LibGuides: Social Sciences: Find Reliable Web Resources

Government, Political Science, and Law

As a Federal Depository Library, the Egan Library has access to a lot of materials in these fields.

Find Articles - Government, Political Science & Law

And as always, feel free to Ask A Librarian if you need more help!

History and Primary Sources

Discovering American Women's History Online
Provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
Digital Public Library of America
From the DPLA website: "The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. The DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used."
Alaska's Digital Archives
Primary sources on Alaskan cultural and political history including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and moving images.
Project Jukebox
Part of the Oral History Program at UAF, Project Jukebox collects audio and video recordings related to Alaskan history and people. Includes "Alaska Native Songs and Legends" by the Alaska Library Association (searchable index located on ANKN site), "Early Day Alaskans" by the Tanana-Yukon Historical Society, "The Alaska Native Elders-In-Residence Program" by the UAF Alaska Native Studies Department, and "On the Road Recordings with Old Timers" funded by British Petroleum Corporation.
Alaska History Research Guide from UAS
Developed at the Ketchikan Campus, this research guide has information on Alaskan History resources.

Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Social Science Research Network
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks in the social sciences (economics, accounting, entrepreneurship, marketing, information systems, legal scholarship, social insurance, management, and negotiations).
Directory of Open Access Journals
DOAJ is a directory of free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages.
MERLOT II
A peer-reviewed collection of online learning materials for teaching in the arts, business, education, humanities, mathematics, science and technology, and the social sciences.

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Provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.

Alaskan Issues Research Guide from UAS
Find links to a variety of Alaska-specific resources in the research guide.

Statistics and Dissertations

Statistics Research Guide from UAS
Resources for finding statistics for Alaska, US, and the world.
Explore Census Data
Explore Census Data provides access to topical and demographic data about the United States and its communities.
Digital Dissertations
Free access to the most current two years of citations and abstracts in the ProQuest Dissertation Abstracts database.

Why Evaluate?

It's important to evaluate to insure that you use the best information resources possible for your research and study, as well as for making personal decisions. Information that you find in many different formats may be unreliable, dated, or biased. Make sure to pick the best!

Criteria for Evaluating Sources

To evaluate a source that you may want to use for a paper or presentation, use the 5Ws+H questions below to do a quick review for credibility. These questions help you to examine the source itself plus what others say about the source.

Who is the author or creator?

An Expert, Scholar, Journalist, Nonprofit, Corporation, Government, Advertiser / Influencer, Unknown?
Look up the author using a search engine to learn about their background.

When was it published / posted?

Is it timely for your topic?

Where was it published / posted?

Scholarly journal, Magazine, News source, Website, Social media, Other?
Look up the publication or website on Wikipedia or using a search engine. What did you learn about the source?

Why does the source exist?

Inform, Persuade, Politicize, Research, Educate, Entertain, Sell?

What is the main idea?

How is it relevant to your topic?

How does it incorporate evidence?

Reference list (cited works), Quotes, Charts / graphs, Methodology, Original research / Data, Anecdote / Personal Experience, Other?

Adapted from: The Source + Beyond the Source Evaluation Framework by DePaul University Library CC:BY:NC