Tri-College Collections

Use the Tripod Library Catalog to look for books and government publications on public policy owned by Haverford, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr.

The following suggested subject searches are only a sampling of possibilities. To find materials on a topic not listed below, try doing a keyword search in the Tripod Library Catalog to find relevant materials and then using the subject headings assigned to those materials to find more.

Broad Subject Searches

• achievement tests
  
• educational tests and measurements
• education bilingual
• immigrants education
• education and state
  
• educational change
  

NOTE: To find materials about these issues on a country level, add"United States" at the end of the above searches.

Beyond the Tri-College Libraries

WorldCat (access via Tripod)

A good first place to look for materials not owned by the Tri-College Libraries, this combined library catalog contains more than 41 million records describing items owned by libraries around the world.

Use the E-Z Borrow and Interlibrary Loan Request forms on Tripod to request items that are not available in Tripod. Note that E-Z Borrow provides only books while Interlibrary Loan (ILL) makes journal articles as well as books, reports, and documents available. E-Z Borrow takes around five days to deliver your requested books, and ILL takes 10 days to 2 weeks.

Journal articles and similar periodical publications provide current information on policy issues. The following indexes are key sources for finding periodical literature.

Good Starting Points

ProQuest Research Library

ProQuest indexes over 2600 journals, magazines, and news sources in the social sciences, humanities, and sciences starting with 1971. About two-thirds of the journals include the full-text of the article.

Education Index
          Education Index provides abstracts and citations to journal articles, books and yearbooks.  Covers all aspects of education.

ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) 

The U. S. Department of Education sponsors ERIC to give access to the literature in the field. It indexes journal articles, dissertations, conference proceedings, and many other types of publications. Although there are over a million records in ERIC, there has been with the current Bush admination a significant decrease in government publications and funding for studies and reports in the field of education.

Discipline-specific Indexes

These indexes are particularly good for accessing the scholarly literature of an individual discipline, i.e., articles written by economists, lawyers, political scientists, and sociologists.

• For economics, use EconLit 
• For law, use Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe; choose "Legal Research" from the main menu)
• For public policy, use Worldwide Political Science Abstracts or PAIS
• For sociology, use Sociological Abstracts

Once you have found citations to journal articles, do a journal title search in Tripod to see if the Tri-College libraries own the title. If the journal is not held by the Tri-Colleges, use the Interlibrary Loan Request Form on Tripod to request a copy of the article from another library.

Statistics and demographic information often play a key role in education issues. A vast and complex array of statistical information is available online and in the print collections of libraries. Before attempting to use the more specific and complicated statistical sources, it is good to check one of the statistical compilations published regularly by both the government and commercial publishers. Compilations are especially good for finding a single statistic, e.g., the number of elementary school children in the U.S., the percentage of the U.S. population which is of Hispanic origin, etc.

Good Starting Points

Digest of Educational Statistics (access and print location via Tripod)

As the National Data Book, this annual government publication contains a collection of statistics on education, including colleges and universities, in the United States. Selected international comparisons are also included.

Statistical Abstract of the United States (access and print location via Tripod)

This is a more general annual government collection of statistics on social and economic conditions in the United States. The Abstract is also your Guide to Sources of other data from the Census Bureau, other Federal agencies, and private organizations.

More Extensive Statistics Databases

National Center for Education Statistics

Provides links to key statistics available online from more than 70 U.S. government agencies. Includes a Fast Facts section, an A-Z index, a section of regional statistics, MapStats profiles of states and counties and a searchable (title, keyword, full-text keyword) database of statistical sources.

LexisNexis Statistical (access via Tripod)

Indexes and abstracts U.S. government statistical sources. Links to full text of many publications or to a specific table or chart. Especially useful when it is unclear which agency or department would collect and publish information on a specific topic or when looking for a particular geographic, economic or demographic category or breakdown. 1973-date. Updated monthly.

FedStats (access via Tripod)

Provides links to key statistics available online from more than 70 U.S. government agencies. Includes a Fast Facts section, an A-Z index, a section of regional statistics, MapStats profiles of states and counties and a searchable (title, keyword, full-text keyword) database of statistical sources.