Find items in UIC Library collections, including books, articles, databases and more.
Find items on the UIC Library website, including research guides, help articles, events and website pages.
This page provides links to resources for multiple approaches to researching a community, organizations, and broader societal issues.
This process is context specific, and will look different for every topic. As such, you are encouraged to schedule a one-on-one research appointment to discuss effective approaches for your personal project. You can schedule an appointment with a librarian under Contact Us on the UIC Library website.
Political, social, and public policy issues, especially any topics that are or might become the subject of legislation.
Now called APA PsycINFO. Abstract and index of Psychology and the psychological aspects of related disciplines, such as medicine, nursing, sociology, business, education, etc.
Coverage of criminal justice and substance abuse. From 1968 to present.
You can do a combined search of PAIS International, Sociological Abstracts, ERIC, and PsycINFO through Proquest Databases. This offers coverage of public policy, sociology, social services, social work, education and psychology research.
One approach to researching policy related to an issue is to overtly search for articles discussing policy and legislation. The following search might be an effective approach: child* AND "sexual abuse" AND prevention AND (policy or legislation) AND "united states"
The following example shows how you might research policy and advocacy related to recruiting men of color into early childhood education:
(teachers OR educators OR mentors ) AND ("black male" OR "black men" or "african american men" OR "african american male" OR "men of color") AND "early child*" AND advocac* AND policy
Once you identify relevant articles addressing policy, analyze bibliographies to find additional articles and "grey literature" (e.g. government reports, policy briefs, white papers, and other data).
Using Google to Find Policy Information and Other Forms of Grey Literature: Grey literature comes in many forms, and it can essentially be any publication that is published through non-commercial channels (as opposed to publishers of scholarly journals and books). While the government is the largest producer of grey literature, organizations, think tanks, and academic institutions produce grey literature in the form of policy briefs, reports, and white papers (basically, papers commissioned to present research on a particular issue or stance). Since these publications aren't subject to peer review, they can be produced quickly and made widely available. The absence of peer review also places more importance on carefully considering the potential bias of the sponsoring organization, agency or author.
Doing a Google Search in which you combine your topic with phrases such as "policy brief," or "white paper," or "policy paper" can be an effective strategy for researching policy information published by think tanks, organizations, and agencies. You can also try this approach in the USA.gov portal.
In addition to these databases, you may want to identify and search local news sources such as Chicago Reader or Block Club Chicago, or WTTW.com. You can also try a Google Search using the News filter.
This multidisciplinary database provides access to articles from journals, magazines, and reference sources across all subject areas. Coverage is primarily from 1980 to the present, with some older content.
Provides current and archived news content from more than 13,800 United States and international newspapers, news services, magazines, blogs, transcripts, and more. Date coverage varies with individual newspaper. See the Newspapers Research Guide [ link https://researchguides.uic.edu/newspapers/top ]
Current articles from ethnic-focused news groups worldwide.
New version of Lexis Nexis Academic. Nexis Uni features news, business, and legal sources, radio and television transcripts, federal and state court cases, U.S. Supreme Court decisions back to 1790, and full-text law review articles. See the Newspapers Research Guide [ link https://researchguides.uic.edu/newspapers/top ] for library database coverage of the top 20 U.S. newspapers.
Use these specialized, in-depth guides to find additional resources:
Use these tools to identify available archival collections at libraries and museums. Sending an email or calling local libraries and museums to identify hyper-local experts can be another effective approach since not all collections are searchable or identifiable online.
Union catalog with holdings information from libraries across the world.
ArchiveGrid is a database for searching through historical documents, personal papers, and family histories held in archives around the world. Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies.