Guides: TAKING OFF: How (some) Economies Get Rich: Databases & Article Indexes

Subject Databases

For more in-depth searching, Penn Libraries provides access to variety of subject-specific databases. While any of these can prove useful, WPSA, PAIS, and IBSS (see General Databases) together provide the most extensive coverage of the international relations literature.

WPSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
67% of the more than 1500 monitored journals are published outside the United States, and there are nearly 500,000 records beginning in 1975. Some of the records have fulltext links and coverage includes all aspects of political science, as well as international relations and comparative politics.

PAIS Index
Bibliographic citations (1915-) with indexing on contemporary public affairs and policy issues worldwide related to a wide range of topics: agriculture, banking, finance, business, demographics, education, health, environment, planning, public administration, law and legislation, and international relations. Materials indexed include journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, microfiche, and Internet material. Newspapers and newsletters are not indexed.
EconLit
Covers accounting, consumer economics, monetary policy, labor, demographics, modeling, economic theory, and planning. Primarily English language, some foreign language publications included.
Historical Abstracts
Historical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada).

Harvard Kennedy School Library: Think Tank Search
"Think Tank Search is a custom Google search of over 670 think tank websites. For the purposes of this search, think tanks are defined as institutions affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and businesses that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity."
All Penn Library Databases by Subject

General databases

Articles+
IBSS International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
Though its coverage is wider than databases such as WPSA and PAIS, IBSS is as useful as those in researching international relations topics. It provides bibliographic citations and subject indexing for the international journal article and book literature in anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology.

Google Scholar
Access to Google Scholar with Penn-only links to full-text articles. Once authenticated through Penn's proxy, full-text articles to which Penn Libraries subscribe will become available within the Google Scholar search results.

JSTOR

EBSCO MegaFILE
General, multidisciplinary periodical database, covering all scholarly disciplines, with many general and popular magazines, and news sources. Includes bibliographic citations with indexing and abstracts for more than 16,000 periodicals.
Web of Science
Indexes journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Allows for cited reference searching. Includes Science Citation Index, the Social Science Citation Index, and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Search for specific articles by subject, author, journal, and/or author address, as well as for articles that cite a known author or work.

Which database should you use?

Education Librarian Patty Lynn provides an excellent comparison of various databases.

Which database should you use?

Find a known article in the library's electronic & print collections

PennText Article Finder

If an article is not available at/through Penn Libraries

Use the Request Article icon on the left side of the page.

InterLibrary Loan
Use the Request Article link on the left side.