Research Guides: POLS 224: The American Presidency (HC): Finding Useful Books

Finding Scholarly Studies in Books

Use the Tripod catalog This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new window to look for relevant books owned by Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Swarthmore.

The following subject searches are a sampling of possibilities. To find materials on a topic, try doing a title search in the Tripod Catalog to find some relevant material and then use the subject headings assigned to those titles to find more books.

presiden* AND leader* [Keyword]

"presidents united states history" [Subject] [Relevance ranking by default]

presidential candidates united states [Subject] [Sorted by newest titles first]

united states politics and government 1963-1969 [Subject]

president* AND ("executive orders" OR "executive power") [Keywords] AND "united states" [Subject] [Limited publication date 2000-2020]

Tripod Catalog
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Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges each have their own Tripod catalog. Use Tripod to find relevant scholarship owned by your home library as well as print resources at the other two schools. To see digital material owned only by BMC, use the BMC Tripod link (tripod.brynmawr.edu). You will need to be on the BMC campus in order to access those digital resources.
Change the resource group on the search bar to limit results to specific materials like books and films.
Use the Request link in an item's record to have it delivered to the library of your choice . Note that you need to log into Tripod in order to see the Request link. If you are already in Tripod, use the Sign In link at the top of every page to log in.

WorldCat
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This is a catalog of the holdings of books, journals, and other materials owned by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) member libraries throughout the United States and in other countries.
WorldCat is an important place to look for many materials not owned by the Tricollege Libraries. This combined library catalog contains more than 400 million records describing items owned by libraries around the world. Many of these items are available to you though interlibrary loan. Use the FindIt button in individual records to request items you see in WorldCat.

Borrowing beyond the Tri-Co
1. E-Z Borrow - Request books that are not available in Tripod. It usually takes three days or less for E-Z Borrow books to arrive.
2. Interlibrary Loan (ILL) - Request books not in E-Z Borrow. They can come in as little as four or five days. Also use ILL to request films, dissertations, sound recordings, and other materials.
3. Articles - Request journal articles not available in your college library. You will receive digital copies of the articles in your email sometimes as quickly as the following day.

Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are a particularly useful kind of journal article when doing research. They address the issues involved in a particular question and the debates among scholars. They map out the intellectual terrain succinctly for a topic and give you the major landmarks in terms of key authors and significant titles for greater understanding.

Annual Reviews
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Informed and thoughtful literature reviews addressed to researchers in all social science (and natural science) fields.
Enter keywords in the search box in the upper right. See these examples of recent literature reviews related to the presidency:
"Race and Politics in the Age of Obama" By Christopher Sebastian Parker (2016)
"Presidential Appointments and Personnel?" By David E. Lewis (2011)
"Presidential Power in War." By William G. Howell (2011)
"Leadership: What It Means, What It Does, and What We Want to Know About It." By John S. Alquist and Margaret Levi (2011)

Oxford Bibliographies Online

The Oxford Bibliographies Online lay out the parameters of various issues within a particular field of study and evaluate the importance of individual books and journal articles in the form of an annotated bibliography. It gives you the benefit of expert advice when choosing what to read.

See essays like these below for some relevant examples:

Federalism in the United States

Presidential Persuasion and Public Opinion

Thomas Jefferson [Note that most presidents don't have a full essay devoted to them in Oxford Bibliographies]

The US Presidency

Dissertations

Dissertations & Theses
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ProQuest Dissertations and Theses is a collection of scholarly research in the Humanities and Social Sciences that consists of over 4 million searchable citations to dissertations and theses from around the world, and over 2 million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Coverage is from 1861 to the present day.

Doctoral students go through an exhaustive literature search when writing their dissertations. They also tend to work on new questions, sometimes ones that have received very little attention from scholars before. You can read many of these dissertations full text and benefit from all the bibliographic treasues and new ideas. Check the database Dissertations and Theses (above) to identify dissertations on your topic.

If you find a dissertation there that does not have a full-text option, request it through the Interlibrary Loan page. Sometimes dissertations are not available to be borrowed. If you run into that problem, get in touch with me. I may be able to buy a copy for Magill Library.