The Cooper Union Library
Research Resources for S320:
Comparative Politics .
                                       
Contacts:    

Carol Salomon, Librarian (salomo@cooper.edu )
or any of the Cooper librarians (see Library website under Personnel).
                        
Library Web Site:   http://www.cooper.edu/facilities/library/library.html

Research Guides:  http://www.cooper.edu/facilities/library/research_frameset.html

BobCat Tips:

• Web version of BobCat is still buggy.  If you encounter odd errors or unexpected results, try the search again, varying search terms if possible.  New catalog system is expected by Fall 2008!
   
• The default for a Keyword search is the Boolean "And":  any two or more words listed in a single keyword search box will be searched as  "x and y and z"
   
• A Keyword search may also be done for a word string.  As in web searching, a word string should be enclosed in quotation marks.   Example:  "Comparative politics"
   
• Some, but not all, electronic books and journals owned by the libraries have records in the catalog.  See also the CU Library web site and the consortium libraries' sites for links to many other electronic resources.
   
• Web links in the online catalog may not work unless you are at the library which is paying for access to that resource.  (Many are proprietary resources, not freely available on the internet).
   
• Sorting your results: A list of results of less than 3000 items can be sorted by Author, Title, or Publication Date. Sorting by publication date is particularly useful to research recent developments or scholarship on a topic.
   
• Recall feature:  If a book is checked out at any of the consortium libraries, or its location is listed as Offsite, you can Recall the item: Click the green Recall-Hold button to the left of the record in BobCat, and fill in the requested data. A Recall insures that the patron who has the book will not be able to renew it, and makes the due date earlier if the book is out on extended loan. If your recall is for an item in Offsite Storage, it will take about 48 hours for the item to be retrieved You will be notified via e-mail when the item is available for you at the owning library, so make sure your patron record at the Cooper Library Circulation Desk has your current e-mail address.

Finding Journal Articles and Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Most of the following databases provide some way of limiting your search to peer-reviewed articles on your subject. In PAIS International, it’s as simple as clicking on a tab above your search results list; in other databases you need to include the phrase “Peer-Reviewed Journal” as part of your search strategy.

PAIS International (Public Affairs Information Service):

Indexing and abstracts of articles, books, government documents, and other literature on public affairs. Includes publications from more than 120 countries. Newspapers and newsletters are not included. Display of search results includes a tab to limit results to peer-reviewed journals. At NYU. Many links to full text via NYU’s electronic subscriptions.

Provides abstracts of articles selected from over 1,000 international journals. Covers the broad areas of: political science method and theory, political thinkers and ideas, governmental and administrative institutions, political process, international relations, and national and area studies. At NYU. Many links to full text via NYU’s electronic subscriptions.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts:

Abstracts and indexing of the international serials literature in political science and related fields, including international relations, law, and public administration / policy. Covers 1975 to date. Since 2000, development of the serials list has focused on expanding international coverage. Display of search results includes a tab to limit results to peer-reviewed journals. At NYU. Many links to full text via NYU’s electronic subscriptions.

Wilson Select Plus: 1994 to date. At Cooper and NYU  

Full text articles from a subset of H.W. Wilson's indexes, including Social Sciences Index, Humanities Index, Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. Includes articles from more than 2300 periodicals. To retrieve only peer-reviewed journals, use the Advanced Search screen and select “Reviewed Journal Phrase” instead of “keyword” from the drop-down menu of search parameters. As “Reviewed Journal Phrase,” search the phrase “peer-reviewed journal.”

Social Sciences Abstracts: 1983 to date. At Cooper and NYU

Indexes over 650 English-language periodicals in a wide range of social science fields, including international relations, public administration, urban studies, law, area studies, economics, anthropology and more. Many links to full text, especially for articles published since 2000. To retrieve only peer-reviewed journals, use the Advanced Search screen and select “Reviewed Journal Phrase” instead of “keyword” from the drop-down menu of search parameters. As “Reviewed Journal Phrase,” search the phrase “peer-reviewed journal.”

JSTOR:

The JSTOR archive holds the digitized back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, and other fields of the humanities and social sciences.

Beware of the “Moving Wall”of journal coverage: most publishers do not let JSTOR include the most recent years of their journals. The lag time can be anywhere from one to ten years. Consult the online tables of contents for coverage.

As the name suggests, JSTOR began as a digital alternative to the journal issues stored on library shelves, and has only recently developed a decent search engine for its content. It is better used as a source for the text of articles identified in more subject-specific databases, rather than as the starting point for a search. The Cooper Library subscribes to an “Arts and Sciences” subset of JSTOR; NYU subscribes to the whole package.

NEWS SOURCES

The New York Times
In addition to its online resources, the CU Library has a complete run of The Times on microfilm, with more recent months on paper.

The New York Times Archive
Full text of current and archived articles, directly from The New York Times Web Site. Some copyrighted photographs are omitted from online versions of the newspaper. See microfilm version in Library for these images.

The Historical New York Times
Full text and page images (PDF) of The New York Times from 1851 to 2004. Available at Cooper and NYU libraries. Some copyrighted photographs are omitted from online versions of the newspaper. See microfilm version in Library for these images.

National Newspaper Index

Front-to-back indexing of the Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal from 1979 to the present; national and international news stories written by the staff writers of The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times from 1982 to the present. Citations only.

Subscription via Cooper Library:
link via Library web page under Article Indexes & Internet Resources: General Interest.
At NYU: many links to full text via NYU’s electronic subscriptions.

Custom Newspapers

Over 150 full text newspapers, national and international. starting from 1996. Subscription via Cooper Library: link via Library web page under Article Indexes & Internet Resources: General Interest.

ProQuest historical newspapers:  At NYU.

In addition to the Historical New York Times, ProQuest offers full text of the (Historical) Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Atlanta Constitution, etc.  

Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe: At NYU.

Provides full-text access to news from across the U.S. and around the world. Also provides access to business, legal, and medical journals, as well as corporate financial information. Includes access to Federal and state laws, regulations, and court decisions. Coverage varies, depending upon source publication.

Complete Listing of NYU research databases, including Social Sciences and News:

“New” version of database list:
http://library.nyu.edu/collections/databases.html

Previous version:
http://library.nyu.edu/collections/find_articles.html
Previous version has better descriptions of database contents, more subject categories, better layout. (Why NYU changed it is a mystery .... )

Other Library Catalogs:    follow links from Library web page to selected other libraries, including the New York Public Library, and other university libraries.

New York Public Library:  
http://www.nypl.org   
Two divisions:  The Research Libraries, and the Public (lending) Library branches.   An Access Card is needed to use the Research collections. 

A Branch library card is required to borrow books or for remote access to the NYPL's databases:   
http://www.nypl.org/databases/    

Cards are free to anyone living, working, or studying in NYC.

WorldCat: a union catalog with more than 76 million records for materials and journals in 30,000 libraries worldwide.   Access:  connect from a  computer within the Cooper domain, or log in remotely via the Cooper Library web site.

Note:   Cooper, NYU, and New School books and journals  may not yet all be listed in WorldCat, due to data loading delays.   Please check BobCat for the title before assuming we don't have an item!

If the item you need is not available locally, we can usually obtain it for you via Interlibrary Loan.  
See the Interlibrary Loan section of this document for more information. 

Citing References:    Be consistent!  Be complete!   

When citing web sources, also note the date that you visited the website.
For citation formats, check the following:

Chicago Manual of Style,  15th ed., 2003.   
Cooper  Reference   Z253 .U69 2003
Brief summary of Chicago style basics:   http://library.osu.edu/sites/guides/chicagogd.html  
(Ohio State University, c2006; accessed March 26, 2008)

Walker, Janice R.  Columbia Guide to Online Style
Cooper Reference   PN171.F56 W35 2006   

Also linked from Library web page under General Research Sources and Information:

Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgment,  Dartmouth College, 2001.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Esources/index.html (accessed March 26, 2008)

Citing Your Sources, University of California Berkeley Library, c.2007.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/instruct/guides/citations.html   (accessed March 26, 2008)          

Interlibrary Loan and Referral Services

If the item you want is not available within our consortium, we can usually locate a copy for you.

If it is at another library in New York City, we will give you a referral card to gain access to that library.  If it is outside Manhattan, we will request an interlibrary loan or a photocopy of the item..  

Once you identify an item you need, check BobCat.  If the book or journal title is not in BobCat, try searching the New York Public Library catalogs (www.nypl.org), or talk to one of our librarians.
  
You may also wish to search for the item in the WorldCat database (see above); then talk to a Cooper librarian about getting a referral card or an interlibrary loan. 

If you do not find the item in WorldCat, it still pays to check with a librarian, as librarians have access to additional databases to continue the search.   

Please do NOT request InterLibrary Loan services from NYU!.  

While doing research at NYU it is very tempting to click the Request document via Bobst InterLibrary Loan button on their database results, but the Cooper Library should handle InterLibrary Loan requests for Cooper students. Just print the page with details of the article you need and bring it to any of the Cooper librarians.

Any request you submit to NYU will be cancelled.