LibGuides: Contemporary Issues in Politics, Government, and Society: Resources on Issues

What you'll find on this page

This page contains general online databases, newspaper resources and think tank research. This is a good place to build background knowledge, research your issues and learn about them in context, or learn about different politicians more broadly. Lastly, if you're interested in acquiring books, there are links to the catalog on the right. It would be wise to do this as one of your first steps as some books might take a few days to arrive.

[Reminder: Library Catalog is for local UIUC resources, I-Share is a state-wide system and is used if UIUC resources don't have what you need, and WorldCat is for when both the local catalog and I-Share don't have what you need. I-Share and WorldCat resources take a day or two more to arrive.]

Online Databases

CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Updated weekly. Explores a single "hot" issue in the news in depth each week. Topics range from social and teen issues to environment, health, education and science and technology. Every report is written by an experienced journalist and features comments from experts, lawmakers and citizens on all sides of every issue with numerous charts, graphs and sidebar articles.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Provides access to a collection of aggregated and integrated reference books from high-quality publishers.
MAS Ultra - School Edition This link opens in a new window
Designed specifically for high school libraries, this database contains full text for more than 500 popular, high school magazines. It also provides more than 360 full text reference books, 85,670 biographies, 105,786 primary source documents, and an Image Collection of over 453,000 photos, maps & flags, color PDFs and expanded full text backfiles (back to 1975) for key magazines.
Alternate Access Link
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Gale eBooks, formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library, offers a collection of premier reference and handbooks that you can view and search online, covering a variety of subject areas.
SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
SocINDEX with Full Text offers comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study. These include abortion, criminology & criminal justice, demography, ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, political sociology, religion, rural & urban sociology, social development, social psychology, social structure, social work, socio-cultural anthropology, sociological history, sociological research, sociological theory, substance abuse & other addictions, violence and many others.--About the database.
Alternate Access Link

Newspaper & Current Events

Access World News This link opens in a new window
Access World News from NewsBank provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources, each with its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues. Date coverage varies with individual newspaper

The Learning Network (from the New York Times)
New York Times website for students and teachers with student-friendly resources and student opinions. Helpful to use in searching for more complicated issues. STARTING HINT: Use this to find information on your topic that is accessible and geared toward a high school audience. If you want to search for your topic here, do NOT use the search at the top left-hand corner as that will search the whole NYTimes; scroll down to the middle of the page and use the search window next to where it says "LATEST" and select articles that say THE LEARNING NETWORK above the article title.

Think Tank Information

Please use the following link below for a curated list of think tanks from Ms. Schoeplein.

Think Tank Resource List

Finding Books Online

Library Catalog (Primo)
Searches in our local (University of Illinois) catalog.
I-Share Catalog
I-Share includes the resources of 86 Illinois libraries belonging to CARLI.

WorldCat
Searches for items in libraries across the world.