Political Science 330 Public Policy Analysis: Books & Govt Docs

Search Research@UWW's "Books, Media, and more (UW Whitewater)" scope to find books, government documents, videos, etc. on your topic, or to find a specific title or author.

Most likely you will start with KEYWORD SEARCHES:

Put phrases in "" and use commands like AND, OR NOT in uppercase between search terms.

Some useful subject heading segments you can use in your keyword searches are

"government policy"

"law and legislation"

"legal status"

<"political aspects"

Example search: nutrition AND "government policy"

If the "Details" tab shows a link to Google Books, you may be able to click there to search for words or phrases within the text. This might give you an idea whether the book has useful information for your specific topic. For some out-of-copyright titles, the full text may be readable online.

Once you find a relevant title, examine the subject headings assigned to it (click "Details"). You can click on these to see other materials with the same subject heading.

Many government documents may have a link to their full text online (click "View Online").

If Andersen Library does not have enough material, or titles you want are checked out, you can change the scope to "Books, Media, and more (UW System)" to search all UW libraries and request materials be sent here in 2-5 weekdays. For more information, see the tab "Borrow Materials from Other Libraries" in this guide.

Cataloging records describe titles and provide information about their availability. In the first example, "Get It" indicates a print copy of a book. In the second example, "View It" indicates an online book. Click "View Online" to see it.

In both examples, clicking the "Details" tab would show additional information, such as subject headings and contents.

Federal (U.S.) documents in print format or mifrcofiche format are arranged on the shelf in a specific order:

By CLASSIFICATION NUMBERS (Superintendent of Documents, or SuDocs numbers) in the Federal (U.S.) Documents

• In general, they start with letter(s) from the agency name, e.g., A = Agriculture Dept. and ED = Education Dept.Classification letters for the U.S. Congress = X and Y. (In other words they group documents by issuing agencies.)
• SUBagencies usually start with the same letter(s) as their parent agency/department and then a number assigned to that particular subagency within the department, e.g., Internal Revenue Service = T 22 (T for Treasury Dept., 22 for IRS), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms = T 70.
• Annual/biennial reports are usually at or near the beginning of the classification number for an agency, e.g., the annual reports of the Dept. of Agriculture are at A 1.1:
• ALL NUMBERS ARE WHOLE NUMBERS.  There are no decimal points!  In other words, A 1.10:993  files AFTER  A 1.2:E 67.
• GENERALLY, LETTERS PRECEDE NUMBERS (everything else being equal), e.g., Y 4.J 89/1:A 67 will precede Y 4.J 89/1:101-563.

Some documents are in paper format, others are in microfiche format.  The catalog doesn’t always get it right!  The reference librarians can tell you for sure.  Having trouble finding a number?  Get help at the Reference Desk!