Beyond Books and Periodicals
General reference books are good for finding basic facts, dates, biographical and contact information, and statistics. Among types of reference books are:
The really valuable reference books for researchers, though, are those that digest specialized information in condensed, but scholarly form, with bibliographies of selected readings included. Some examples are:
Humanities:
History
Social Sciences
Natural Sciences
To see more thorough coverage of reference tools by discipline, use our Subject Guides.
Often you might want to find demographic or social statistics as evidence for some claim you are trying to make - or to evaluate claims made in a source you are reacting to. The US federal government provides a huge number of numbers on many topics. Organizations and trade associations often track trends as well. And several organizations conduct opinion polls. Among the most useful general sources for statistics are these:
Gallup Polls (annual summaries are in the reference collection; weekly reports are included in full text in the Academic Search Premier database.
Statistical Abstract of the United States - a print compendium of statistical tables. Good for basic figures and for figuring out who's counting what.
Online sources of statistics are:
Useful online directories of statistical and other social science materiasl are:
Internet Crossroads in Social Science Data
SOSIG: Social Science Information Gateway
For more statistical sources by discipline, see our Guide to Statistics.
Using citations and bibliographies to track down sources
Scholars weave a web of relationships through footnotes. Reference books, journal articles, and other scholarly sources typically point you to related material through their references. Mine these! One strategy is to use databases to find some new research, then use the footnotes in those articles to select the most significant older studies. Scholars have already read a great deal of material and have selected items they found relevant and useful. Usually in the "literature review" section of a scholarly article the author will indicate why that source is important or what it contributed to knowledge of a particular area.
There are entire book-length bibliographies, sometimes annotated, to cover special topics. To find these in the catalog, search a topic and add the search term "bibliography." An example is The Essential Shakespeare, an annotated bibliography organized by work commenting on the most significant studies.
In many fields, particularly in the social and natural sciences, there is a genre of article that is a "review article" - rather than report new research, they examine the research in a particular topic and can be a huge timesaver for anyone trying to sort out what's significant. Many subject databases allow you to limit a search to review articles.
There are also annual series that provide overviews of what's going on in various fields of study. Two that we get in print are:
Others for selected social sciences and natural sciences are available online. Unlike the two literature annuals above, these Annual Reviews typically cover specific different "hot topics" in depth each year rather than reviewing the most recent scholarship across the board.
So once you identify references you want - how do you get your hands on them? Here's a quick checklist
Finding laws, pending legislation, regulations, and court opinions can be tricky because legal information has developed its own forms of organization. Some principles to bear in mind
For basic tools for legal resources, take a look at our Resources about Law guide.
Governments publish an enormous amount of information. The US federal government has a depository program for distributing free documents to libraries throughout the country. Our library is a selective depository and receives around 30% of what's available through this program. The U of M is a regional depository and gets everything distributed on behalf of the whole area. Some documents published by the federal government are not distributed throught this program, however, and many are being published on the Web by a plethora of agencies. Documents usually are shelved under their own classification system, called "SuDocs" - the Superintendent of Documents system - in which the organizing principle is issuing agency - all reports from the Department of Justice and its bodies are together; all hearings from a particular congressional committee are shelved together. The Monthly Catalog is an index to these documents.
Portals to government information
GPO Access
FirstGov
LSU Libraries Federal Agencies Directory
University of Michigan Documents Center - especially good for local, state, foreign, and international documents.
Government sites of note
Department of Education - education statistics and more
Department of State - foreign affairs
NIH - National Institutes of Health - for medical information
Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet - for bills introduced in Congress, the Congressional Record, bill tracking, etc.
Requesting documents
Some government information is not readily available to the public, but the Freedom of Information Act allows citizens to request things that are not classified.
The National Security Archive is a site that offers many documents obtained this way, sorted into categories. It's a fascinating tour of US foreign relations that you don't get at the State Department site. Or you can make your own requests with the Freedom of Information Act Generator from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Maps are a visual way of representing spacial information. Maps can be made that "tell" any number of stories in different ways. Because they are a special kind of source, libraries often house them in special libraries that can store large sheets and have their own methods of organization. At Gustavus, the map library is located in Nobel Hall; it contains over 80,000 maps. The University of Texas has a nice collection of maps on the Web.
GIS - Geographic Information Systems - are melding computer databases with geographic systems in amazing ways. For one example of how data, satellite images, and maps can be put together for highly localized information, check out TerraFly.
The Web is great for some kinds of research - and not very useful for others. If you are looking for scholarly articles, you're better off using databases since most still aren't available for free on the Web. If you are looking for last years' news stories, use one of the library's databases because most news sites charge for back issues. If you're looking for fairly recent government information (which is in the public domain) it's terrific. It's also getting quite useful for collections of primary sources that are out of copyright. Many organizations provide good (if one-sided) information about issues. And of course it's a good way to put your finger on the pulse of popular culture.
If you have a pretty good idea of what you need, Google is currently the most in-depth search engine, though there are others. (Search Engine Showdown tracks the competition.) Try Google's advanced search to hone your search by limiting it to particular domains, recently updated pages, and the like. Google News aggregates news stories from around the world. Google Images searches for visual information. And in development are some new things: Google Scholar and Google Print are of particular interest.
Planning a search
Selective Web Directories of note:
Infomine - searchable directory of scholarly sources from the University of California
Librarians' Index to the Internet maintained at the University of California
Scirus - a search engine of articles and Web sites in the sciences.
Scout Archives maintained at the University of Wisconsin
Our subject guides list selected Web sites by discipline.
Use clues in the URLs to assess potential sourcesDigital Archives
American Memory - incredible digital collections from the Library of Congress
Avalon Project - primary documents on US diplomatic history
Electronic Text Center - digital books from the University of Virginia
Eurodocs - European primary documents
Internet History Sourcebooks - collections of primary sources from Fordham University
Making of America - a full-text digital collection of thousands of 19th century books and journals
Online Books Page - a collection of online books from various sites
Oyez - offers audio of arguments held before the US Supreme Court
Online news sources
Google News - an automated news aggregator, interesting for world reactions and breaking news
Kidon Media-Link - based in the Netherlands, a directory of worldwide news sources
NewsLink - a US-based news directory
Newseum - the most interesting feature of this site is today's front pages
Media ownership
The Academic Publishing Industry
Who Owns What - from Columbia Journalsim Review, covering media of all kinds
Lost and Found
The Internet Archive - "offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format;" of particular interest are the Wayback Machine and the Million Book Project
Memory Hole - "to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known"