Arts & Humanities Library
W321 Pattee Library
Penn State University
814-865-1014
Reference works are most helpful when starting out. They offer concise overview articles and alert you to key works on your topic.
Encyclopedia of Sustainability
Encyclopedia of the U.S. Government and the Environment : History, Policy, and Politics
Gale Virtual Reference Library. Includes essays on environment topics including air pollution, national parks, oil spills, solar power, smog, and urban planning.
Sage Reference Series on Green Society
For Data see our Statistics Guide
To find books and other materials at Penn State use the library’s catalog, The CAT. Use “I Want it” to request items from other campuses.
In some cases you will discover Penn State does not have the book you need. Use WorldCat to search for materials in libraries worldwide. Use the “Request via ILL” link in WorldCAT to have items delivered to you. For additional options see our "Interlibrary Loan" page
Online Books
Google Book Search — This digital index to the contents of over 10 million English language books is created from the contents of CIC university libraries and others.
Hathi Trust Digital Library — A digital catalog and repository created by research libraries.
Subject |
Call Number |
Primary Location at University Park |
|---|---|---|
Environmental Sciences |
GE |
Earth and Mineral Sciences Library 2nd Floor Paterno Library |
Human Ecology |
GF |
3rd Floor Paterno Library |
Green Politics |
JA75.8 |
2nd Floor Paterno Library |
Environmental Law – U.S. |
KF3775 |
3rd Floor Paterno Library |
Environmental Health |
RA565-600 |
4th Floor Paterno Library |
Conservation of Natural Resources |
S900-972 |
4th Floor Paterno Library |
Environmental Engineering Environmental Technology |
TA170-171 TD |
Engineering Library, 325 Hammond 3rd Floor Paterno Library |
The U.S. Government issues thousands of reports on legal, social, and political issues. Most are in the Social Sciences Library, 2nd Floor, Paterno. Some government documents appear in The CAT, others require specialized access tools.
LexisNexis Congressional contains the debates on the floor of Congress, laws, hearings, and reports on legislation. The CRS (Congressional Research Service) Reports provide helpful overviews of public policy issues.
CQ Electronic Library — high-quality background information and summaries of legislative action.
U.S. Executive Branch Documents (Environmental Protection Agency, Dept. of Energy etc.) are often listed in The CAT. Search by topic, or agency. Search the President as AUTHOR in The CAT to find other documents. Presidential Speeches and Documents are available from the American Presidency Project
U.S. Court Decisions and Laws are online via , Lexis Nexis Academic.
Statistics the Government collects large quanitities of data. To locate data by subject use our Statistics Guide
Increasing amounts of government information are on the Internet. See GPO Access Resources by Topic: The Environment for a list of resources on the web.
For International topics try the United Nations Environment Program and see the organizations listed on our Sustainability Research Guide and the Foreign Government Information Guide
For more see our News Research Guide
For news articles before 1980 see the Historical News Guide
LionSearch – use LionSearch to cross-search many of the Libraries' databases at one time. Use the facet searching on the left side of the screen to limit to specific publication types!
CQ Weekly–think of this as the Time or Newsweek of Congress and the best place to track what is going on in Congress
LexisNexis Academic–a good general news source with some newspapers back to the late 1970s.
AccessWorld News–another good general news source, mostly after the 1990s.
Television News Archives - selected footage from news programs back to 1969.
Ethnic Newswatch - recent articles - since the mid 1980s - in ethnic news sources. Includes full-text of Hispanic-American and African-American news).
Newspaper Photos (photos from the Associated Press)
Google News Archives searches many newspaper titles. In some cases the full-text is available, for others there is a fee. Ask for help locating a free copy in the library.
LionSearch — this service cross-searches the Libraries' catalog and many of the Libraries' subscription databases at the same time. It can be useful for doing broad searches in interdisciplinary areas. It is similar to searching the Web but with the added ability to refine your search using the facets on the left side of the search screen.
America: History & Life (Articles published since 1954 in history journals)
Includes links to full-text journals found in the History Cooperative E-Journals, JSTOR, Periodicals Archive Online, Project MUSE and other full-text journals.
Business Source Premier Covers business and marketing journals. Good source for the business perspective on environmental issues.
Ecology Abstracts — focuses on how organisms of all kinds — microbes, plants, and animals — interact with their environments and with other organisms. Also includes works on the impacts of environmental change
GreenFile — a database focusing on the relationship between human beings and the environment with information on topics ranging from global warming to recycling to alternate fuel sources and ... the positive and negative ways humans affect the ecology.
GreenR — an interdisciplinary resource that offers content on the development of emerging green technologies and discusses issues on the environment, sustainability and more.
Google Scholar Covers *some*, but not all scholarly journals. A convenient source, but not a replacement for searching library databases.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts Covers political groups and political aspects of the environmental movements.
