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- Military, naval, aerospace, and veterans studies
- Related disciplines, policy research, US government information
Military, naval, aerospace, and veterans studies: Related disciplines, policy research, US government information
What's on this page?
Many disciplines can approach the same question or problem, bringing their own orientations, approaches, and jargon. This page provides shortcuts to a selection of the major resources to access their literatures, with special attention to sources offering primary sources and analyses of international and domestic policies. It also points to library tools for learning languages.
Think tanks, policy papers, "gray literature"
Professors and other people with advanced academic degrees present their expertise in other settings beside peer-reviewed journals and scholarly books. They may produce reports and analyses for governments, non-profit organizations, corporations, and all sorts of research institutes; they also distribute research for comment at academic conferences. While these sources are often created with academic rigor, they commonly do not go through full peer review before publication. Nonetheless, especially regarding recent events and hot topics in politics and policy, such "gray literature" can be important bridges between journalism and traditional academic publications.
- Policy CommonsPolicy Commons is a global portal to "gray literature" -- research publications such as reports, briefs, analyses, working papers, and datasets done to academic standards but not peer-reviewed -- produced by university research centers, "think tanks," consultancies, governments from national to local, inter- and non-governmental agencies, interest groups, and more. Often problem-centered and solution-oriented, these publications can fill the gap between journalism and traditional scholarly publications.
- OvertonOverton tracks documents from white papers, policy briefs, and hearing transcripts to national clinical guidelines from government agencies, think tanks and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have cited scholarly articles and other policies from all over the world. The documents may be a website, PDF or other document.
- Think Tank Search (Harvard)Think Tank Search is a custom Google search of over 670 institutions that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity. These sites are affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, and non-governmental organizations that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity. Inclusion is based upon the relevancy of subject area to research and teaching at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the availability of the think tank’s research in full-text on the website, and the think tank’s reputation and influence upon policy making. The list represents a mixture of partisan and non-partisan think tanks. Site includes browseable directory of the think tanks, US and non-US as well as guidance on evaluating think tank research.
- American Policy DirectoryInterest- and advocacy groups often issue reports and and position papers on public policies. This list of links to such groups is organized by broad theme, then by names of organizations addressing that domain. From the University of Oregon Libraries.
- Social Systems Evidence SSE is a "comprehensive, continuously updated repository of syntheses of research evidence about the programs, services and products available in a broad range of government sectors and program areas... as well as the governance, financial and delivery arrangements within which these programs, services and products are provided, and the implementation strategies that can help to ensure that these programs, services and products get to those who need them. " Joint initiative of McMaster University in Canada and the Monash University in Australia.
- IssueLab Free access to thousands of case studies, evaluations, white papers, issue briefs, and other kinds of "gray literature" research into social problems, primarily in the US. Provided by Candid, a service of the Foundation Center, to "gather, index, and share the collective intelligence of the social sector," IssueLab emphasizes research funded by philanthropic institutions.
- Find Policy Organized into broad topical areas, Find Policy is a specialized search engine specifically for outputs of selected, leading policy research organizations that work in each area. More Search option allows searching regarding particular countries and global regions.
- Security Studies from JSTOR Security Studies is a topical collection that “looks at security studies through a broad lens, encompassing research on international security and peace and conflict studies from all corners of the globe “ It includes content drawn from journals and ebooks already in JSTOR and adds research reports and periodicals added specifically for this collection. Browseable by topic and searchable (including image searching). Bookmark this link. JSTOR's topical collections like this can be difficult to find in the regular JSTOR interface. For more about this collection, including basic JSTOR tips and tricks, see JSTOR’s Security Studies libguide.
- Homeland Security Digital Library HSDL is a collection of documents related to homeland security policy, strategy, and disaster management from a wide variety of sources. These include documents from federal, state, tribal, and local government agencies, professional organizations, think tanks, academic institutions, and international governing bodies. 1941-present. HSDL is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA and the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Create an individual account with your VT email address if you wish to access additional HSDL researcher content. See also Essays in HSDL's On the Homefront blog and Greta's Gouge weekly current-awareness posting of papers and articles pertaining to conflict, national security, and defense; arranged by source. Compiled by Greta Marlatt, HSDL content manager at US Naval Postgraduate School.
- Open Think Tank Directory A global collection of more than 3,000 think tanks and related organizations. Menus help you focus by region, country, and/or topic; also searchable.
Social sciences and history
- Historical Abstracts from EBSCOhost Indexes citations, abstracts, and some full text from journals, books, and dissertations that cover the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from c. 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. Full text available as HTML and PDF. The database allows limiting searches to works about specific periods (not just publication dates). For US and Canadian history and prehistory, use America: History & Life. See also History of Science, Technology & Medicine.
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts from ProQuest Worldwide Political Science Abstracts indexes citations and abstracts from journal articles, books, essays, book reviews, working papers, technical reports, theses, and dissertations in the social sciences related to politics. You can limit to peer-reviewed sources. 1975-present.
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- SocINDEX with Full Text from EBSCOhost SocINDEX indexes abstracts and full text of journal articles, books, conference papers, case studies, and surveys on all aspects of sociology. Author profiles are provided. You can do cited reference searches and limit to scholarly sources. 1895-present.
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- ProQuest One Business Expanding on the former ABI/Inform, ProQuest One Business is an important source for scholarship and the trade press about management of public and nonprofit organizations, organization theory, organization behavior, and other areas where social science intersects business. ProQuest One Business indexes citations, abstracts, and full text news articles, market, industry reports, country reports, downloadable data sets, dissertations, business cases, working papers, annual reports from North American companies, and company profiles and histories. You can limit searches to peer-reviewed journals. Full text provided in HTML and PDF. 1971-present
- EconLit with Full Text from EBSCOhost EconLit indexes citations, abstracts, and full text of journal articles, books, dissertations, and working papers on all aspects of economics. You can do cited reference searches and limit to scholarly sources. 1886-present.
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- Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection from EBSCOhost The Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection database indexes citations, abstracts, and full text from journal articles, magazines, and book reviews in the field of psychiatry and psychology, anthropology, emotional and behavioral characteristics. Full-text articles are available in HTML and PDF. You can limit to peer-reviewed sources. 1930-present.
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Engineering
- Engineering VillageEngineering Village is the search interface to three engineering databases: Compendex, Inspec, and Knovel. Compendex (1884-present) indexes citations and abstracts from over 5,000 engineering journals, conference papers, books, patents, dissertations, and technical reports. Inspec (1898-present) indexes citations and abstracts from journal articles, conference proceedings, books, and dissertations in engineering and physical sciences. Knovel provides ebooks on engineering and related subjects.
- Defense Technical Information Center DTIC is the US Defense Department's central resource for locating government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information. Provides timely access to over 2 million publications, grant awards, and conference proceedings, covering over 250 subject areas. All visitors can search DTIC's publicly accessible collections and read or download scientific and technical information, using DTIC Online service. Incorporates Research and Development Descriptive Summaries (RDDS). Full text, when available, is PDF.
Language learning systems
- Rosetta StoneRosetta Stone offers online instruction in 25 languages, including English as a second language. "My reports" function allows you to track your progress. Mobile app versions are available.
If you want to learn on the go or don't want to depend on internet access, the Virginia Tech Libraries have a large collection of language learning compact disks on the 5th floor of Newman Library that you can check out. These links will show you their call numbers and check-out status.
- Arabic (Egyptian), Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Vietnamese.
- English for Arabic speakers, English for Cantonese speakers, English for Mandarin speakers, English for Spanish speakers.
Many public libraries offer entry-level online language-learning tools like Mango Languages, Rocket Languages, and/or Babbel (among others) to residents with appropriate library cards. (Virginia Tech students qualify for cards at the Blacksburg library and other branches of the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library District [MFRL] no matter where their homes are.)
- MFRL: under eLibrary: learning
- Alexandria: under Books & More: Digital Collection: Online learning
- Arlington: under eCollection: Learning Tools
- DC: under Research: Research Guides: Libguides: Language learning
- Find Maryland public libraries
- Find Virginia public libraries
Check with your local and/or hometown public library about resources it makes available to its members.
US federal government information sources
By law, the US Government Publishing Office is the "official, digital, and secure source for producing, protecting, preserving, and distributing the official publications and information products of the federal government," making it the world's largest publisher.
Most GPO publications have been published online since the late 1990s and are listed in our library's Discovery Search (Primo) catalog. For most of a century, Virginia Tech automatically received most GPO output in print "docs," identified by GPO's unique "SuDoc" call number system ... but didn't catalog most of them.
The SuDoc number is crucial for getting your hands on physical government publications in the library (Newman Library 5th floor), from library storage, or via ILLiad. Most of our printed federal publications are arranged by SuDoc number on the 5th floor of Newman Library. Don't be reluctant to ask a librarian for help.
Extensive digitization of older documents has been done by government agencies, by commercial database vendors (Voxgov, HeinOnline, ProQuest, Readex), and by nonprofits (LLMC-Digital, HathiTrust, Internet Archive). Many of those digitized documents remain invisible to Discovery Search but can be located and read on those prodivers platforms. (See the library's Databases A-Z directory.
Records in the GPO catalog and Voxgov databases should provide SuDoc class numbers back to the 1970s-80s. For earlier SuDoc numbers, GovInfo.gov provides PDF indexes of US government documents, notably the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, 1895-2004. Those PDFs are cumbersome to work with; you might might find it faster to use the print indexes shelved near the Docs stacks (start at call no Z1223 .A183) to find citation and SuDoc information to request documents from VT storage or ILLiad.
- United States Government Manual, 1935 to Present
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"The United States Government Manual, the official handbook of the Federal Government, provides information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. It also includes information on quasi-official agencies; international organizations in which the United States participates; and boards, commissions, and committees." Searchable and browseable.
- VoxGovVoxGov is an interesting application of “big data” to tracking the outputs – traditional documents and also official social media -- of persons and agencies of the US government. Coverage of some official print outputs extends back to the late 1970s. The content is updated every 15 minutes. Visualizations are simple but effective. The advanced search interface gives a sense of the scope of coverage and the many dimensions for filtering and comparing the data. You can also browse by policy categories, compare members of Congress, and track outputs from the last presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional elections.
- UK Government Web Archive has a similar function to "capture, preserve, and make accessible UK central government information published on the web. The web archive includes videos, tweets, images and websites dating from 1996 to present.." From the UK National Archives.
- GovInfo.Gov: Discover US Government InformationGovinfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the US federal government. When you search the content available on Govinfo, you will be able to download the full text of publications. But you won’t see records for documents that are not stored on Govinfo -- use GPO's official Catalog of US Government Publications (CGP; formerly Monthly Catalog, MoCat) for persistent links and "SuDoc" call numbers of physical documents. GovInfo has an extensive set of how-to video tutorials.
- U.S. Government Information: Weekly Roundup (UC San Diego)This attempt to provide current awareness of federal government reports and activities" is part of a very extensive, carefully curated portal to information resources by and about the federal government. Useful complement to the fast, powerful VoxGov database.
- SAM.gov (from US General Services Administration) US government system for discovering "contract opportunities" (formerly FBO.gov); "assistance" ( formerly CFDA.gov: descriptions of federal grants/awards/loans of all sorts, not only social welfare); reports and data about grants and contracts awarded and also about "entities" seeking or receiving them; wage determinations (was WDOL.gov); and more. Portions require registration to access.
- HathiTrust The HathiTrust Digital Library contains over 17 million scanned items and over six billion pages of scanned books, government documents, and other materials from academic and research libraries. Nearly 40% of Hathi content is in the public domain and accessible to you. Read onscreen or download book scans (use the yellow Log In button and select Virginia Tech as your "partner institution.") Most of the book scans were made available by Internet Archive and Google Book, with regular library cataloging added. Content is available in several image formats, text, and PDF. Covers 1200s-present. Affiliated HathiTrust Research Center enables computational analysis of works in the HathiTrust Digital Library (HTDL) to facilitate nonprofit research and educational uses of the collection. .
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- HeinOnline U.S. Congressional Documents Library This collection features documents spanning the legislative and oversight functions of the Congress: Congressional Record (including its predecessors, Annals of Congress [1789-1824], Register of Debates [1824-1837] Congressional Globe [1833-1873]), Congressional Budget Office, selected CRS Reports [Congressional Research Service],Congressional Hearings, Committee Prints, Rules & Precedents, and additional primary sources, bibliographies, and manuals. Many Hein topical collections include these document types. The HeinOnline Portal offers a large and wide-ranging collection of historical and contemporary legal materials, including codes, treaties, constitutions, topical collections of historical documents, law reviews, and legal treatises from the US, Canada, and the UK.
- Congress.gov The official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. Replaced the THOMAS congressional portal, which was shut down in summer 2016. Congressional documents from the first 100 years of the U.S. Congress (1774-1875) can be accessed through A Century of Lawmaking.
- Congressional Serial Set (from ProQuest) Don’t be misled by the title: as the official historical record of the U.S. government, these resources are essential for any historical, political, or cultural research of the United States. The US Congressional Serial Set(incorporating American State Papers,1789-1838, and maps,1789-1969) includes documents on virtually every topic the US Congress has taken an interest in – which can be just about anything anywhere in the world -- since 1789 both for law-making and for oversight of executive-branch agencies: congressional reports on public and private legislation considered during each Congress (example); reports of investigations commissioned or conducted by Congress or its parts (example); reports from federal executive agencies (including land surveys, research and statistical publications, and reports of scientific investigations and explorations) submitted to Congress (example); budgets of the United States (since 1923) (example); treaties presented to the Senate (since 1979) (example); and reports and other documents of select nongovernmental organizations (example), from the Red Cross to the Smithsonian and the American Legion to the American Historical Association. Comprising only documents Congress has declared to be particularly important, the Serial Set does not (usually) include text of bills and resolutions, hearings, nor committee prints. See ProQuest's Serial Set guide. Alternative access to the Serials Set: HeinOnline. Our existing Hein databases have always contained substantial portions of the Serial Set, including the American State Papers, comprehensive coverage of Foreign Relations of the United States, and thousands of House and Senate reports and documents inside compiled federal legislative histories.
- How to Make a FOIA Request (from National Security Archive) Landing page includes links to "The National Security Archive User's Guide to the FOIA," tips and tricks, and sample letters for requesting documents from US federal agencies.
Surveys of US Military/Defense Information Sources
- Surveys of Military/Defense Information Sources (Webinars)Archived webcasts (with separately downloadable slide decks) provide overviews for exploring often-overlooked US government information sources regarding military, defense, and geopolitical topics, including resources for graduate-level professional military education provided by the services' accredited universities. Presenter is Albert Chapman (Purdue University Library). Offered as part of the US Government Publishing Office's "FDLP Academy" training sessions for librarians (but not geeky).
- Major Reports of the U.S. Department of Defense "This webinar highlights annual reports as valuable, but often-overlooked, resources - treasure troves of historical information. Viewers will learn about the depth and variety of content found in annual reports, such as new processes, projects, research, and partnerships, day-to-day operations and functions, and employee information. Viewers will learn more about finding these reports, determining if they were issued, and how information in them can lead to discovery of other significant and relevant information."
- Air University Information Resources: Aerospace Power, Military History, Geopolitics, and Professional Military Education. "Air University is the U.S. Air Force’s professional military educational institution, located at Maxwell Air Force Base near Montgomery, AL. Its programs educate airmen on air and space power and their national security capabilities. These programs also address professional continuing education requirements such as managerial, scientific, and technological disciplines that meet the Air Force’s needs. This webinar demonstrates how to access curricular materials, professional journals such as Air & Space Power Journal and Strategic Studies Quarterly, student research papers, and publications from Air University Press, Air Force military doctrine resources, faculty background and credentials, and historical resources from the Air Force Historical Research Agency."
- U.S. Army War College Information Resources: Landpower, Geopolitics, Army History, and Educational Treasures. "This webinar introduces students to the rich variety of information resources provided by the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA. Examples of these resources from the Army’s premier professional military education institution include materials such as course syllabi, podcasts, and detailed studies on the role of land power and strategy in the U.S. and foreign militaries. It also covers historical materials produced by the War College’s Army Heritage and Education Command that can enhance understanding of the U.S. Army’s role in U.S. and international history."
- Marine Corps University Information Resources: Understanding this Professional Military Education Institution’s Research and Instructional Activities. "This webinar will give participants an enhanced understanding of how Marine Corps University educates professional leaders to promote warfighting excellence by studying Marine Corps history and advancing the Corps’ ability to meet current and emerging security challenges. Particular attention will be given to the rich variety of publicly-accessible information resources provided by this institution’s website."
- U.S. Naval War College Information Resources: Maritime, Naval History, Geopolitical, and Educational Treasures. "Viewers will learn about the rich variety of historical and contemporary naval and maritime information resources provided by the Naval War College. Learn about this institution’s critical role as a professional military and educational institution, whose students will assume leadership roles in the U.S. Navy, other branches of the U.S. Government, and in the militaries of U.S. allied countries. Viewers will be able to show their users how these resources facilitate analysis and discussion of international law, maritime issues, emerging international security developments with the U.S. and China, and other countries dependent upon international seas and waters for economic vitality and national defense."
- Naval Postgraduate School: Historical and Contemporary Information Resources. "[G]gain enhanced awareness of the information resources produced by this Monterey-California based institution aspiring to produce talented warriors and researchers to ensure the Navy, U.S. Government, Defense Department, and allied countries have the technological and intellectual edges to succeed in multidomain battle environments. The presentation will cover academics, services, libraries, and research components of this institution.
- Defense Department Statistical Resources. "Gain enhanced knowledge about Defense Department statistical resources including the Defense Manpower Data Center, the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), DOD’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, and Defense Security Cooperation Agency."