thesaurus to determine exact search terms to use in the “Subject(All)” field. Some links to full text are available.

NEWS SOURCES

LexisNexis Academic has good coverage of international news sources, with articles in full text.

Proquest Newspapers offer full text articles from major American newspapers. Dates of coverage vary by newspaper. Within Proquest, click “Selected Databases” to switch to searching historical newspapers (e.g., New York Times 1851-2004; Washington Post 1877-1991).

World News Connection
Full text and summaries of newspaper articles, speeches, conference proceedings, television and radio broadcasts, books, and reports that have been collected and translated by the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service.

Yale University Library: International Collections
Descriptions of print collections; links to online resources, including news resources and country-specific data and information. Contact staff in each collection for research assistance.

Julie Linden
Librarian for Political Science, International Affairs, and Government Information
432-3310
julie.linden@yale.edu