Resources for GOVT 387, Fall 2006 Dr. Tony Fonseca Serials Librarian

Library Main Page You will see the Power Search link below the main search box

The iLink Power Search Here we have put in our search term, and limited ourselves to books (under Type), which will weed out government documents

Results This search was not helpful, but note the sub-classifications on the right. One of them, Political Institutions and Public Administration, may be just the ticket. It is a link, so you can click on it.

Our new results list Granted, this limited us to 11 hits, but we know the relevancy is high. By clicking on Details, we can see the Item Record for any of these books.

Details (Item Record) If we click on the tab that says Catalog Record we can actually find out the correct Subject Terms to use to do this search effectively, in this case, policy sciences.

Follow the Subject Links… Ilink has rerun the search as a Subject Heading search: policy sciences. It found 42 titles.

A more relevant results list

But Ellender isn’t the only library in the world…. Go to Electronic Research Databases, and click on WorldCat

What if you could search EVERY catalog in the world…. Guess what. WorldCat does that.

What might you find? You can limit those results by simply clicking on the icon that says Limit (top left, below Detailed Record)

Here we limit by Subject Headings

A total of 41,000 books to choose from, which can be further limited to post 2000 titles Again, use the Limit icon and choose Year.

And they are all available through Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad) if Ellender does not have them

You can also find articles on political topics, like public policy Once again go to our Electronic Research Databases

Notice they are arranged by subject (the third link)

Here are your Government databases You can click on and search any one, for example Military and Government Collection

We can try the search term public policy, AND limit our results to full-text articles

We get 2055 Hits, all Full-Text Notice the pdf full-text version of the 9th article

Basically, you get a photocopy delivered to your desktop

You can also limit your searches to titles

This returns 191 hits. You may see some html Full-Text These are also legitimate forms of full-text. They are just a little more difficult to cite. Let’s look at one (the 2 nd article).

When you cite these, you have to cite the database. 

And remember…. If we do not have an article as full-text, we may have it in print, and you can photocopy it. Ask a librarian how to determine this. If we do not have an article as full-text, we may have it in print, and you can photocopy it. Ask a librarian how to determine this. If we do not have an article in full-text nor in print, we can always Interlibrary Loan it for you. Again, a librarian can tell you how to do this. If we do not have an article in full-text nor in print, we can always Interlibrary Loan it for you. Again, a librarian can tell you how to do this.

If you don’t happen to be in the library by the way, all you have to do is call the Reference Desk, at The librarian on duty can talk you through the process of determining if we have something in print. Just make sure you have opened an Interlibrary Loan account with Nicholls. Start at the Library Mainpage….

Under Services, click on Interlibrary Loan

Go to the ILLiad link in the first paragraph

Click on First Time Users, follow the directions, and voila, you are done

So you see, thanks to database interfaces, WorldCat, and the ability to perform Power Searches, articles are literally at your fingertips, and almost any book in the world could be in your hands in no time…