Photographer : Gwen Harlow |
Books
Books on a political topic come in a few different forms. For example, books may be academic (i.e be well-referenced and contain reference to academic theory) or journalistic, with some books containing a combination of the two styles. You can generally find books relevant to your topic of interest through your university, school or public library catalogue (most of these are now available online so you search at home to make sure that the library has what you need). And remember, if you need help on any topic, don’t hesitate to ask the librarians!
Journals
A second source of information is academic journals. Your local, state or university libraries will have a number of different journals in their collection, so check their catalogues. There are also a number of online journal databases around, which allow you to search, download and print whole articles or abstracts (summaries of articles). You need to subscribe to a number of these, although many libraries provide access through their computers. So ring and check.
Some major databases in Australia include:
- APAIS (Australian Public Affairs Information Service); APA-FT (APAIS Full Text): a major database for Australian scholarly journals. Strong for politics, economics and social issues.
- AGIS, AGIS Plus Text: a database produced by the Australian Attorney General’s Department. It covers all aspects of Australian law, including the roles of government and constitutional law.
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts: covers international political science, international relations, law and public administration.
- PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service): major international database dealing with political and social issues. Very good for foreign relations.
- Factiva: a full text database covering wide range of local and overseas newspapers, including News Ltd and Fairfax Ltd newspapers. Archives go back 7–22 years.
- Econlit: major database for economics.
- Expanded Academic Index ASAP: covers most academic disciplines. Strong for politics, economics, social issues and current affairs. International coverage.
- Web of Science: broad coverage of the social sciences, international in scope. Strong for politics, economics and social topics.
Statistics
You may want to find up-to-date statistical information regarding a political issue. Here are some sources that might help:
- Online database of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS): contains all standard publications since 1998 as pdfs and includes time series data for economics and work-related subjects. An online version of the yearbook and selected census data is available at http://www.abs.gov.au/
- SourceOECD: includes the full text of all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) publications, such as OECD Economic Outlook, and OECD Economic Surveys. It also includes a range of OECD databases such as Main Economic Indicators, Main Industrial Indicators, National Accounts, Social Expenditure, Economic Outlook and many others— http://www.sourceoecd.org
- World Development Indicators: a time series database from the World Bank. It contains over 500 different series in 5 major categories—people, environment, economics, states & markets, and global links. Coverage from 1960–2002 http://www.worldbank.org/data
