Subject Specialist:
Law, Political Science, International Affairs
814-863-1347
e-mail: hms2@psu.edu
Helen Sheehy
Title: Head Social Sciences Library
Subject Specialist:
Law, Political Science, International Affairs
814-863-1347
e-mail: hms2@psu.edu
Gale Virtual Reference Library — a collection of over 1,000 encyclopedias and dictionaries covering all subject areas. Use these encyclopedias for an overview and general analysis of an issue before you dive deeper into it with journal articles. Use the bibliographies for follow-up.
You can cross-search the entire collection or search individual titles. Some titles of specific interest to this class include:
Oxford Handbooks Online — in-depth scholarly treatises that discuss the latest research in a wide range of disciplines including Business and Management. Titles of interest include the Oxford Handbooks of: Human Resource Management, Personnel Psychology, and Work and Organization. Essays are heavily footnoted and link out to full text where available.
Oxford Reference Online — includes the Dictionary of Human Resource Management, listed under Economics and Business
Use LionSearch to cross-search the CAT for books and Libraries-subscribed databases for journal articles. Lionsearch covers a wide selection, but not all, of Libraries' databases and is a good starting point for your research.
Use The CAT when you are trying to determine if the Penn State Libraries own a specific book, journal title, or video. It often faster than finding things through LionSearch which is best for broad-based subject searching
The Penn State Libraries purchase access to more than 400 databases in a wide range of subjects. A few of the key databases to explore:
Business Sources Premier — an essential article database for business research providing the full text for more than 2,000 periodicals, including about 1,000 scholarly journals. Covers virtually all disciplines in business and economics.
ABI/Inform Complete — the other major business database for the University Libraries
Sociological Abstracts — focuses broadly on sociology, including many employment issues
PsycInfo — use where psychology might play a role in employment issues (e.g., job satisfaction, social adjustment issues, discrimination issues)
JSTOR — an archive of key journal articles in a wide range of subjects
Web of Science — indexes some of the major journals in the social sciences and business disciplines including: Journal of Industrial Relations, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Personnel Review, etc. It's primary use, however, is for citation tracking.
See the complete list of Libraries-subscribed databases available to researchers with a Penn State Access Account.
Index to Legal Periodicals — the primary database for locating journal articles related to law
BNA Labor and Employment Library — the BNA Labor and Employment Library provides in-depth news and analysis of labor law along with applicable statutes and court cases. Updated weekly. Use to find EEOC and other court decisions related to labor law.
CCH Health and Human Resources Research Network — CCH Health and Human Resources Network provides federal and state research materials on topics such as labor and employment, pensions, benefits, health care compliance and reimbursement, and safety compliance. Full-text materials include statutes, regulations, agency directives and letters, judicial opinions, and forms.
LexisNexis Academic — the primary database for general case law searching.
For more resources use the Libraries' Law — A Guide to Research
Congressional (Proquest) — ProQuest Congressional provides access to the best web resources for congressional and legislative information. This includes services available only to Penn State researchers such as Congressional Publications from 1789 to date. The "Guided Tour" provides a step-by-step approach to congressional and legislative information for users who have never done research of this type before. Updates: Continuous.
Legislative Insight (Proquest) — Proquest Legislative Insight is a legislative history service offering full-text PDF versions of publications generated by the United States Congress during the legislative process from 1929 to the present. The publications include the full text of the Public Law, all versions of related bills, law-specific Congressional Record excerpts, committee hearings, reports, and prints. Also included are Presidential signing statements, CRS reports, and miscellaneous congressional publications.
A short list of key agencies related to employment issues:
Bureau of Labor Statistics — an excellent source for nationwide statistics
Bureau of Labor Statistics — the most important government agency collecting information on the labor force
Statistical Insight [ProQuest] — the very best place to find out if something has been counted. Index to statistics and data contained in federal , state, and international government publications, as well as from selected research organizations.
Statistical Datasets [ProQuest] — an online service that enables researchers to build statistical tables and charts from multiple sources in a single interface. Data includes a wide range of social and demographic data both from the U.S. and international sources.
Tracking a citation is usually done for one of two reasons: to determine the impact an article has had on research in a particular area or to find additional articles that have cited an article you find useful.
In either case there are two major tools for citation tracking: Web of Science and Google Scholar.
Web of Science — Web of Science deeply indexes the references of the journals it covers. Since these are some of the most respected journals in their field it is an excellent way to track journal citations. Use the citated journal search function.
Google Scholar — this service searches a wider range of journals than Web of Science but has a shorter backfile. Search as you normally would in Google. Underneath the brief description of the article you will see a cited by link.
