WISER: Politics & International Relations A survey of the latest and most useful online library and information resources and strategies for effective online searching Sue Pemberton & Emma Sullivan

Aim of this session To provide a refresher for effective searching techniques when using any database To explore some electronic resources for researching Politics and International Relations

Access to OXLIP OxLIP on the Web OxLIP on your PC Athens password MyAthens OxLIP from outside Oxford Politics server

Search strategies Ask a clear search question Break the question into search concepts Identify a range of search terms Consider the relationships between your search terms Try those terms in appropriate databases/resources Find more search terms from retrieved records while searching

Keyword & subject searching Keyword searching  Searches for terms anywhere in the field or record  Useful as a starting place but results can be less relevant Subject indexes  Where possible tap into the subject headings or thesauri provided by the databases

Boolean logic: OR, AND, NOT Foreign Policy TerrorismUSA

How to approach an unfamiliar database Check the coverage of a database to see if it includes what you want You can use cross-searching for some collections of databases to identify concentrations of useful references Databases usually offer similar functions but you may have to delve a bit to see how they do it compared with one you are familiar with Use the help screens provided – check the specific conventions (eg do they use &, +, or “and”) Use any subject indexes provided

Search hints Authors names: entered in a particular format (check the online help). If possible use the database index to find different forms of author’s name, otherwise truncate first initial. Consider subject synonyms & British and US spellings. Apply truncation, usually * to find plurals/alternative word endings and ? to replace a single character. Expand search by following hypertext links, e.g. for alternative subject headings. Use tagging facilities within database to mark articles for printing, ing, downloading or exporting.

Select the Most Appropriate Database Type of information - catalogues- abstracting services - reference works- full-text resources - statistical resources- official publications - geographical resources- biographical resources - current awareness services - etc. Subject coverage Dates covered and last updated Language and geographical scope

TDNet for Electronic Journals Access at Conduct a Quick Search by journal title Coverage depends on licensing arrangements and any one ejournal may have several entries TDNet offers searching by subject. You can also search by journal information (i.e. title, publisher, vendor and ISSN). Searching by tables of contents is generally for the most recent year only Create a profile on MyTDNet for weekly current contents alerts and to search or browse a subset of journals Publisher sites - JSTOR

Abstracting and Indexing Services International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (OVID) Comprehensive, international coverage from 1951 onwards. Articles from 2,700 social science journals and chapters from 7,000 books indexed each year. Source PAIS Public Affairs Information Service Bibliographic index to public and social policy covering journal articles; books; govt documents; reports from American-biased. Worldwide Political Science Abstracts A new service. Part of Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, covering international serials literature for political science and international relations from 1975.

Citation searching using the Social Sciences Citation Index AKA: Web of Knowledge or Web of Science Purpose: track the impact of research through time and across subject boundaries Content: indexes articles and their bibliographies from over1,700 social science journals as well as relevant items from 3,300 science and technology journals. Data begins in 1981 and is updated weekly. Some 60% of records contain abstracts. A journal source list is available at

Theses Dissertation Abstracts Online: > 1.6 million entries, some 47,000 new dissertations and 12,000 new theses are added to the database each year. The full text of more than one million of these titles is available in paper and microform formats. US bias Index to Theses: A comprehensive listing of theses with abstracts accepted for higher degrees by universities in Great Britain and Ireland since Can obtain UK theses from the British Library on inter- library loan.

Newspapers Lexis-Nexis NY Times Online - full archive back to 1851 BBC Monitoring Global Newsline - covers reports from radio, television, news agencies, press and new media in over 150 countries, in over 100 languages (only available at the Bodleian)

Data Resources Nuffield Data Library ICPSR Data Archive (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) UK Data Archive ESDS (Economic and Social Data Service) Elections in Western Europe since 1815

Data Resources ESDS Main service for accessing UK and worldwide data Requires an ATHENS password even when used in Oxford Also requires you to go through a registration procedure the first time that you use it. ESDS provides online guides to all databases, see under User Support Also provides excellent Guide to freely available international data resources, see under Access data

Political analysis Oxford Analytica  15 years political and economic analysis from the transition of the Cold War to New World Order.  Articles unavailable until 3 months after publication Armed Conflict Database  Produced by the International institute for Strategic Studies  Covers 70 armed conflicts, both internal and international Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO)  Scholarship in international affairs published since 1991  Includes books, journals, working papers, policy briefs

Official Documents (full text) BOPCAS / BOPCRIS (British Official Publications)  Covers Parliamentary and official papers (BOPCRIS , BOPCAS July 1995-)  Full text links for more recent documents Declassified Documents Reference System  US Government declassified documents from White House, FBI, CIA etc  Covers s  Includes letters, telegrams, broadcast transcripts etc

Web Resources OxLIP mainly lists subscription services, but there are lots of high quality freely available web resources SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway) is one way to find quality resources  Browsable catalogue of quality resources with descriptions  Internet search engine for the social sciences  Grapevine section provides a virtual academic community

How to find out more Try the tutorial at  Designed to help you use and find resources on the Internet  You can opt to just follow the ‘Tour’ section and collect a set of useful links Explore the sites covered in this presentation Explore further on OxLIP – look in the Politics section Ask Library staff for help in locating relevant resources