It’s one month to go until the Scottish Referendum and as Scotland is gearing up to decide its future and politics dominates the news we thought we’d give you a taster of political science resources available to students and staff here at University of Edinburgh Library.
1. Why not have a look at the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers for documents relating to the previous Scottish devolution referendums? The 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers contains bibliographic records and searchable full text for papers printed between 1688-2004. It also includes Hansard 1803-2005. The collection does not include the House of Commons Journal, or daily business papers, such as Order papers and Votes and Proceedings, nor does it include Acts. You can access this and other relevant databases at databases for Politics.
2. The Library has a large collection of books on various aspects of political science. Have a look on the 2nd floor of the Main Library for books with shelfmarks that begins with J. J is for Political Science (we never said Library of Congress shelfmarks would stand up to scrutiny by Sesame Street!) but this includes JC (political theory), JS (local government), JX (international law), JZ (international relations), etc. Use the Library Catalogue to find more books and remember that some books may be held in the HUB Collections on the ground floor, under the same shelfmarks.
3. Find e-journals like Nations and Nationalism by searching the Library Catalogue or e-journals list.
4. You can use some of the newspaper databases the Library subscribes to, such as Lexis Library, Nexis UK and Factiva to search for news stories, editorials, commentaries, expert or popular opinions. Access these and other resources from newspaper databases. Or why not take a look at Box of Broadcasts (BoB) where you can view or listen to previously recorded TV or radio programmes from over 60 stations, you can also record programmes yourself, create clips and create playlists.
5. You’ll find e-books on political science on the Library Catalogue or Searcher – like this one The future of European social democracy : Building the good society.
Need more? Have a look at the Subject Guide to Politics & International Relations.
Interested in researching or finding out more about the Scottish Referendum? Have a look at our previous blog post Better together or better apart? Some useful resources on the Scottish referendum.
Scottish Government Yearbooks, 1976-1992, are now also available freely online at http://www.scottishgovernmentyearbooks.ed.ac.uk/
Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science