PS 240: Introduction to Latin American Politics
Library Guide ~ Fall 2009
Leadership Assessment: a 5-step guide to finding biographical, political and
news resources!
1. Locate biographical
information on your chosen leader
2. Gather background
information on the country of interest
3. Find analyses of the
current political situation in journals and magazines
4. Find current news of
political events in your country
5. For
further information…
1. Biographical
information
Step beyond biography.com with these resources. (BSC user ID & login is required for
off-campus access)
Biographical info on
more than half a million people (plus images) and links to recent articles
about these individuals.
Click on the
“People” tab to access biographical profiles and news.
Search across
multiple reference sources to locate biographical information on your leader
and put it in context. Also a good source for country
information.
Includes
biographical profiles, information from Britannica Book of the Year annual
summaries, and links to websites.
2. Background
Information
There are several online
sources that can help you gather background information on the current leaders
and political & social realities in Latin American countries:
Background Notes (
Brief profiles
giving basic information about countries.
Another
good source for finding basic information about countries.
Country Studies (Library of Congress)
Excellent
book-length studies of countries’ history, culture and politics.
Political Database of the Americas (
Information on countries’ constitutions, elections, civil
society, political parties, and governmental institutions. Can be searched by name of country.
Country and Regional
Profiles (
Information about US AID programs in Latin American
countries plus links to country info.
Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices (
Official State
Department reports on the human rights situation in various countries.
Amnesty International Annual Report
Documents
human rights violations in countries for the most recent year.
Global
Road Warrior (BSC user ID & login required for off-campus access)
Social
& cultural information about countries for the business traveler (or CIA
agent posing as one!)
3. Journal and magazine
articles
The BSC Library subscribes
to a number of journals related to
These databases
contain a mixture of popular and scholarly articles from a range of magazines
and journals, many of them full text. They are continuously updated.
Academic OneFile (1980 –
present)
Academic Search Elite (1990 – present)
Expanded Academic ASAP (1980 – present)
Proquest Research Library (1980s
– present)
The following
databases specifically cover social science journals and documents.
Social Sciences Full Text (1983 – present)
Indexes
around 400 journals in the social sciences; about ¼ are available full
text
PAIS International (1972 – present + archive
1915-1976)
Indexes and
abstracts articles from over 2100 periodicals, books & book chapters,
conference proceedings, and government documents dealing with politics and
public affairs.
Handbook of Latin American
Studies (1936 – present)
An annotated
bibliography listing books, articles, and essays published on Latin American
topics, in the humanities and social sciences.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (1984 –
present)
Indexes political science and government journals.
LexisNexis Congressional (full text from mid-1980s –
present)
Use
this database to find the full text of Congressional hearings and reports on
your country.
Once you have identified
some articles that sound good, you will probably notice that not all of them
are available full text in the database you are searching. To see if an article
is available full-text in another database, or if it's available in print or
microfilm format in the Library, please consult the Ejournals link on the Library home page. If you need an article that is not
available locally, you can request it through Interlibrary
Loan.
4. Current news of
political events
Lexis Nexis Academic (1970s
– present)
The
“Major US and World Publications” section of this database provides
access to the full text of over 50 English language newspapers, including the
Facts
on File World News Digest (1940 – present)
This
searchable database offers brief news summaries; search by your leader’s
name and you’ll be presented with a useful chronology of headlines going
back through the years, as well as recent news. Country profiles are also available from
the main page of the website.
Newspapers
and magazines from your leader’s country are an excellent source of
information. The “Newspapers & News” section of LANIC
provides links to major newspapers by country. There are English language
newspapers available for many countries. The “Magazines”
section of LANIC (available at http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/epub ) also offers links
to news magazines; however, very few of these are in English.
Univision Noticias en español, Yahoo Noticias en español, and Google Noticias en español are all good current news portals for
Spanish speakers.
5. For further information…
Several sources serve as
gateways to more information on
LANIC
- http://lanic.utexas.edu
The
Organization
of American States - http://www.oas.org
Provides news and papers on issues of interest to the
entire region.
Washington
Office on
Offers
free publications and other resources.
Remember: You
are welcome to contact the Library staff
for assistance at any point (libref@bsc.edu,
x4749)