PP 187

From UCLA Library Public Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Selected Information Sources for PP 187 (Public Policy Research Seminar, Spring 2009)

Contents

Getting Acquainted

Email me your responses to the following questions:

  1. What article database(s) have you used for your research papers?
  2. Have you ever met with a librarian: during a class session | at a reference desk | chat reference | research consultation (circle all that apply)
  3. What is your policy topic for this class?
  4. What do you want to learn about doing research for public policy? (e.g. How a bill becomes a law? How to find demographic data? How to search article databases and google more effectively?)

Basics

  • You can edit this wiki page.
  • Off-Campus Access Do you like to work from home or your favorite cafe? Then make sure you have set up the BOL Proxy or VPN so that you can access the resources noted as (Restricted to UC/UCLA). All the information you need is on the BOL Website.
  • Click on the Image:Uc-elinks_mini1.gif button within the UCLA Library catalog, Next-Generation Melvyl, or article databases to locate full-text articles or request interlibrary loans. (Look at this guide for more information about using UC e-links.) You may also use Citation Linker.
  • Find more Public Policy related resources from the Library Guide.
  • Visit the Young Research Library (YRL) website for links to reference sources, subject guides, article database, government information, etc.

Resources for Policy Analysis

  • Jansson, Bruce. (2008) and (2003). Becoming an effective policy advocate : from policy practice to social justice. Belmont, CA : Brooks/Cole. YRL HV40 .J36 2008 and YRL HV40 .J36 2003.
  • Peters, B. Guy and Jon Pierre. (2007). Handbook of public administration. London : SAGE. YRL JF1351 .H274 2007
  • Rabin, Jack, W. Bartley Hildreth, and Gerald J. Miller. (2007). Handbook of public administration. Boca Raton : CRC/Taylor & Francis. YRL JF1351 .H275 2007


Elected Officials and Policy Background Information

Federal

  • National Journal Group's Policy Central: Comprehensive, full text politics and policy resources; includes full text of National Journal, CongressDaily, The Hotline, Technology Daily, Almanac of American Politics, and other congressional resources. (Licensed Resource)
  • OpenCongress.org: OpenCongress brings together official government data with news and blog coverage to give you the real story behind each bill. Sign up for a free account to track bills and congressional representatives. (Freely Available)
  • CQ Electronic Library: A major reference resource for research in American government, politics, history, public policy, and current affairs. (Licensed Resource)
  • Government Accountability Office GAO is known as "the investigative arm of Congress" and "the congressional watchdog." GAO's work includes oversight of federal programs; insight into ways to make government more efficient, effective, ethical and equitable; and foresight of long-term trends and challenges. GAO's reports, testimonies, legal decisions and opinions make a difference for Congress and the Nation.

California

  • California Political Almanac Compiled by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, this guide features colorful, candid profiles of every elected state and national official, including U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, and Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman. Filled with easy-to-understand maps, tables, and figures, California Political Almanac 2007-2008 educates and informs researchers and curious citizens with information on current and past office holders, local and national district lines, the state budget, and much more. Expert coverage and engaging narratives explain all of California's political hot topics and issues. Available online for 2005-06 - current; Print Availability back to 1975.
  • California Roster Also known as the Roster of Public Officials, is a listing of California’s public officeholders, including our United States government officials, the Constitutional officers, members of the State Senate and Assembly, the Judicial branch, county officials, and Incorporated city and town officials. It also includes a history of California’s office holders, descriptions of the state emblems, a listing of all state agencies, departments, boards and commissions, a listing of the unincorporated areas, and information on the state officials for each state in the nation. Online availability: 2003-current; Print Availability: back to 1963.

Los Angeles

Legislative Information

Federal

  • LexisNexis Congressional: Provides voting/political records for federal officials (past or present). Index to U.S. Congressional publications including committee hearings (published and unpublished), committee prints, Senate executive documents and reports, and items in the U.S. Serial Set. You must know the name of the public law (PL) or house resolution (HR) number, and the Congressional session it went through. You can search by keyword, though you often still have to know the above information to find what you are looking for. If the candidate is a governor, he/she may not have a voting record. (Licensed Resource)
  • Thomas Legislative Information on the Internet:This site, sponsored by the Library of Congress, provides access to a wealth of congressional information on Bills under consideration, Public Laws, Committee Reports, the Congressional Record, and the Senators and Representatives themselves that is well organized making the site easy to navigate. The site also provides links to other government web sites, including the GPO Access, a site that could be used, hand-in-hand, with this one for a larger picture of government publications available to the public. (Freely Available)

California

Los Angeles

  • Council File Index: A tracking system of all legislation considered and/or acted upon by the Los Angeles City Council, from 1979 to Current.


Budgets, Fiscal Analysis

  • Budget Practices and State Expenditures: Lessons for California Report from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) that reviews budgeting practices in all 50 states and focuses in particular on high population states that have adopted one or more of 6 progressive budget practices. It then analyzes whether they work in practice what they preach.

News Sources

Online News Sources

  • Alt-Press Watch: Alt-PressWatch is a full text database comprising the newspapers, magazines and journals of the alternative and independent press. It is a source of coverage, viewpoints and perspectives that complement and challenge the coverage of the mainstream media. The magazines and journals of the alternative and independent press provide in-depth coverage of a broad range of critical issues including ecology and the environment, grassroots organizing, labor, indigenous peoples, public policy, genetics, etc. (Licensed Resource)
  • Ethnic NewsWatch: Contains the complete text of articles since 1990 from 200 publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press, along with archival material dating back to the mid 1980s. Covers news, culture, and history, and is searchable in both English and Spanish. (Licensed Resource)
  • Factiva: Provides worldwide full text coverage of local and regional newspapers, trade publications, business newswires, press release wires, media transcripts, news photos, business-rich Web sites, investment analyst reports, market research reports, country and regional profiles, company profiles, historical market data. (Licensed Resource)
  • LexisNexis Academic: Full-text news, business, legal, medical, and reference information. Also useful for finding full-text of current performing arts and media industry news in major newspapers. Includes some Who's Who titles for Europe and Russia. (Licensed Resource)
  • NewsBank: Access World News from NewsBank provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. sources (including over 130 from California) and over 700 international sources, each with its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues. International titles may need to be searched in their language of publication. (Licensed Resource)
  • Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert: Sponsored by the Sacramento Bee, Capitol Alert provides daily legislative updates, political analysis, news clips, access to field poll, etc. You must register to access content; there is no charge to register.


Blogs

Policy Analysis

Scholarly Articles

  • Academic Search Complete: Designed specifically for academic institutions, is the world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 4,600 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 9,500 journals and a total of nearly 10,000 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc. The database features PDF content going back as far as 1865, with the majority of full text titles in native (searchable) PDF format. Searchable cited references are provided for nearly 1,000 journals. (Licensed Resource)
  • Google Scholar Use the advanced search screen to help you build your search.
  • PAIS International: Provides international coverage to articles, books, conference proceedings, and government documents on social and political policy, political science, public administration, current affairs, and related topics, from 1972 to the present. (Licensed Resource)
  • Sociological Abstracts: The Sociological Abstracts database contains citations for articles from over 2,600 journals, books, conference papers, and dissertations in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Journal articles after 1974 contain abstracts. Also includes Social Planning/Policy and Development Abstracts (SOPODA) as a sub-file, providing additional literature on policy issues topics ranging from violence to aging to disaster preparedness. Coverage: 1963-present. (Licensed Resource)
  • Worldwide Political Science Abstracts To locate policy related studies, search policy as keyword will cover many relevant descriptors such as Policy Analysis, Policy Implementation, Policy Making, Policy Research, Policy Science, Government Policy. If you get too many records, try a combination of specific policy related descriptors (click on "Search Tools" (purple tab), and then click on the Theasurus tab.) (Licensed Resource)
  • Select Article databases by Subject You can select from a wide variety of subject-based article databases depending on your policy area. For example, if you are working with environmental policy, in addition to the policy databases, go to: Article Databases by Subject > Life Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology > Select a database that covers your topic. Here are a few key subject specific databases:
  • Social Services Abstracts: Index (with abstracts) to journals in social work, social welfare, human services, and social policy from 1980 to the present.

Agencies & Organizations

Use search engines like Google or Google U.S. Government to locate web pages for non-profit or non-governmental organizations that are focused on your policy area.

Use USA.gov to locate government agencies and other related materials, primarily national.

Federal

  • Congressional Budget Office CBO conducts fiscal and budgetary impact research on current legislation, programs, the budget process etc. The publications page enables you to browse by topic, e.g. Health, Taxes, Social Security.
  • Government Accountability Office GAO, sometimes referred to as the "congressional watchdog", produces reports and testimonies on all areas of the government and their programs. GAO 'supports the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and helps improve the performance and ensure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit of the American people." These materials are excellent sources for historical policy information, fiscal analyses of policies, program evaluations and suggestion for change.

California

  • State Agencies Directory: A to Z listing of all California state agencies, bureaus, and commissions.
  • Bureau of State Audits: BSA serves as the citizen's watchdog to ensure the effective and efficient administration and management of public funds and programs. As the State's independent external auditor, we provide independent, nonpartisan, accurate, and timely assessments of California government's financial and operational activities in compliance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
  • California Research Bureau Reports: provides nonpartisan research services to the Governor and his staff, to both houses of the legislature, and to other state elected officials.
  • Legislative Analyst's Office: provides fiscal and policy advice to the Legislature. LAO is known for its fiscal and programmatic expertise and nonpartisan analyses of the state budget. The office serves as the "eyes and ears" for the Legislature to ensure that the executive branch is implementing legislative policy in a cost efficient and effective manner.
  • Little Hoover Commission: An independent state oversight agency that was created in 1962. The Commission's mission is to investigate state government operations and -- through reports, recommendations and legislative proposals -- promote efficiency, economy and improved service.
  • Public Policy Institute of California: A private nonprofit organization dedicated to informing and improving public policy in California through independent, objective, nonpartisan research.
  • [Rand California]
  • California Institute of Public Affairs

County and Municipal

  • California State Association of Counties CSAC provides a broad range of services to all 58 counties in California through its Finance Corporation activities, public policy development, training, insurance service programs, research and a variety of communication tools, including Internet services. Access to a variety of publications and research for policy areas related to counties.

Statistics and Data

  • United States Statistical Abstracts The authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Statistics are usually available at the national and state level.
  • California Statistical Abstract A compilation of data on social, economic, and physical aspects of the State. Geographies are for the state and counties.
  • SCAG Information Sources Southern California Association of Governments provides statistics for the region, numeric and mapped, including aviation, economic, transportation, housing, planning, etc.
  • Neighborhood Knowledge California: NKCA serves as statewide, interactive website that assembles and maps a variety of databases that can be used in neighborhood research, including Census Demographic and Socioeconomic Data, County Assessor's Data, etc. Its aim is to promote greater equity in housing and banking policy by providing a set of web-based tools for documenting and analyzing trends. In addition, it functions as a geographic repository for users to map their own communities by uploading their own datasets.
  • California Health Interview Survey CHIS is an important source of information on health and access to health care services. CHIS is a telephone survey of adults, adolescents, and children from all parts of the state. The survey is conducted every two years. From the CHIS website you have access to the data which covers a wide variety of variables including, health conditions, mental health, health behaviors, women's health, dental health, food insecurity/hunger, access to health care, child care, etc.
  • Governing Sourcebook A resource for statistics on variety of topics, transportation, finance, social services, etc., by state, metropolitan areas, and transit agencies.

Sources related to specific policies

This section will be filled in once you have chosen your policy topic for the class.


Further Assistance

Retrieved from "http://wiki.library.ucla.edu/PP_187"
Personal tools