Political Science Resources
Reference Tools
Frames Index |
No-Frames Version
Last updated on December 4,
2008
- Information Please
Almanac (U Mich Only)
- Miscellaneous facts and lists
- Searchable by keyword or by title
- Old Farmer's
Almanac
- Weather predictions by week and region for the coming year
- Sunrise/moonrise tables
- Days of first and last frost
- Bibliography of gardening publications
- Animal
Group Terminology (Kids Info Please Almanac)
- Animals and just their group names (e.g. colony, sloth)
- Animal
Names (Christchurch Public Library, NZ)
- Animal group names (e.g. herd, gaggle); animal name for young; male
and female names
- Associations on the Net (Internet
Public Library)
- Annotated links to over 300 associations on the Internet
- Arranged by broad subjects (arts, business, law, politics, health,
labor, social sciences)
- Associations
Unlimited (UMich Only)
- Gale Directory of 140,000 U.S. national, regional, state and
local associations
- Provides contact information, membership, objectives and
publications
- Directory
of Social Sciences - Institutions, Specialists,
Periodicals (UNESCO)
- Directory searchable by country, keyword, type of institution, ISSN
number, and personal name
- Data includes identification, e-mail addresses and web sites as
applicable
- Congressional
Gold Medals (Univ. of South Florida)
- Chronological list, 1776 to present, compiled from Congressional reports
and the Congressional Research Service
- Includes links to biographies for 18th and early 19th Century
recipients
- Congressional Medal of
Honor (Army)
- Recipients of Congressional Medal of Honor by service branch and war
beginning with the U.S. Civil War
- Includes statistics and names of recipients with citations
- Nobel
Prizes
- List of Nobel prize winners in all categories since 1901
- Searchable by name, year and prize
- Archived press releases
- Academic
Universe/LEXIS Web (UMich Only)
- Biographies appear under Biographical
Information, Country Profiles, and
General News Topics
- Biographical Information interprets
lastname/firstname as two separate words rather than a phrase and may
retrieve some incorrect information
- General News Topics permits searching the
name as a phrase
- Biography
and
Geneaological Master Index (UMich Only)
- Over 10 million biographies appearing in 1000 printed biographical dictionaries
- Coverage is 1980 to the present
- Biography People
Finder
- See also biographies for current individual government agencies on
their respective web pages
- Contemporary Authors (U Mich Only)
- Biographies and bibliographies of 90,000 writers
- Lives, The
Biography Resource
- Annotated guide to over 1000 biographical reference tools on the web
- Arranged by subject: individuals, African-Americans, women, Holocaust
survivors, professions
- Search engine
- Political
Graveyard
- Cemeteries in which over 100,000 federal, state and local politicians
are
buried
- Arranged by name of person, office, birth and death years
- Cemeteries arranged alphabetically and by state/county
- Brief political biography of politician with links to fuller
biographies as available
- Cemetery lists provide biographies of politicians with some links to
the Tiger Map Server
- Extensive section on political families although relationships also
shown under the name search
- Quest
for Equality (World Book)
- Biographies of women pioneers arranged by subject field and links to
women's history web sites
- Remainder is focused on women's movements at the K-12 level
- Time_100:
Choosing the Century's Most Influential People
- Biographies of 100 people in arts, entertainment, politics,
and science
- Time line throughout the century
- Wilson
Biographies (UMich Only)
- Full text biographies of 38,000 historical and current figures.
- Searchable by subject, name, profession, birthday, place of origin,
gender, and ethnicity
- Global Books
in
Print (UMich Only)
- Index to in-print, forthcoming, and out-of-print books from 44,000
North American publishers
- Searchable by author, title, keyword, language, publisher, date, and
ISBN number
- Hyperhistory Online
- Broad chronologies of people and historical events, 1000 B.C. to present
- Detailed history of events by decade and year since 1791, subdivided into politics, culture, science and religion
- Use orange Events button on lefhand frame to activate time
period given in righthand frame
- Information Please
Millennium
- Chronology of a worldwide scope for 1000-1999
- Detailed information for the 20th century includes annual list of key
worldwide and U.S. events, economics, music, sports, movies, deaths, and
popular culture trends
- Web
Chronology Project (North Park University)
- Detailed chronologies of political events arranged by region or
subject (e.g. various religions)
- Selected links to summaries of the event
- Summaries provide bibliographic references for further research
- CityTownInfo
- Detailed entries for 20,000 U.S. cities provide everything from area
codes, time zones, latitude and longitude to ancestry of the population
- Compares population, income, housing and crime to the state
- Includes political contributions, lists of high schools, travel
highlights, mortgage rates
- Separate section for many of the cities with their most popular
professions and corresponding annual salary ranges
- College and
University Rankings (UIUC)
- Analytical guide to web sites with college rankings
- Includes undergraduate, graduate, law, business, and international
institutions
- Describes the controversy over various ranking systems with web links
to articles
- College
Rankings (US News and World Report)
- Ranks colleges nationally, by region, and state; friendliness to
international students; diversity
- Search for best college by geography, religion, major, co-ed,
selectivity and cost
- Includes graduate
school rankings for over 30 detailed disciplines
- College
View
- Search 3500 colleges and universities by name or a combination of
preferences (state, characteristics of student body, size of city, etc.)
- Statistics for schools includes student body, minority representation
of
faculty, tuition, and SAT scores
- GradSchools.Com
- Index to graduate schools by discipline or name
- Provides links to admissions requirements and web sites
- Digital Registry
Search
- Experimental catalog of web sites chosen by University of Michigan
Library subject specialists
- Searchable by type, discipline, and keyword
- Gale Directory of
Data Bases (U Mich Only)
- Directory of publicly-available CD-ROMS, magnetic tapes, and other electronic
materials
- Searches.Com
- Search the web using Alta Vista, Excite, Galaxy, HotBot, Lycos, Web
Crawler, and Yahoo all at once
- Searches may include all words, any words, or a phrase
- American
Heritage Dictionary (UMich Only)
- Searchable and browsable
- Separate section for the names of colleges and universities
- Dictionary
of Philosophical Terms and Names (Kemerling)
- Definitions and biographies of philosophers from ancient times to the
present
- Extensively interlinked
- Dictionary
of Phrase and Fable
- Full text of Brewer's 1894 version
- Searchable or browsable
- EurodicAutom
(European Union)
- Translates word or abbreviation from one chosen language to another
- Includes Western European languages
- Can filter by subject field
- Glossary of
Political Economy Terms (Auburn University)
- Substantial definitions of political and economic terms
- Often includes links to related terms
- Glossary of
Statistical Terms (Rice University)
- Extensive description of statistical terms with numerous hyperlinked
cross references
- Part of the HyperStat Online textbook
- Insurance
Glossary of Terms
- Definitions for the consumer on 100 health, life, auto, and hazard
insurance terms
- Definitions are hyperlinked
- Merriam-Webster
On-Line Dictionary
- Searchable English dictionary providing pronunciation, definitions and
hot links to related words
- Includes a searchable thesaurus
- No browing capability
- Money
Words
- User-friendly dictionary to business, finance, and real estate
terms
- On-Line
Dictionaries (Bucknell)
- Links to numerous foreign and English language dictionaries
- Includes Afrikaans to Zulu
- Quick lookup of English words
- Online
Dictionaries and Translators
- Matrix of foreign and bilingual dictionaries on the Internet
- You can also browse all of the dictionaries related to that
language
- Oxford English Dictionary (U Mich Only
- Origin of English words with examples
- Searchable and browsable
- Phobia
List
- Extensive list of phobias by name with brief definition
- Second list of phobias by item feared with corresponding name
- Background FAQs
- Web of
On-Line-Grammars (Bucknell)
- Links to more than 20 on-line grammars
- Includes Western European languages as well as Akkadian, Bengali,
Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Latin
- Codes of Ethics Online
Project (Ill.Inst.of Tech)
- Text of over 850 ethics codes from societies, corporations,
government agencies and academic institutions around the world
- Searchable by keyword
- E-How
- Short, simple advice on how to do common personal or household tasks
- Categories include automotive, personal, electronics, business,
health, sports, travel
- Examples: how to change oil, avoid age spots, choose a zip drive,
decline an invitation
- Searchable versions of English language literature and poetry
- Some products are restricted to University of Michigan users
- Religious texts (Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon) are unrestricted
access
- Career
Information (UMich - BusAd Library)
- Links to web sites of corporations recruiting at the University of
Michigan
- United States and international web sites and newspapers with job
postings
- Chronicle of Higher Education
- Weekly newspaper on higher education issues
- Numerous reports, statistics, and analysis
- Extensive section of academic job postings
- Indexed since 1983 in Education
Abstracts (UMich Only)
- Full text without job openings in Academic Universe, Sept.
1997+
- Found in its own separate file under General News
Topics
- Academe This
Week carries today's news and last week's (not current
week's) jobs without subscription
- Paper copies of the Chronicle are maintained in the
Serials Room (LB 2300 .C56) until Serials receives the microfilm
version (FILM X974)
- Employment
Opportunities and Job Resources on the Internet (Riley)
- Links to job postings with an extensive list of academic sources
- Resumes and recruiters
- Healthcare
Employment Links (Pam Pohly)
- Brief annotations to on-line job sources in hospitals and health care
- Guides to related associations and travel
- International Job
Vacancies
- Hundreds of want ads for jobs with international intergovernmental agencies,
primarily from the UN group
- Arranged by agency, country, and type of job
- Provides complete description and application deadline
- Minorities
Job-Bank
- Available professional jobs searchable by keyword and location or
browsable by title or employer
- May submit resume or post a new job online
- Description of various minority communities in the United States
- Occupational
Information Network (Dept. of Labor)
- Pilot program to redefine job descriptions in terms of worker and
occupational characteristics
- Expected to replace the Dictionary of Occupational Titles
- Includes numerous links to job resources
- What Color
is Your Parachute?
- Annotated web resources and on-line job-hunt advice
- Job listings, resumes, career counseling, making contacts, and
job-hunting research
- MIRLYN is the
University of Michigan on-line catalog
- MCAT includes books and periodicals within the
library system
- INDEXES provides access to numerous periodical
articles
- REMOTE links to catalogs of libraries within
Michigan and the Big Ten Schools
- Subjects, authors, and URLs are hot-linked
- British Library
- Most holdings listed in the catalog date back to 1975
- Includes serials beginning 1700 A.D.
- Gabriel's Gateway to
European Libraries
- Web searching for the national libraries of Finland, Germany,
Netherlands and United Kingdom
- Catalogs may be search individually or together
- Libraries
On-Line
- Lists of national, public, school, medical, academic and law
libraries
- Library
Catalogs (Michigan Electronic Library)
- Links to library catalogs around the world
- Special focus on Michigan public, academic and special libraries
- Library of
Congress Information System (LOCIS)
- Search books, serials, music, and sound recordings
- Word search, browse search, or command search
- Also includes federal legislation since 1973 and the Catalog of
Copyright Entries since 1978
- See main page for hours of operation
- OCLC
First Search (UMich Only)
- Index to books and periodicals located in most libraries
throughout the United States
- Numerous periodical data bases, some of which duplicate
MIRLYN
- Selected full text of articles; first choose subject discipline and
then the file FASTDOC
- Unique feature is Dissertation Abstracts and the
full text of the New York Times for the past 90 days
- Thomas
Regional
- Search for manufacturing suppliers by product or company name and one
of 19 regions
- Provides contact information
- Guest use or free password
- ArcData
Online
- Web Browser
is a free on-line mapping program while ArcExplorer
is a free downloadable mapping program that can be used with Windows 95
or Windows NT
- Web Browser maps show streets, schools, airports, cemeteries,
railroads, and other geographic features
- Both provide automated mapping capabilities for data though the maps
cannot necessarily be customized
- The map "shapefiles" can be combined with statistical data, including
limited Census variables, scientific mapping, and individual streets
- Columbia
Gazetteer of the World
- Dictionary of places and place names, including cities, bridges,
maritime or geological features, states, provinces
- Each entry provides detailed information on the place, its history,
and current economy as appropriate
- Search by place name, type of place or keyword
- Earthlights
(NASA)
- NASA satellite imagery of the earth at night
- Can see light concentrations around the world
- Environmental
Maps
(HUD)
- State, county and census tract maps showing public housing
and
environmental risks
- Either zoom in on place or search it
- Choose layers indicating various types of air, water, or
solid waste
pollution with public housing projects or brownfields
(indicated by symbols)
- You can use colors to indicate percentages of 1990 census
data (race, education, income, age of housing, housing value
or rent)
- Geodata
- Index of federal GIS databases combining mapping and statistical data
- Data categories range from atmosphere and energy to the environment,
geology, water resources, and transportation networks
- Extensive annotations, metadata, and links to primary web sites
- Geographic
Names Information System (USGS)
- Search geographic names by name or by feature type (parks, schools,
streams etc.) county, latitude, population size
- Output provides the name, latitude and longitude, map
- Examples: identify names of all parks in Washtenaw County, all
schools in Wayne County, or all cities in U.S. with the name of
Portland and over 50,000 population
- Alternative Server at
Yale
- Historical
Maps on the Web (UMich)
- Annotated guide to historical maps
- General section followed by geographic region with a special section
on city maps
- Map-Related
Web Sites (Univ.Texas)
- Extensive links to city, state, and national maps from around the world
- Historical and weather maps
- Cartographic Reference section includes gazetteers, distance tables,
and time zone maps
- See Demographics for
Census-related maps
- MapQuest
- Search any location in the United States by street address, name of
business, or zip code
- Resulting map includes latitude, longitude, geographic center, and a
variety of customized variables (shopping, education, banking, parks,
etc.)
- Maps on Us
- Identify precise location of a street address in the United States
and a route between places
- May also identify location of businesses included in its yellow pages
section within a certain radius of your geographic location
- Mining
Company
- CIA, National Geographic, and University of Texas maps arranged by
country
- Latitude and longitude lookup for major world cities
- National Atlas of the
United States (USGS)
- Determine geographic location by zooming in on map of the U.S.
- Layers for lands, roads, parks, railroads, cities, volcanoes, and
other geographic features can be downloaded and superimposed
- Multimedia requiring Shockwave and Internet Explorer 4.0 or Netscape
Communicator 4.0
- Terraserver
(Microsoft)
- U.S. and Russian satellite images of the earth that can be zoomed to
show individual houses
- Choose area of the earth and continue to zoom in
- Navigation aids on the boxed image include moving the direction of
the map, alternating to a street map of the area covered, and
obtaining geographic coordinates
- Maps may also be searched by place
- Topographic
Map Symbols (USGS)
- Clearly illustrated booklet on reading land, water, building, and
railroad symbols on USGS topographic maps
- United
Nations Cartographic Section
- General political maps by region of the world
- Detailed maps on UN peacekeeping missions with pull-down menus
describing the mission and all UN deployments
- Physicians' GenRX
(UMich Only)
- Search prescription medicines by name, treatment, supplier
- Provides ingredients, drug interactions, cautions,
price
- Search
Name Files
- 1990 Census data on names collected
- Search by lastname or male/female firstname to determine frequency
and rank among all names in its class
- Does not provide information about individuals
- Ulrich's
International Periodicals Directory (UMich Only)
- Lists 150,000 periodicals and 8000 newspapers
- Browsable by title, subject and publisher
- Searchable by title, publisher, description and ISSN
- Information includes title, link to publisher, advertising rates,
circulation, formats including web, and e-mail address if applicable
- Lists abstracting services which index the journal
- Speech
and Transcript Center (George Washington University)
- Web links to speeches by U.S. federal, state and local
officials; foreign governments, businesses, and international
organizations; television transcripts
- Federal
Tax Forms
- Tax forms, instructions, and publications
available in PDF (Adobe Acrobat), PCL, PostScript, and SGML format
- Many reproducible tax forms also available
at the Graduate Library's Documents Center
- State Tax
Forms (LSU)
- Clearly-arranged links to tax forms in several
states
- Area Codes
- Ameritech Yellow
Pages
- Search 10 million U.S. businesses by name, state, city, phone number
or subject
- Provides map of business location
- Go Global
- Telephone dialing codes for various countries as well as time
differentials
- Hotline
Telephone Numbers (Webshaker)
- Lists 800 telephone numbers for personal situations, such as
AIDS, child abuse, depression, gambling, suicide
- Describes services available from the agencies
- Reference
USA (UMich Only)
- Directory of 12 million businesses and 120 households in the U.S.
- For households, searchable by last name, city, state, and
phone number
- For businesses, by company name, county and state with additional
searches by type of business
- White Pages
(Yahoo)
- Search 90 million people by name, address, phone number, e-mail
address or web page
- White
Pages.Com
- Search name of person for address and phone; search by phone
number
- Covers entire United States but may be limited by state or
city
- A+ Research and
Writing (Internet Public Library)
- Step-by-step guide to writing a term paper
- Includes tips such as setting deadlines, number of words per page,
role of brainstorming
- Instructions on researching both in the library and on the Internet
- Library
Research Guide (UMich)
- Guide to analyzing class assignment, research, evaluating materials,
writing the paper, and citing sources
- Description with links to web sources and printed materials in the
University of Michigan Undergraduate Library
- Go Global
- Enter time and city to receive list of corresponding times in 30
other cities
- World Time
- Current local time, sunrise, sunset, and holidays within the next month
- Access via a map or choosing individual countries
- World Time
Server
- Determine current time for any country in the world
- Choose future event in one location and determine the time it will
occur in a second location
- Airport Codes of
the World
- Codes arranged alphabetically and identify airport
- Fodors Travel
Guides
- Mini-guides to 110 cities around the world
- Hotels, restaurants, and sights
- Can make online reservations
- Geographia
- Illustrated travel guide to Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America
- History and art of the country; travel tips
- Does not suggest hotels or provide reservations
- Go Global
- Calculate distances and compare time between major world cities
- National holidays for the current month
- Voltage and power converter requirements in various countries
- Telephone dialing codes
- Internet
Airlines Addresses List
- List of commercial airlines arranged by continent
- Provides links to airline web site, e-mail address, and frequent
flyer information
- Lonely
Planet
- Travel guides to most countries with history, activities, and travel
advice
- Maps of the National Historic and Military Parks, Memorials, and Battlefields
- Examples include Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and the Johnstown PA flood
- Maps of the US National Parks and Monuments
- Arranged alphabetically
- Some maps over 1 MB
- Passport
Services (State Department)
- How to apply for a passport and renew it
- Passport application form
- PetsWelcome
- Motels, hotels, campgrounds, and amusement parks that accept pets
- Searchable by place or by route
- Also includes nearby kennels
- Covers U.S., Canada, and France
- Rand
McNally Travel Tools: Construction
- Lists road construction projects and their start/completion dates for
the U.S. and Canada
- Search by state/province, type of road, and road number (e.g.
Michigan, Interstate 94)
- Recreation.Gov (Army
Corps of Engineers)
- Index to recreational opportunities on federal lands (e.g. parks,
forests)
- Search by state and type of activity (hiking,, horseback riding) or
amenity (restaurant, pets allowed)
- Lists names, locations, and contact information with sample photos of
the area and links to maps
- Travel Health
Online
- Likely diseases and vaccinations arranged by country
- Measures to handle common health and crime problems (e.g. safe
drinking water, not wearing expensive jewelry
- Travel health providers
- Travel Tips
(Transportation Security Administration)
- How to pack luggage for screening beginning January 1, 2003
- What to wear to the airport
- Travel
Warnings and Consular Sheets (State Department)
- Information for individual foreign countries on passport and visa
requirements
- Crime, terrorism, and health warnings as applicable
- TravelWeb
- Provides on-line reservations at major hotel chains and airlines
- Vaccinations
(CDC)
- Vaccinations for foreign travel, arranged by destination
- Visa
Requirements
- Foreign visa requirements for U.S. citizens
- Includes fees, material needed for application, and consular address
- Visaforu: Ultimate Visa
Information
- Visa information for each country in the world provides details of
various types of visas (travel, temporary worker, business, immigrant,
etc.), visa application forms and embassies of the the country around
the world
- See also Maps
- Aport
- Translates Russian language web sites and their immediate links into
English
- Reverse process to translate English language web sites into Russian
- Translations are not perfect but will provide a sense of the
subject
- Babelfish
(AltaVista)
- Translate a page or URL
- Two-way translations between English and French, German, Spanish,
Portuguese or Italian
- Free Translation
- Paste a paragraph to the box
- Translate Spanish, French, and German to English
- Translate English to Spanish, Portugese, French, German, Italian, and
Norwegian
- Tarjim
- Translates English to Arabic and Arabic to English
- Stumpers (Dominican
University)
- Listserv for answering difficult reference
questions
- Searchable archive of answers
- Totally
Trivia
- Genuine trivia about people, pets, history, the environment,
entertainment, etc.
- Browsable and searchable
- Gems include: about 1/3 of pet owners leave messages for them on an
answering machine, Ed Peterson is the investor of the Egg McMuffin,
Kemo Sabe means "soggy shrub" in Navajo
- Urban
Legends
- Lists urban legends by broad subject category (e.g. holidays, food
and drink, etc)
- Provides a history of the legend and the truth behind it
- Argus
Clearinghouse
- Annotated guide to Internet search engines and virtual libraries
- Annotations and ratings on subjects from the arts and business to
government and the social sciences
- Direct
Search
- Quality web links arranged by subject
- Includes foreign, federal, state and local governments
- Subjects include military, agriculture, etc
- InfoMine
(UC-Riverside)
- Annotated list of scholarly reference tools
- Acronyms, calendars, grants, travel, library directories
- LibrarySpot
- Selected links to the best reference tools (acronyms, dictionaries,
calculators, quotations)
- Meta-indexes to libraries and library catalogs by type
- Reference tools, associations, and listservs for librarians
- Michigan
Electronic Library
- Extensive lists of dictionaries, awards, and factfinders
- Samples include David Letterman's Top 10 and How to Plan a Wedding
- Oriented toward public libraries
- My Virtual
Reference Desk
- Hundreds of reference tools, including quick facts,
encyclopedias, government
- Lottery, sports, weather
- New links feature
- NetFIRST (UMich Only)
- Index to web sites produced by OCLC
- Provides web links and annotations
- Social Science
Information Gateway
- Annotated guide to the best web sites in the social sciences
- Focus on the US, UK and Europe
- Searchable and browsable
- Clip Art
Searcher
- Search HotBot, Lycos, Filez, and 1-Click by keyword and type for web
page clip art
- Developing
a Course Web Page (UMich)
- Planning, tools, selecting links, and graphics
- How to Create
Your Own Homepage (UMich)
- University of Michigan step-by-step instructions
- Begins with obtaining and uniqname and IFS space to
registering your web site on the X500 directory
- Links to basic HTML guides
- HTML
Goodies
- Tutorials on HTML, frames, Javascript, colors, link buttons, and
image maps
- Over 450 Javascripts
- Free icons and other images
- Web Reference
(Athenia)
- Extensive links to web page design for expert and beginner
- Has search engine for rapid identification of design problem
- News and conference announcements
- All the
Web
- Clear and easy to use search engine which can define searches to
include phrases, all the words or any of the words used
- Advanced searches include filter by language, title, URL, text, and
domain
- Calculate
Me
- Convert
Me
- Converts metric and British, nautical and astronomic measurements
- Includes energy, cooking, weight, distance, time, and speed
measurements
- Converts metric and British measurements, including distance, power,
temperature, area
- Dictionary of
Units
- Approach by title (e.g. angstrom) or type of unit (length, mass, density)
- Includes U.S. and metric
- Elements of
Style (Strunk)
- Full text of classic 1918 guide to English composition
- Includes grammar, composition, usage, misused and misspelled words
- Indispensible Writing
Resources
- Annotated guide to the best reference materials, style guides, and
writing guides
- Includes writing in several subject fields and types of
writing
- Writer's
Handbook (U.Wisc.)
- Guidelines on academic writing, literature, reviews,
scientific writing, and letters
- Grammar, style, and citations
- Look up zip code by delivery address
- From U.S. Postal Service
Quick Jumps:
Grace York, Political Science Librarian
Christina Campbell, Documents Assistant, June 2000
University of Michigan Library
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/psref.html
Since February 25, 1996 this page has been accessed 
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Acronyms