Workshop 3
Library Research
Introduction
The University of Washington libraries will prove to be a valuable resource as you pursue
research projects in this and other courses. Most students are familiar with the library for
basic tasks but are unaware of the wealth of information available both through
traditional research sources and new web-based reference databases. The following will
introduce you to the types of resources available and how to access them.
Web Resources
The advent of the web has simplified library research for many tasks. Searching for
books, data resources and legal information is easy and the University of Washington has
access to many online databases that you would otherwise be unable to utilize given the
expense of registering for these services. Below is a summary of some of the most useful
online sources, accessible through the UW libraries home page.1
 Lexis-Nexis: Full text newspaper sources from major European and North
American countries; legal resources including case law at all levels; accessible
only through the UW Proxy server or UW computers. Also see Lexis-Nexis
Congressional and Lexis-Nexis Statistical for more resources.
 JSTOR: Collection of abstracts and full text articles from scholarly journals,
including many political science and public affairs journals; accessible only
through the UW Proxy server or UW computers.
 GPO Access: Online access to contemporary official U.S. Federal publications
including the Federal Register, statutes and the full text of the code of federal
regulations (CFR).
 American Political Science Review: Major political science scholarly journal; full
text articles from 1906 forward available through the UW library website using
either the Proxy server or a UW computer.
 Thomas: Online access to legislative information; includes bills, resolutions,
public laws, the congressional record, committee reports and current legislative
activity; databases do not precede the late 1980s; accessible to general public.
In addition to the information described here, browse the Political Science and Public
Affairs page under “Resources by Subject” and the comprehensive listing created by
Alvin Fritz, here http://faculty.washington.edu/alvin/PolBib.htm#basic.
Government Publications
Reference collection includes the U.S. Census, a large number of international statistical
publications, the laws of the United States, Washington and the City of Seattle. Main
collection includes U.S. government publications dating from the 19th century to the
1
Some resources requires you to log in. Follow the instructions at
http://www.lib.washington.edu/help/connect.html
present. Legislative, administrative and statistical reports are collected for the United
States. See the library staff for more information or for help finding reference materials.
Helpful Library Staff
Political Science Librarian
-Al Fritz alvin@u.washington.edu
685-1442
Government publications librarian:
-Eleanor Chase echase@u.washington.edu
543-4664
-U.S. Documents
Cassandra Hartnett cass@u.washington.edu 685-3130
-International Documents
David Maack maack@u.washington.edu
543-9157
-State and Local Documents
Andrew Johnson afj@u.washington.edu
543-9156
-Foreign Documents
Eleanor Chase echase@u.washington.edu
543-4364