The Books Online program of the Brookings Institution Press provides online access to full-text versions of a large and growing list of titles as an essential part of the Brookings mission.The Press publishes books that result from the Institution’s own research and books of a similar nature written by outside authors. Users can browse and search over 30,000 pages of cutting-edge public policy research from any computer, and print selected pages one at a time. This section is specifically devoted to Government & Politics publications where – searching by keywords – dozens of free books are available (dated 2001 and earlier). The entire catalogue is provided under an Open Book page image presentation framework: a free, browsable, fully and deeply searchable version of the publication (including page printing at fax quality).
Brookings Library Catalog on Government & Politics
Full-text access to the Brookings Institution publications
Consortium on Qualitative Research Methods
Qualitative research methods in the social sciences
Hosted by the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, the Consortium on qualitative research methods promotes the teaching and use of qualitative research methods in the social sciences. Its members include departments, centers and/or institutes of several universities. The website provides information about the Consortium activities and its staff, teaching material (such as syllabi and seminar schedules), and a fair quantity of working papers, presented with annotations and full-text downloadable. The Consortium also participates – and links – to the APSA section on Qualitative Methods and to the 2005-founded APSA Working Group. Annual trainings on qualitative research methods are also organized, whose online materials and articles are nevertheless reserved to participants. Updating is not frequent and varies according to section: information about teaching activities are added every year while publications are posted on the web less regularly and according to research timing. Records can be located only by browsing through categories without search features (very few connections to external websites are provided). Users are allowed to navigate and to access materials completely free of charge. With its simple content categorization, this website enables an immediate orientation — although the basic structure is quite uninviting to further inquiries.
Directory of Open Access Journals
A directory of free online scientific journals
Launched by the Lund University Libraries and sponsored by the Open Society Institute and The Royal Library of Sweden, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a service gathering and linking free, full-text, peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly journals available online. More than 7,200 journals are included in the directory with direct link to their website and free contents. Each journal must guarantee a peer-review precedure or an editorial quality control to be part of the DOAJ directory. Currently 3,000 of these journals are also directly searchable by article in the DOAJ pages without being redirected to the journal websites, for a total number of over 700,000 articles. All scientific and scholarly subjects are covered and all contents are freely available in full-text, usually in pdf format. Resources are catalogued by journal title and can be browsed by an expandible subject index, while for those journals providing to DOAJ the requested metadata to be searchable by article, also a simple multiple search feature is available. Any journal issue is provided with basic metadata such as publisher, year of publication, keywords, and with direct link to the journal website while for those records labeled as “DOAJ Content”, abstract and full text are directly available from the DOAJ webpages . Navigation in this website is extremely simple even for non-experts.
First Search
The OCLC comprehensive reference collection
FirstSearch is a comprehensive reference search service that delivers content from dozens of large databases and 10 million of articles including bibliographic, full-text and full-image material. Its main feature is access to more than 258 million records via WorldCat, the Online Union Catalog produced by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), a nonprofit computer library service and research cooperative including more than 10,000 libraries. Through an intuitive web interface and local customization options, FirstSearch offers also access to electronic journals, library holdings, and interlibrary loan, displaying their records in different languages such as English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean. Well organized, regularly updated and user-friendly, FirstSearch requires nonetheless different levels of paid subscriptions to fully access its services. However search and navigation in this website allow for free access to a good quantity and quality of links to other webresources for further inquiries and to many metadata on the desired records.
H-Net
A review network in the Humanities and Social Sciences
As an international consortium of scholars and teachers, H-Net fosters internet networks worldwide with the objective of enhancing teaching and research in the social sciences and the humanities by reviewing and discussing scholarly contents. It is committed to pioneering the use of new communication technologies to facilitate the free exchange of academic ideas and scholarly resources. The service is especially useful for substantial reviews of recently published books, which may have not yet been picked up by indexes. Films, softwares, websites and museum exhibits are also evaluated. The H-Net reviews are available in full-text in html format while a printable version in pdf is also available on the H-Net webpages or through its discussion networks pages. The books and multimedia reviews (more than 10,000 a year) are commissioned by the H-Net academic discussion groups, which are an open hospitable forum for book’s authors and readers to respond to the review. Each H-Net discussion network, with a total of over 100 email lists spanning many fields of study, has its own review editor. Access is completely free for all users. Navigation and meterial retrieval in this website are quite easy thanks to an advanced search feature and to a clear website’s architecture.
Jstor
A groundbreaking archive of scholarly journal literature
Originally conceived by the president of the A.W. Mellon Foundation, JSTOR is a pioneer effort to help libraries by converting the back issues of paper journals into electronic formats (pdf) and improving access to the journals content. This website shows great care to retrieval strategies and source format, covering both multidisciplinary and discipline-specific collections. Access to the full JSTOR database is available only through affiliation with a participating institution (generally, academic associations and libraries) but in some instances independent researchers can access specific titles provided by participating publishers. JSTOR operates as a not-for-profit organization, offering access to journals in a range defined as a “moving wall”, which consists of a fixed period of time ranging generally from 3 to 5 years from the most recent issues available in JSTOR. The database also hosts the complete collection of the American Political Science Review in pdf format online, which can now be accessed by Apsa members on an individual basis, with an additional charge. The site description and other pages are available in several languages beside English, including Chinese, Spanish, and Italian. The overall outline is simple and effective, with several Help Topics very useful, especially for unexperienced users.
Latin American Council of Social Sciences
Full-text social science publications in Spanish and Portuguese
This large portal provides open access to several information service databases of social science publications in Spanish and Portuguese, whose library currently hosts more than 10,600 full-text documents (books, magazines, thesis, working papers, etc.) related to social sciences in about 20 countries of Latin America and the Carribean. Other databases provide access to full-text of 84 magazines in the CLACSO network (including more than 8,000 articles of the CLACSO-Redalyc portal) as well as to bibliographic data and research projects authored by network members, covering 259 social science research institutions. Also available is a rich collection of links pointing to more than 170 sites providing open access to over 4,500 multimedia files. Users have multiple options to search particularly in the library (by author, title, region and more) but only in Spanish, with a few dozens of full-texts available also in English and further links to resources already published in the SciELO Social Sciences English Edition. The entire library content is released under a Creative Commons license, while the portal’s basic info is also translated in French and English. Generally up-to-date, the website includes also news items covering digital library issues and member activities, with most pages featuring a printer-friendly format and e-mail options. The overall design is somewhat static and clumsy, offering too much text-based information and lacking a necessary dynamism. No RSS feed available.
Living Reviews in European Governance
An innovative electronic journal
Offered as a free service to the scientific community, Living Reviews in European Governance (LREG) is an entirely web-based and peer-reviewed journal managed by the Max Planck Society (a German non-profit research-supporting organization) and scientifically coordinated by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Wien. Born as a joint initiative by two EU projects, LREG is the first Living Reviews journal in the social sciences. It publishes articles and reviews of research on topics related to European Union policies, EU integration and governance. It also provides some direct links to other electronic resources. Articles are kept “living” and up-to-date by their own authors. Each publication presents a commentary of its contents, evolution and achievements and is downloadable in variuos formats. To facilitate online reading and browsing, LREG provides a well integrated hypertext viewing environment, with pop-up windows for access to tables and graphs, as well as to footnotes and reference list, and with features enabling citation tracking within the article. Items can be located through browsing by clear categories or through an advanced search engine. Interactivity is also fostered and readers are able to post their own comments. Navigation is extremely simple and item retrieval immediate. A detailed tutorial-like section help users in any circumstance.
Oxford Scholarship Online
A cross-searchable, large library covering many academic fields
Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) is a cross-searchable library covering material in the areas of Economics and Finance, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion. Managed by the Oxford University Press, this site provides access to the complete text of over 6,500 carefully-selected books, with at least 200 new and recently-published books added each year. Full access is provided exclusively to institutions for a one-time purchase fee or annual subscription, with free trials available to libraries worldwide, while abstracts, bibliographical data and keywords are available free of charge to any user. Many bibliographic cross-references are also available, pointing to other Oxford publications and online resources. By offering extensive reference linking to individual chapters, along with printer-friendly format and other useful inquiring options, this reference service provides an effective interface. In September 2011 the OSO website has been renewed. In addition to the new look, new functionalities and access to new content have been introduced, through the OSO archive and from the new University Press Scholarship Online (UPSO) platform, which offers more than 7,000 titles available.
Periodicals Index Online
An index to the arts, humanities, and the social sciences
Periodicals Index Online (formerly, Periodicals Contents Index), is a large, multidisciplinary index to the arts, humanities, and the social sciences. The site covers over 6,000 journals from first issue to 1995 or ceased date, while over 30% of the content is related to non-English scholarly titles. Providing abstracts and indexing in electronic format as well as on CD-ROM, the site is managed by Chadwyck-Healey Group, which publishes scholarly reference and full-text materials, acquired in 1999 by ProQuest Information and Learning. By allowing for detailed searching options in several journals and databases, this site requires some kind of subscription, although a few paid services for individuals are also being introduced. Little content is offered free of charge. In-depth search and content downloading is reserved for paying subscribers only.
