Welcome to the Harvard Library

This guide provides links to resources and services relevant to SSCI E-100B, taught by Dr. Sergio Imparato.  If you have library or research related questions, I would be happy to hear from you.

Kathleen Sheehan
Research Librarian and Liaison to
the Departments of Government,
Psychology & Sociology
ksheehan@fas.harvard.edu

Resources for Background, Literature Reviews & Methods

  • Oxford Bibliographies Online is a series of selective online guides to the essential literature in subjects in the humanities and social sciences. You might also want to explore. After a search across all volumes of the series, you can select to view only those results in relevant disciplines such as, political science or international relations.
  • Annual Reviews offers comprehensive collections of critical reviews written by leading scholars. You can also search across disciplines in this resource and then narrow to relevant disciplines law and social sciences or political science.
  • Web of Science (Citation Indexes) is a multidisciplinary database indexing major journals in the Sciences, Social Sciences and the Humanities. It enables you to limit your search results to literature reviews from a variety of journals.
  • Sage Research Methods is a research methods tool providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. It contains a methods library with more than 1000 books, journal articles, and instructional videos by academics from across the social sciences. 

Finding Scholarly Sources

Multidisciplinary

  • Web of Science (Citation Indexes) is a multidisciplinary database indexing major journals in the Sciences, Social Sciences and the Humanities. It also shows how many times a particular work has been cited since its publication.
  • Google Scholar enables you to search for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, and abstracts from all broad areas of research, Google Scholar also shows how many times a work has been cited since its publication. Remember to set your Google Scholar preferences to display content available through the Harvard Library. Once you make this change you will see Find it @ Harvard links next to available content.
    • Select the options menu in the upper left corner of screen.
    • Go to settings.
    • Select Library Links.
    • Search for Harvard.
    • Check the box next to Harvard University - Find it @ Harvard.
    • Choose Save.


Government & History

  • Proquest Social Sciences Premium is a scholarly database including coverage of politics, sociology, anthropology, and education.
  • America: History & Life covers over 2,000 journals publishing the scholarly literature on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. 
  • Historical Abstracts covers over 1800 journals publishing the history of the world from 1450 to the present, excluding the U.S. and Canada.
  • HeinOnline is a digital collection of legal materials inlcuding law journals and congressional and other government materials.

Policy Resources

  • ProQuest Congressional is a major source of information about the members of Congress and their legislative activities and a primary resource for accessing the many publications of Congress.
  • Think Tank Search searches the websites of institutions that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity. These sites are affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and businesses.

Finding Books

At Harvard and Beyond

When you are looking for books and articles on a topic, use the default search in HOLLIS, which is a keyword search. Once you have done a search, note the limits on the right side of the page. Selecting a limit enables you to narrow your search by language, source type, subject, etc.

If you are not close to Harvard, you can use WorldCat to find books and other items in libraries near you. You can link to WorldCat from items in HOLLIS by following these steps once you have found an item of interest.

  • When looking at a record for a book, scroll down below the Details section in HOLLIS.
  • Select the "View in WorldCat" link..
  • Once in WorldCat, you should see the record for the item.
  • Choose the "Find a copy in the Library" link on the right side of the screen.
  • Enter your zip code to find the item in libraries near you.

Helpful Services & Tools

  • Ask a Librarian - Send us your question virtually.
  • Check Harvard Library Bookmark - install it and use it to get to online material to which Harvard subscribes.
  • Scan & Deliver is a free, electronic document delivery service that enables Harvard students, faculty and staff to request pdf's of journal articles or book chapters from the Library's collections. Requests are placed through the HOLLIS. You will receive an email with a link to the pdf within four days.
  • Zotero: Getting Started - A tool for saving, organizing and formatting your research sources.
  • Research Management & Citation Tools Research Guide - Information about various citation tools supported by the Harvard Library.
  • Harvard Library Research Guides,  created and maintained by librarians throughout the Harvard Library, provide assistance with finding library materials, searching electronic and print collections, citing sources and more.