Start with a keyword search to find books on your topic. Keep in mind that you'll want to try synonyms and variations on your search terms--for example, if your project is on gender and wage disparity, try subsitituting women, woman, female, sex, etc. for gender, and pay, income, earning, salary, etc. for wages.
When you've located a relevant book, there are several strategies you can use to find additional related works. The first is to consult the book's bibliography; the second is to search by the subject headings you find in that book's Tripod record. These are near the bottom of the record, and if you click on the links, you'll find other books classified with the same subject heading. Sample subject headings you may come across include:
Women -- United States -- Economic Conditions
Sexual Division of Labor -- United States
African Americans -- Economic Conditions
Ethnicity -- Economic Aspects
Pay Equity -- United States
Income Distribution -- United States
Subject Portal » Public Policy » Course Guides »
ECON 73 : Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Economics (SC)
find books :
Tripod catalog
Search the shared library catalog of Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford.
WorldCat
Provider: OCLC
A catalog of the holdings of books, journals, and other materials held by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) member libraries across the country and around the world. Use WorldCat to identify materials to request via Interlibrary Loan (ILL).
find articles, policy papers, and reports:
EconLit
Provider: CSA
Provides abstracts to economic journals, books, book reviews, dissertations, and working papers. Topics include economic theory and history, monetary theory, labor economics, international, regional and urban economics. Coverage 1969-present.
PolicyFile
Provider: Chadwyck-Healey
Provides online access to abstracts and full-text articles on public policy research and analysis from think tanks, university research programs, research organizations and publishers.
PAIS international
Provider: CSA
Provides abstracts of journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, committee reports, intergovernmental, and private organizations reports. Areas covered include political, economic, social and public policy issues. Covers 1915-present.
Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online)
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1973-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1973-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1973-present.
Publisher: Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is a nonprofit economic research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community" (from the NBER website). Try a full-text search of the collection to locate working papers on your topic.
Social sciences citation index
Holdings:
HC: 1997- ; BMC: 1956- ; SC: 1956-
Publisher: Philadelphia : Institute for Scientific Information.
"An international multidisciplinary index to the literature of the social, behavioral and related sciences."
JSTOR
Provides full-text and page images from many of the top journals in most academic disciplines. Coverage is from the inception of the journal through three to five years ago.
ProQuest Research Library
Provider: ProQuest
Provides citations and full-text magazine and journal articles in a wide variety of disciplines, both scholarly and popular in scope. Covers 1971-present.
requesting from other libraries:
Trico
Request items from Bryn Mawr and Haverford by clicking on the "request" button in Tripod. Use your name and the barcode from the back of your student ID. Your requested materials will generally arrive at Swarthmore in 1-2 days.
EZ-Borrow
You can also request items from our regional partner libraries using EZ-Borrow. Again, you'll need your 14-digit barcode number to make a request. These items usually arrive on campus in 3-5 days.
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
If you can't get what you need from the Trico or EZ-Borrow libraries, our interlibrary loan specialists can help you--fill out an ILL request form, but keep in mind that these materials could take several weeks to arrive on campus.
If you're unsure of which service to use, check out this guide to Tri-College Borrowing and Interlibrary Loan.
Request items from Bryn Mawr and Haverford by clicking on the "request" button in Tripod. Use your name and the barcode from the back of your student ID. Your requested materials will generally arrive at Swarthmore in 1-2 days.
EZ-Borrow
You can also request items from our regional partner libraries using EZ-Borrow. Again, you'll need your 14-digit barcode number to make a request. These items usually arrive on campus in 3-5 days.
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
If you can't get what you need from the Trico or EZ-Borrow libraries, our interlibrary loan specialists can help you--fill out an ILL request form, but keep in mind that these materials could take several weeks to arrive on campus.
If you're unsure of which service to use, check out this guide to Tri-College Borrowing and Interlibrary Loan.
data and statistics:
American factFinder
Provides population, housing, economic and geographic data from the latest Decennial Census, the Economic Censuses and Surveys, and the American Community Survey. Users can view reference maps and create comparison tables and thematic maps which can be downloaded and printed.
LexisNexis statistical
Provides abstracts and indexes of statistical information from U.S. government publications from 1973, state and private sources from 1980, and approximately 2000 documents from international organizations from 1983. Full-text or web links provided for some citations.
Statistical abstract of the United States
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1878-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1878-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1878-present.
Publisher: [Washington, DC : U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census]
[Print and online; see Tripod.] This is a compendium and guide to statistics on just about everything in the United States.
news sources:
Access world news
Provider: NewsBank
Newspaper collections from NewsBank provide full-text articles from the electronic editions of record for more than 700 newspapers around the globe, including the NY Times (2000-present). Database covers 1977-present.
LexisNexis academic
Provider: LN
Full-text of thousands of newspapers, magazines, news transcripts, reference works, and legal materials. Includes NY Times (1980-current)
The concise encyclopedia of economics
cite sources and format your bibliography:
You may want to use Endnote Web, a bibliographic citation tool, to manage your sources. With Endnote Web, you can format citations, insert references, and keep track of your research. You'll need to create an account to get started--make sure to do so from a computer on the Swarthmore network! After that, you'll be able to access your Endnote Web account from anywhere, whether on campus or off.
General instructions for Endnote Web
Instructions for using economics/public policy databases and Endnote Web
General instructions for Endnote Web
Instructions for using economics/public policy databases and Endnote Web
research help:
Melanie Maksin, mmaksin1, 690-5786
If you need research assistance, I'm at the reference desk on Wednesdays, 7-10 p.m., and Thursdays, 3-5 p.m. You can also make an appointment or stop by to meet with me in my office, which is on Level 1 of McCabe, near the R call number range in the reference collection.
Looking for more ways to ask a librarian? Call, email, IM, or come to the McCabe reference desk!
If you need research assistance, I'm at the reference desk on Wednesdays, 7-10 p.m., and Thursdays, 3-5 p.m. You can also make an appointment or stop by to meet with me in my office, which is on Level 1 of McCabe, near the R call number range in the reference collection.
Looking for more ways to ask a librarian? Call, email, IM, or come to the McCabe reference desk!