Harvard Model United Nations Research Guide

If you need background information about a subject try searching HOLLIS for the subject, such as, "human rights" and add the words encyclopedia, handbook, companion, or introduction.

Oxford Reference Online Premium

CQ Press Library

Oxford Bibliographies

At Harvard

• If you're looking for books on a topic, use the default search in HOLLIS+, which is a keyword search:
  • overfishing
    Note the facets on the right hand side of the screen.  These will allow you to refine your searches by author, language, subject, etc.
     
• Your Keyword searches can lead you to "Subjects", which enable more precise searching.
  • Overfishing
  • Sustainable fisheries
  • Fisheries--Environmental aspects

Beyond Harvard

• Use Borrow Direct for books not currently available at Harvard.  If available, you will get the book within 4 days. 
• If it’s not available through Borrow Direct, submit an Interlibrary Loan request to borrow it from a broader network of libraries.
• If you find an item in another library that you think the Harvard libraries should own, you can submit a Collections Purchase Request.

When you need to find articles on a subject, the most efficient way to search is by using journal indexes, which allow you to search hundreds of journals at once.  Some of these are narrowly focused, while others are multidisciplinary.  One way to find the right index is to browse by Subject in All Databases on the Library homepage.

General and Multidisciplinary

• HOLLIS+ enables you to search for books, articles and other sources.
• JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization with a dual mission to create and maintain a trusted archive of important scholarly journals.
• Web of Science indexes 3,300 major journals across more than 50 disciplines and allows citation searching.
• Google Scholar 
• Dissertations and Theses Full Text

There are hundreds of journal indexes and databses to which the Harvard Library subscribes.  One way to find which resources cover a particular field is to search by subject in Find E-Resources.

Government and Public Affairs Databases

Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) contains a broad range of scholarly materials published from 1991 onwards, including material from university research institutes, NGOs [non-governmental organizations], foundation-funded research projects and conference proceedings.

HeinOnline is a digital collection of legal materials including law journals, treaties and U.S. Congressional documents.

International Relations and Security Network (ISN) is a free public service that provides a wide range of high-quality and comprehensive products and resources to encourage the exchange of information among international relations and security professionals worldwide. The ISN is based at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) in Switzerland.

Policyfile provides abstracts and full text of domestic and international public policy reports and studies are published by think tanks, university research programs, organizations including the OECD, World Bank, the Rand Corporation,

LexisNexis Government Periodicals Index covers articles in approximately 170 current federal publications. It includes retrospective coverage through 1988 of over 70 additional federal publications that have major research, reference or general interest value.

Military and Government Periodicals offers current news pertaining to all branches of the military.

Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) indexes the public and social policy literature of public administration, political science, economics, finance, international relations, law, and health care.

WorldWide Political Science Abstracts indexes the journal literature in political science and its related fields, including international relations, law, and public administration and policy.

Selected Databases in Related Disciplines

America History & Life is the primary index to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present, covering over 2,000 journals published worldwide. Historical Abstracts, the companion database, covers the history of the world from 1450 to the present, excluding the United States and Canada.

Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) holds more than 545,000 records on all subjects related to East, Southeast, and South Asia from 1971 to the present (primary disciplines covered are in the humanities and social sciences).

East View Universal Databases are a set of fulltext journal databases on the subjects of politics, government and social sciences in the former Soviet republics, with chief emphasis on Russia.

Econlit is a comprehensive indexed bibliography with selected abstracts of the world's economic literature, produced by the American Economic Association.

GenderWatch is a full text database of publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas.

Handbook of Latin American Studies contains records describing books, book chapters, articles, and conference papers published in the field of Latin American studies.

Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies is an index to research, policy, and scholarly discourse on the countries and peoples of the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa.

Sociological Abstracts is a core resource for research in sociology, social planning/policy, and related disciplines.

Environment Index provides abstracts and indexing for over 1,000 titles covering environmental policy and studies.