Planning 696d-- INTERNATIONAL PLANNING

General Research Information

Finding Articles

ABI/INFORM:
About 50% full-text, ABI/Inform indexes many of the Planning journals.

Academic Search Complete (Ebscohost)
This is an excellent multidisciplinary index. It includes articles on almost every topic. Articles come from a variety of different magazines and journals.

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
This specialized index includes abstracts and citations to articles related to architecture, urban planning, design, historic preservation, and landscape architecture. Full-text is not available. To check to see if UA Libraries subscribe to a particular journal indexed by Avery, search the journal in our Online Catalog. Be sure to use Avery's Online Help if you need it.

Dissertation Abstracts
Provides citations and abstracts for dissertations and theses from institutions in North America and Europe. Dissertations and theses are excellent sources for bibliographies that will lead you to other sources. Be sure to click on help for additional tips.

GeoBase
This geography index includes articles to city planning and other related subjects in planning.

JSTOR
JSTOR is an electronic archive of scholarly journals. It has both search and browse functions. Be sure to use help, if you need assistance.

LexisNexis Academic Universe:
Mostly full-text, this database includes newspaper articles, transcripts, and a variety of other sources. Click on the News link. Then under Select a News Category, click on General News or News Transcripts. Use the Guided Search feature, rather than Quick News Search; Guided Search allows more flexibility and control of your search.

LexisNexis Statistical Universe:
This database gives you access to spreadsheets and data for everything from income statistics to agriculture and fisheries. Look here for economic indicators and social and demographic statistics. For additional help, be sure to check out the LexisNexis Statistical Help.

Newspapers
For the most current information about a topic, or if you are focusing on a topic that is of more local significance than it is of national significance, newspapers should be your first stop. There are many databases and resources to search newspapers, and it is often useful to go to the hometown paper. Remember that the length of time a story might be archived at the paper's Web site varies from paper to paper. Try the following resources:
Finding Articles (from Journalism subject page)
Online Newspapers

Social Sciences Citation Index (1973-present).  Index to core journal articles and cited references in the social sciences. Includes some abstracts.

Finding Books  

Use the Library Catalog to find books related to your topic. The following are just a few of the subject searches that you might find useful. You can also try KEYWORD searching on your main topic AND any other keywords (e.g., zoos and habitats, etc.) related to your topic. A subject search will provide you with an alphabetical listing of topics for this subject.

Web Searching

If you find information on the web, make sure you EVALUATE the site before relying on it as a reputable source!

Some sites that might be of particular use to you are:

Development Gateway's Non-Governmental Organizations page

Development Community's dgcommunities

NGOnet

The NGO Cafe

NGO Global Network

United Nations' Gateway to Social Policy and Development

The World Bank Group

Useful United Nations Documents

Human Development Report, 2005 (UN Development Program)

Human Development Report, 2004 (UN Development Program)

International Migration Report, 2001 (UN Dept. of Eonomic and Social Affairs)

World Population Policies 2003 (UN Population Database)

World Population Prospects, 2004 Revision (UN Population Database)

World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision (UN Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs)

I have created a Planning Subject Guide, which will lead you to useful planning sites on the World Wide Web.

General Tips about Finding Information for your Research

The Library will not own every journal or book that you find in the indexes that you use. To see if we own a book or journal, you will need to search the title of the book or journal in the Library's catalog.

When you find a citation (short description) of a journal article that you want to pursue, and that article is not full-text, you will need to search the journal title, or sometimes it is called the source title, in the catalog. Researchers in a hurry mistakenly search for the article title in the catalog and find nothing. Remember to search for the journal title.

When you are doing keyword searches in indexes, if the first words you think of don't retrieve enough articles or the right kind of articles, think of other words you could substitute. You will need to play around with your search terms to find the ones that work best. If you are looking for articles about wildlife photography another common search term is photography of animals. You will probably want to search by both terms in the indexes.

You can access any of these indexes or databases from home, but you will need to have your Catcard number on hand, a current borrower's record in the Library's database that links your name and your Catcard number. Some people have trouble accessing databases from home, depending on the Internet Provider and the browser that they are using. If you are trying to access this from home and are having trouble connecting, the Connecting to Library's Databases will provide instructions on how to connect.

You can also access these databases from any computer on campus, including the ones in the Main,Science, and Music Libraries.

Don't forget to check the UA Library's Citation Guide for the correct way to cite your sources.

Updated: January 9, 2006
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