Politics and International Affairs Research: Background and Book Resources

Multi-Subject Background Resources

Political Science Background Resources 

Good searching can shorten your research time significantly. Here are my top five tips for Politics researchers:

• When researching people (or two word countries), put the name in quotes "Nelson Mandela" or "South Africa"
• When researching countries, truncate: 'Mexic*' will find items that have 'Mexico' AND ones with 'Mexican'.
• Be specific: A search for 'female suicide bombers.' is much better  than one for 'terrorist methods.'
• Use the various ways of limiting a search that appear on your results screen - most interfaces let you limit by publication date, subject, format and more. Use these to narrow your results list as much as possible.
• Finally, ZSR Librarians are very skilled in helping you find the best search for your topic - just request a meeting!

As a general rule, Js are Politics and Ks are Law so these two areas will be especially useful when doing research in Politics and International Affairs. Both of these call numbers are located on the 4th floor of the Reynolds Wing of the library. But note that not all books on politics are published in these areas. Below are some more specifics about call numbers that might be helpful.

• D, E and F are history call numbers so depending on your country choice, books in these areas may be useful
• HC Economic history and conditions
• HF Commerce
• HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social
  reform
  
• J General legislative and executive papers
• JA Political science (General)
• JC Political theory
• JF - JQ Political institutions and public administration
• JS Local government. Municipal government
• JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
• JX International law, see JZ and KZ (obsolete)
• JZ International relations
  
• KF American Law