LibGuides: PSC 401D: State Politics (Phelps): Library Guides

Nevada and Las Vegas Resources

State of Nevada
Official State of Nevada web site
Nevada State Agencies and Departments
Links to State of Nevada agencies, departments, boards, colleges, executive, judicial, legislative, etc.
City of Las Vegas
Official city of Las Vegas web site
City of Las Vegas Departments
Links & information about Las Vegas government departments and agencies
Clark County (NV) Department Directory
NV Energy
Southwest Gas
Las Vegas Valley Water District
Trash & Recycling--Republic Services
RTC of Southern Nevada
"The RTC is the transit authority, designated metropolitan planning organization, regional traffic management agency and administrator of the Southern Nevada."
Southern Nevada Health District

Local and State Data and Statistics Starting Points

Las Vegas Info-US Census Bureau
Statistics-City of Las Vegas
Las Vegas-Paradise: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Las Vegas Open Data
Report Card (Education): Nevada Accountability Portal
State, district and school level data via customizable reports
Nevada Data
NV Dept of Health & Human Services Data Links
Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) Data Portal
Useful data and links to get information about Nevada’s economy and its consumers.
Data and Statistics about the U.S.
Links to US govt. data & statistics by agency/department (such as Census, health, education, etc.)

Finding Government Information Tutorial

Searching for Government & Legislative Information

Google is an easy way to find official government information (reports, statistics, factsheets, etc.). After you type in your keywords, add site:gov to the search.

For example:
Las Vegas homeless site:.gov
Nevada high school dropout rates site:.gov

food stamp statistics site:.gov

Then, you will limit your search to federal, state, and local .gov sites

NELIS (Nevada Electronic Legislative Information System)
Information about the current session as well as past sessions, search for your representatives, and more.
Nevada Legislature
UNLV Libraries Government Information Portal
Information on how to find publications that are produced by government agencies covering a wide variety of topics
Congress.gov
The CONGRESS.GOV website, from the Library of Congress, provides a wealth of legislative history information from current and past years. The site provides the full text of public laws, legislative bills (as well as summaries and status information for these bills), legislative debates, and committee reports. For the debates and reports, links are provided to a PDF version of these documents.
The Supreme Court Database
This database includes information about Supreme Court decisions from 1946 to the present.
General Accounting Office (GAO)
Site provides both summaries and full text files of reports and testimony dating back to fiscal year 1979. GAO posts full-text files on its website daily, often within 24 hours of when a report or testimony is publicly released.

Congressional Publications (ProQuest Congressional)
Good for: Researching U.S. legislative information.
Contains: Congressional publications, bills, laws, regulations, committee information, and more.
Dates covered: 1789-present.

Guides & Handouts for ProQuest Congressional & Executive Branch Documents
Use this guide for information on how to search in the Congressional interface, and for links to information on the digital collections.
Video: Short ProQuest Congressional Tutorial

CQ Magazine
Good for: Staying informed about current politics and new legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
Contains: Weekly roundup of congressional activity.
Dates covered: 1983-current date.
CQ Press Library
Good for: Researching public policy and American government.
Contains: In-depth research on hot topics and legislative analysis.
HeinOnline Law Journal Library
Online law journals and full text federal legal materials.
HeinOnline is an image-based, fully searchable database made up primarily of law journals. Newer content is not added until the end of a volume year so the most recent issues are likely a year old. Coverage varies by title, but most sources go back to volume one. In addition to journals, it also contains treaties, the federal register, some classic treatises and some federal legislative materials. Subscription to HeinOnline is sponsored by the Wiener-Rogers Law Library.
Legislative Insight
Legislative Insight includes all congressional publications that pertain to an enacted law, 1929 to current and includes all bills, reports, hearings documents and signing statements.

National Data & Statistics Starting Points

Data and Statistics about the US
Links to US govt. data & statistics by agency/department (such as Census, health, education, etc.)
Data.census.gov
This website is the primary tool for accessing information from the U.S. Census Bureau. Find population data as well as social, economic, and housing characteristics at various geographic levels (national, state, county, etc.)

Principal U.S. Federal Statistical Agencie

Bureau of Economic Analysis
Bureau of Justice Statistics
FBI-Uniform Crime Reporting
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Census Bureau (data.census.gov)
Economic Research Service
Energy Information Administration
National Agricultural Statistics Service
National Cener for Education Statistics
Internal Revenue Service
This link provides "a wide range of tables, articles, and data that describe and measure elements of the U.S. tax system."
State Labor Information Contact List
Information about the job market in each state

UNLV Libraries Databases

UNLV Libraries Quick Search

Academic Search Premier
Searchable articles from academic and professional journals and magazines covering every academic discipline.
Update frequency: Updated daily
This excellent one-stop resource lets you search citations and summaries by keyword and then instantly retrieve the full text of articles from journals online. The Get Text button helps you locate any article without linked full text in alternate online sources or in UNLV's print journal collection.
Education Full Text
Good for: Researching education topics.
Contains: Journal articles.
Dates covered: 1996-present.
CQ Researcher
Good for: Controversial topics in social issues, environment, health, education, science, and technology.
Contains: Reports with information about all sides of an issue, including comments from experts in the field, charts and graphs, a pro-con feature, a chronology, a bibliography for additional research, and a list of contacts.
Dates covered: 1923-present.
Criminal Justice Abstracts
Good for: Researching criminology and related disciplines.
Contains: Journal articles.
Dates covered: 1960-current date.
PAIS International
1972-
Index to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general.
From the Public Affairs Information Service, this database provides access to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. It includes records from journals, books, conference proceedings, research and government reports, and directories.
Social Explorer
Social Explorer is an online research tool designed to provide quick and easy access to current and historical U.S. census data and demographic information.
The easy-to-use web interface lets users create maps and reports to better illustrate, analyze and understand demography and social change. In addition to being a comprehensive data resource, Social Explorer also offers features and tools to meet the needs of both demography experts and novices. It creates reports at all geographic levels including the state, county, census tract, block group, zip code and census place. Included are over 18,000 maps, hundreds of profile reports, 40 billion data elements, 335,000 variables and 220 years of data.
SocINDEX with Full Text
1895-
Indexes the literature of sociology and related disciplines.
Includes full text for selected journals, monographs, and conference papers and contains full text for over 325 journals dating back to 1895. Encompasses all subdisciplines of sociology, including abortion, anthropology, criminology, criminal justice, marriage & family, politics, religion, rural sociology, social psychology, social structure, social work, sociological theory, sociology of education, substance abuse, urban studies, and many others.

Google Scholar
Searches scholarly journal articles. Set preferences to UNLV for full text access!
Google Scholar Setup Tipsheet

Newspaper Databases

Las Vegas Review Journal (NewsBank)
1996-
Full text of articles, not including images.
Access Nevada
50 Nevada newspapers searchable in one database. Find information on Nevada's economy, business & industry, legislation, opinions and viewpoints, local history and much more.
Access Nevada is a searchable subset of Access World News.

Current Newspapers: Local and national subscriptions
This guide provides links to a wide variety of library databases for current access to local and national newspapers.

Keeping Track & Citing Your Information

RefWorks
Bibliography manager saves your citations and formats them into APA, MLA, or other styles.
This web-based bibliography manager lets you save citations to journal articles, books, web sites and more into your personal online database. You'll be able to quickly link to online articles, organize and share your references, and automatically create formatted bibliographies in all the major citation formats, including APA, MLA, and Chicago styles. Off-campus users, see the Using RefWorks at UNLV page for special instructions.
Mendeley
A bibliography manager that saves your citations and formats them into APA, MLA, or other styles.
This bibliography manager lets you quickly link to online articles, organize your references, and automatically create formatted bibliographies in all the major citation formats, including APA, MLA, and Chicago styles.
On Oct 31, 2024, UNLV Institutional Edition accounts will be downgraded to 2 GB of free storage and will encounter limits on the number of shared groups they can create. See the Mendeley guide for more information.

Zotero
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research.
Help w/Mendeley

refworks logo

RefWorks is a web-based bibliographic software package that enables you to:

Organize your research
Create a bibliography in a variety of citation styles, including APA, MLA and Chicago
Import references from many data sources
Create bibliographies in different document formats (Word, RTF, HTML, etc.)
Include citations while you write your paper (using Write-n-Cite plugin)
Access your personal account from any computer connected to the internet

Fact Sheet Information

Creating Infographics and Visualizations & Information about Makerspace & Multimedia Production Studios at Lied Library

Visit UNLV Libraries Makerspace and Multimedia Production Studios to learn about all the great technologies that are available including data visualization!

Urban Affairs Librarian

Susie Skarl, Urban Affairs Librarian

Email Me

Contact:

UNLV Libraries
Lied Library
4505 S. Maryland Parkway
Box 457014
Las Vegas, NV 89154-7014
susie.skarl@unlv.edu

702-895-2141

Subjects: Communication Studies, Couple & Family Therapy, Criminal Justice, Crisis & Emergency Management, Government Information, Journalism & Media Studies, Public Administration, Social Work, Urban Studies

PSC 401D: State Politics (Phelps): Library Guides

Fall 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium Friday, December 9, 2022