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Reference Sources (Background)
Oxford Reference Online - Politics & Social Sciences (full text; current)
Search social science-related dictionaries and reference books published by Oxford University Press. Includes Dictionary of Contemporary World History, A-Z of Countries of the World, Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Dictionary of Geography, Dictionary of Political Biography, Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, Dictionary of the Social Sciences, andOxford Guide to the United States Government.
Oxford Reference Online - Law ( full text; current)
Search law-related dictionaries and reference books published by Oxford University Press. Includes Oxford Companion to American Law, Dictionary of Law, Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, and Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions.
The Almanac of American Politics
Ref. JK 1012 .A44 2002
A comprehensive, state-by-state look at congressional representatives with information on the various congressional districts and career biographies for each member.
Congressional Directory
Ref. JK 1011 .A1
A directory of membership for congress, including listings for committees, advisory boards, and statistical information.
Who's Who in Congress (2001)
Ref. JK 1010 .W453 2001
A quick guide to finding representatives from any state, including a bullet point biography, contact information, and committee service.
Congress A-Z
Ref. JK 1021 .C554 1999
A dictionary, of sorts, of Congress and Congressional issues.
America Votes
Ref JK 1967 .A8 V.24
Voting statistics presented for each individual state, presented in a yearly volume.
Committees in Congress
Ref. JK 1029 .S64 1997
This book explains the various congressional committees, how the committees have evolved over the years, the goals of each committee, subcommittees and how they operate, and how the reform of congress has affected each committee.
Guide to Congress
Ref. JK 1021 .C565 1991
An historical guide to congress and how it has evolved over the years. Useful for any research on congressional history.
Congress and Its Members
Ref. JK 1021 .D38 1998
Deals with both the historical and practical side of congress, featuring essays on how congress actually functions, what the leaders of the parties do, the various rules and procedures for each branch, how decisions are made, and how congress functions during times of crisis.
Finding Books
To locate books about the U.S. Congress, you might start with a subject search, using one of the following search terms:
Congress
United States--Politics and government
United States--Congress--Committees
To locate books and other matierials issued by the U.S. Congress, you can do an author search for United States Congress.
MaconCat
The library's online catalog, providing access to books, journals, music, and movies in the library.
WorldCat
A catalog of books and other materials in libraries worldwide.
Books and articles not owned by our library can be obtained from other libraries through Interlibrary Loan. Allow sufficient time for processing. Average turnaround time is 3-5 days for articles and 3-14 days for books, excluding holidays and weekends. Submit ILL requests well in advance of deadlines.
Locating Articles (Databases & Indexes)
Expanded Academic ASAP/Academic OneFile (1980-present; some full text)
General database, with many full text journals articles, from both popular (including newspapers) and scholarly sources.
OmniFile Full Text Mega (some full text; 1994 to present)
Articles from scholarly and popular sources in all disciplines. Select a subject area at the bottom of the search screen to get the most relevant results.
LexisNexis Academic (dates vary, most 1990s to present ; full-text)
Provides full-text of legal, governmental, business, and general news information; searching under Legal Research and in News sources (particularly National or Regional papers) can be especially useful.
LexisNexis Congressional (dates vary, most 1990s to present; full-text)
LexisNexis Congressional contains a comprehensive index to U.S. legislation, including full-text of proposed legislation, legislative histories, bill tracking, and current member rosters for Congress.
PAIS International and PAIS Archive (1915 to present; citations & abstracts)
PAIS indexes articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings, government documents, and various stastical indexes.
JSTOR (full text; dates vary by journal)
An archive of back issues of over 400 journals in many disciplines.
Websites
Allpolitics
A joint production of CNN, Time and Congressional Quarterly, covering political news with a full database of key House and Senate votes.
GPO Access
GPO (the Government Printing Office) publishes over 360,000 documents each year. Since 1994, many of these documents have been made available on-line.
Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet
Thomas runs an Internet database for finding information on legislation, Congressional records, and committee information.
Evaluating Sources
Citing Sources