General Reference - Guns in Society Project (Spring 2019) - Schoeplein - LibGuides at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

What you'll find on this page

This page contains online databases, statistics, and newspaper resources. 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 (and books are not required for this project).

Try these keywords when searching for information about your topic.

Assault weapons
Concealed carry laws
Federal Assault Weapon Ban
Firearm background checks
Firearm legislation
Firearms ownership -- United States
Gun control
Gun control policy
Second amendment rights
Stand Your Ground

[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.
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
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790. Includes current news, business information, company directories, federal and state laws, regulations, legal cases, and more.

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.

Statistics

2010 U.S. Census Data
Census data from the 2010 census (the most recent Census that took place). STARTING HINT: Click on "DATA" next to "ABOUT" along the top to find the actual data.
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) is a special topic archive of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. NACJD acquires, archives, processes, and provides access to electronic criminal justice data collections for research and instruction. STARTING HINT: You can search for broad topics in the upper right-hand corner (i.e. "marijuana laws") and then sort the results in different ways in the middle to help find what you want (recommended to change this to time period).
Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. They conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. They do not take policy positions.
Gallup
Gallup combines analytics and advice to help leaders and organizations identify opportunities and create meaningful change.

ProQuest Statistical Insight (Statistical Universe) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Statistical Insight not only encompasses a world of statistical information using one common interface, but it takes you directly to the data you need. Instead of relying on the limited capabilities of free-text searching, which is particularly ineffective with the tabular format of statistical data, or wading through large text documents only to find it does NOT have the statistics you need, ProQuest Statistical Insight allows you to go straight to the tables, or to easily find the right publication with the right key tables.

Finding Books Online

Library Catalog (VuFind)
Searches in our local (University of Illinois) catalog. START HERE to find books!
I-Share Catalog
I-Share includes the resources of 86 Illinois libraries belonging to CARLI. GO HERE if the U of I catalog doesn't yield what you need!

WorldCat
Searches for items in libraries across the world. Go here LAST after checking U of I and I-Share.

Guns in Society Project (Spring 2019) - Schoeplein: General Reference

What you'll find on this page

Online databases

Newspaper & Current Events

Statistics

Finding Books Online