LibGuides: Political Science: PLSC 300A

PLSC 300A: American Politics

Getting Started
Searching the Catalog

This course focuses on primary and secondary source-based research.

Understanding Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Sources

Primary sources are original materials that provide firsthand accounts or direct evidence on a particular topic. In political science, these often include:

Newspaper or magazine articles
Books, pamphlets, government documents
Diaries, letters, manuscripts, speeches, interviews, relics, artifacts
Maps, archival materials, creative works
Art, visual materials, music, sound recordings, videos

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources interpret, analyze, or critique primary sources. These include:

Scholarly journal articles
Books and book chapters
Policy analyses
Literature reviews
Documentary films or news analysis

Searching the Library Catalog

The library catalog is a great place to start your research. Here are some tips to make searching more effective:

Make sure that you sign in. This allows you to see your access options for library materials, save searches, set notifications on saved searches, and save items to your favorites.
Use Boolean operators if you're doing a keyword search. For example:
- queer AND Chicago AND activism - the catalog will return only materials that mention all three search terms.
- Pride Parades AND (Chicago OR Boystown) - the catalog will broaden your search to include materials that discuss either the Chicago or Boystown alongside other instances of the term 'Pride Parades.'
- "LGBT rights" AND legislation NOT "marriage equality" - the catalog will reduce your search results by returning materials that mention LGBT rights and legislation but do not mention marriage equality.
- Make sure that you enter Boolean operators in all caps: AND, OR, NOT
Use truncation and/or wildcards. For example:
- Entering the search term politic* will return results for politics, political, politician etc.
  - another example: activis* searches for activism, activist, acitivists, etc.
- Entering the search term wom?n will return results for woman, women
Group your terms using parenthesis to do multiple searches at once. For example:
- ("gay rights" OR "LGBTQ+ rights") AND Chicago AND (legislation OR policies)
Narrow your results to a specific genre, place, or time. For example:
- "queer history" AND Chicago AND "20th century"
  - This search narrows down to historical perspectives on queer communities in Chicago during the 20th century

Databases

African American Newspapers 1827-1998
Full-text content from African American newspapers published nationwide. Coverage: 1827 - 1998.
African American Periodicals 1825-1995
Full-text content from African American magazines and journals published nationwide. Coverage: 1825 - 1995.
Alternative Press Index 1991-Present
Comprehensive index of alternative sources, radical and left periodicals, newspapers and magazines covering international and interdisciplinary subjects. Coverage: 1991-present.

Limited to 1 simultaneous user.
Alternative Press Index Archive
Full-text bibliographic containing journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from alternative, radical, and left sources with focus on socialism and revolution, ecology, democracy and anarchism, feminism and organized labor, indigenous peoples, and gays/lesbians. Coverage: 1969 - 1990.
American Periodical Series I, II & III (1741-1940)
Digitized images of full-text articles from American magazines and journals, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and other historical sources. Coverage: 1741-1900.
Chicago Daily News (1875-1978)
Primary source information to examine events, issues and daily life in the context of the historical period, featuring archived full newspaper pages. Coverage:1875-1978.
Chicago Defender
Full-text historical newspaper covering African American life, civil rights, segregation, radicalism, and anti-lynching legislation. Coverage: 1909-2010.
Chicago Tribune (1985-current)
Complete full-text content of local and regional news, including community events, schools, politics, government policies, cultural activities, local companies, state industries, and people in the community.
Chicago Tribune Historical
Digitized images and full-text articles related to Chicago news, history, and advertising. Coverage: 1849-2012.
Historical Newspapers
Full-text historical newspaper articles from the Chicago Tribune (1905 - 1975), the New York Times (1850 - 2001), the Los Angeles Times (1881-1987), and the American Periodical Series I, II & III (1741-1900).
Women's Magazine Archive
Full-text archive of consumer magazines aimed at a female readership including Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Woman's Day. Also includes titles such as Parents, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, and Essence. Coverage: 19th century - 2005.

Historical Abstracts
Index with some full-text and abstracts covering world history, excluding the United States and Canada. Coverage: 1450 - present. Limited to 6 simultaneous users.

Limited to 6 simultaneous users.
Humanities and Social Sciences Retrospective
Index of scholarly journals covering humanities and social sciences. Coverage: 1907 - 1984.
JSTOR
Full-text scholarly journal articles and ebooks related to the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Coverage: 2-5 years from current.
Military & Government Collection
Full-text journals, periodicals, and U.S. Government Documents pertaining to all branches of the military. Coverage: 1954 - present.
World Wide Political Science Abstracts
Indexes of political science and international relations literature. Including abstracts of journals, provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and working papers. Coverage: 1975 - present.
Social Science Citation Index
Multidisciplinary index of social science journals. Coverage: 1980 - present.
Sociological Abstracts
Abstracts and indexes from international journals in sociology, social psychology, and behavioral sciences. Coverage: 1952 - current.

Archives of Sexuality & Gender Part 3: Sex and Sexuality in the 16th through 20th Centuries
Full-text primary sources related to gender studies, LGBTQ+, women's studies, and feminism. Coverage: 1600 - 1940.
GenderWatch
Index of some-full text articles and abstracts related to gender studies, including women's studies, feminism, masculine studies, masculinity studies, transgender studies, LGBTQ, LGBTQA, and sexuality.
LGBT Magazine Archive
Full-text articles devoted to LGBT+ interests, including the history and evolution of LGBT culture, including legal contexts, health, lifestyle, politics, social attitudes, activism, gay rights, and arts/literature. Coverage: 1950s - recent years.
LGBTQ+ Source
LGBTQ+ Source is the definitive database for LGBTQ+ studies. It provides scholarly and popular LGBTQ+ publications in full text, plus historically important
primary sources, including monographs, magazines, newspapers and videos. It also includes a specialized LGBTQ+ thesaurus containing thousands of terms.
Women's Studies International
Index, including abstracts with some full-text, covering women's studies, gender studies, feminism, women's health, and women's history. Coverage 1972 - present.

Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978
Archive of U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs including primary sources underlying court decisions in legal and constitutional history. Coverage: 1832 - 1926.
Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926
The Making of Modern Law covers the watershed period of legal development during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This archive is the world's most comprehensive full-text collection of Anglo-American legal treatises of the period.
Making of Modern Law: Trials 1600-1926
Full-text archive of documents from Anglo-American trials. Also contains English-language titles about trials in other jurisdictions, such as France. Coverage: 1600 - 1926.

LGBTQ Libraries/Archives/Collections

Gerber/Hart Library and Archives
Collects materials from LGBTQ individuals and organizations; includes an extensive library of books and periodicals.
Leather Archives and Museum
Collects materials related to the leather, kink and fetish and BDSM communities, with a large queer collection. Also features a library with extensive Pulp Fiction holdings.
Alan Amberg Gay History Collection (1924-2008)
University of Chicago collection documenting a wide range of gay and lesbian subject matter, including the beginnings of the Gay Pride Movement in Chicago, local organizations, newspapers, etc. Materials range from 1924 to 2008, with the bulk from 1970 to 2000. Open for research.
ACT UP Chicago Records (1969-1996)
University of Chicago collection containing correspondence, notes, clippings, and newsletters from the direct-action, grassroots group dealing with the AIDS crisis, periodical clippings gathered from both popular and alternative media and posters, buttons, etc. displaying the graphic style of ACT UP.
Legacy Project Chicago
The Legacy Project illuminates and affirms the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people to honor their experiences and accomplishments; to collect and preserve their contributions to world history and culture; to educate and inspire the public and young people; and to assure an inclusive and equitable future.
Library of Congress: LGBTQIA Library Research Guide
The collections of the Library of Congress tell the rich and diverse story of LGBTQ+ life in America and around the world. This research guide serves as an introduction into the excellent collection of LGBTQ+ resources available at the Library of Congress

Political Science

Links to Other Research Guides

Research & Learning Librarian

PLSC 300A: American Politics

Searching the Library Catalog

Databases

LGBTQ Libraries/Archives/Collections