Home > Research Guides >Library Research Guide for Professor Schuendeln's Social Studies Junior Tutorial

• Backgrounds and Country Information
• Finding Journal Literature
• Policy Discussions, Working Papers and Grey Literature
• Special Research Tools
• Current News Sources
• Data Resources (by topic)
• Data Definitions
• Education Data Resources
• Health Data Resources
• Microfinance Data Resources
• Development Finance / Aid Data Resources
• Anti-Corruption Data Resources
• Murray Archive (micro-level data)
• How to Reach Us

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Backgrounds and Country Information

Europa Regional Surveys of the World
Lamont REFERENCE JA1 .R449            
Widener RR 4201.10.5

EIU Country Reports and Profiles [1995-] The EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) Country Reports provide quarterly analysis and forecasts of the political, economic and business environment in nearly 200 countries. Included in each Country Report is a detailed review and analysis of political and economic events, a compilation of the latest economic indicators as well as a 12-24 month political outlook and economic projection. Annual Country Profiles include statistical tables covering five years of the main macroeconomic indicators.

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Finding Journal Literature

[for economic perspectives]
EconLit [1969-]
Produced by the American Economic Association, this database provides citations and abstracts to economic literature produced worldwide.  EconLit references journal articles, essays, research papers, books, dissertations, book reviews, and working papers. It covers such subjects as consumer economics, monetary policy, labor, marketing, demographics, modeling, economic theory and planning. Truncation symbol in this database: * 

[for sociological perspectives]
Sociological Abstracts [1963—]
This is an essential database for the Social Studies concentrator. It provides you with citations and abstracts (increasingly with links to full text) to nearly 2000 journals in sociology and all of its related disciplines.  It also references some conference proceedings, book reviews, and dissertations.  Truncation symbol in this database:  *

[for political perspectives]
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts [1975-]
WPSA provides citations and abstracts to journal literature in political science and related fields, including international relations, economics, law, and public policy. Truncation symbol in this database: *

[for legal perspectives]
LegalTrac [1980-]
LegalTrac indexes the contents of nearly 1000 legal periodicals, including academic law journals, bar association publications, and legal newspapers. It also provides citations to law-related information that appears in business publications or general interest magazines.  Truncation symbol is this database: *.

[for educational perspectives]
ERIC [Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse]
The ERIC Index is a major resource for research in all areas of education. ERIC contains approximately 1,000,000 references and abstracts; it annually indexes articles from over 800 journals as well as 13,000 documents (conference papers, research reports, state, federal, and local education documents, selected books, etc.)

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Policy Discussions, Working Papers and Grey Literature

PAIS [Public Affairs Information Services [1972-]
PAIS provides citations and abstracts to publications on the full range of political, social, and public policy issues. Topics covered include economic, political, and social issues, business, finance, law, international trade and relations, public administration, government, political science, and any topics that are or might become the subject of legislation. The PAIS database covers selected journal articles, books, statistics, yearbooks, directories, conference proceedings, pamphlets, reports, government documents, microfiche, and some documents from the Internet. More than 1,600 journals and over 8,000 monographs are indexed each year.

PolicyFile [1990-]:
This database, which advertises itself as a "definitive" source of public policy information and analysis, draws its content from major, world-renowned think tanks, university research programs,
research organizations and publishers. Among many others, contributors include the American Enterprise Institute, Amnesty International, the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, the IMF,  the RAND Corporation, and the World Bank. Not everything in Policy File is available in full-text, but a good deal is; Harvard Libraries can probably supply you whatever information hasn't yet made its way online.  Truncation symbol in this database: *

CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online) [1991-]
CIAO is designed to be a comprehensive source for theory and research in international affairs. It publishes a wide range of scholarship on that includes working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from non-governmental organizations, foundation-funded research projects, and proceedings from conferences. At least 400 working papers, 40-50 papers presented at conferences, and 10-12 complete books are added, cross-indexed, and archived annually. It also has more than 160 links to international affairs centers, institutes, and resources; U.S., international, and foreign government sites; environmental studies Web pages; and news media services.

Social Science Research Network (SSRN) [1995-]
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences.  Its aim is the rapid dissemination new knowledge and scholarship in such areas as economics, finance, information systems, law, management, and marketing. The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database of summaries for more than 134,300 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and an Electronic Paper Collection currently containing over 104,700 downloadable full text documents in Adobe Acrobat pdf format.

HURIDOCS HuriSearch Portal [2003-]
HURIDOCS (Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International) was established in 1982, and is a decentralised global network of organizations concerned with human rights information.  HuriSearch, introduced in 2003, aims to  provide one-stop searching of the content of more than 3000 websites of human rights organizations. 

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Special Research Tools

Citation Indexes (ISI Web of Science)
This e-resource offers a powerful way of tracking down information leads: by following the citation trail forward in time.  “Cited reference searching” is thus different from keyword or subject searching, because it relies on something other than language (and linguistic classification systems) to group like information together. 

Dissertations and Theses Full-Text (ProQuest)
Dissertations completed in 1997 or later are accessible in PDFs for 72 hours at a time.
These can be useful in many ways; comprehensive literature review chapters and an extensive bibliography of both primary and secondary research are among the distinguishing features of a good dissertation.

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Current News Sources

LexisNexis Academic
Some of the lesser known options in LexisNexis that may be of interest include the ability to  search regional news and political transcripts.

World News Connection
An extremely valuable research tool for anyone who needs to monitor non-U.S. media sources, the material in WNC is provided to the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). Analysts from FBIS domestic and overseas bureaus monitor timely and pertinent open-source materials.  WNC is the only news service that allows you to take advantage of the intelligence gathering experience of FBIS

Factiva
From this resource, you can search 8,000 business and news publications, most in full text.   Sources are in 22 languages; many date back as far as 1969.  Other materials referenced in Factiva include trade journals, newswires (Dow Jones, Reuters, and others), media programs, and company and stock reports.

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Data Resources

Data Definitions

Summary-Level Data:  Summary-level data are published data points in either print or electronic format. You would use summary-level data if you were looking for a quick statistic such as the unemployment rate for the current month or if you wanted to see a table of statistics, such as GNP for various countries during a specific time period. The web resources and HOLLIS e-resources below are all examples of summary-level data.

Micro-Level Data:  Micro-level data files are the numerically coded results of individual responses to such files as the census questionnaires, public opinion surveys, etc. You have much more flexibility to work with the data and run statistical analyses on the extracted data. The data are in an unanalyzed, raw format of columns and rows, usually in ASCII format but not always. Some raw data files are accompanied by files in SPSS, SAS or other statistical software format for easier use in these packages. If you are working with only the raw data, you must consult the data documentation (codebook) and write a small program or use an extraction program to have the computer "read" in the data into a useable format. The Data Archive resources below are all examples of micro-level data.

Data Documentation/Codebooks: Codebooks provide information on the structure, content, and layout of a data file and the questionnaire, if any, used for the survey or study. Many codebooks are available electronically with the data file. Littauer Library (Harvard) and Dewey Library (MIT) have extensive collections of printed codebooks for data files from ICPSR, Roper and other sources and these are searchable in the HOLLIS and BARTON online library catalogs, respectively.

Education Data Resources

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
UNESCO is a sub-organization of the United Nations. The main goal of UNESCO is to coordinate communication between member countries with a focus on Education, Natural Science, Social and Human Science, Culture and Communication & Information. The Education statistics available via UNESCO include the UNESCO database (which allows users to build tables of data), pre-formatted statistical tables, country and regional data profiles and “Fast Facts”.

World Education Indicators (WEI):
UNESCO (in collaboration with OECD) also publishes World Education Indicators, a collection of indicators that could be used to guide international education policy decisions. The data is collected from middle-income countries throughout the world.

United Nations (UN):
There are three other UN resources for education data:

Statistics Division (Demographic and Social Concerns)
This United Nations (UN) website provides basic education data including enrollment rates, expenditure and school life expectancy for over 100 countries worldwide.

UN Common Database:
This database, available to Harvard affiliates with a Harvard ID and PIN, contains over 25 education and learning indicators (including enrollment, expenditure, levels of illiteracy, and literacy rates) for countries and areas throughout the world.

Human Development Report:
This website provides the full-text of these reports from 1990-present. These thematic reports focus on issues ranging from health to education to globalization to human rights.  The site also provides a link to the Human Development Indicators database.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
This resource provides access to statistics from the PISA database (Programme for International Student Assessment). Indicators include personnel and enrollment statistics, detailed expenditure data by country, foreign student enrollment and several indicators that compare # or graduates/demographic data.

World Bank
The World Bank produces many different publications relating to education and learning. A few World Bank education-related publications include:

EDStats
This resource is a comprehensive education statistics database. It compiles data from a variety of national and international sources and provides information on key education topics including education expenditure, education attainment, school age population estimates and much more.

Millennium Development Goal (#2)
MDG #2 is to achieve universal primary education. This website allows the user to create charts, maps, and tables for literacy rates, primary school completion rates, and primary school enrollment.

World Development Indicators (WDI Online)
WDI (World Development Indicators) Online contains statistical data from the World Bank for almost 600 development indicators and time series data from 1960 for over 200 countries and 18 country groups. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources, and environmental indicators. The education series include expenditure on education, literacy rates, school enrollment and completion and more. Results can be scaled, indexed against a particular year, viewed by percentage change, and charted. Data can be exported in Excel.

 

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• Susan Gilroy, Reference Services, Lamont Library, 617-496-5403, email.
• Meghan Dolan, Numeric Data Services, Littauer Library, 617-495-2106, email.