What is background information?
Background information, or reference information, is the type of information you could get from Wikipedia. These resources will give you trustworthy overviews of a topic and provide you with basic things like dates, events and facts about your topic. Generally, you can think of this information in terms of the who, what, where and when of a topic.
Political Science Background Information
- OyezOyez is a project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law. It is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. Oyez offers audio, case summaries, illustrated decision information, and full-text Supreme Court opinions.
- Congressional RecordThe official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress
- Hein Online This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline is a premier online database containing more than 155 million pages and 200,000 titles of legal history and government documents in a fully searchable, image-based format. HeinOnline bridges the gap in historical research by providing comprehensive coverage from inception of more than 2,500 law-related periodicals. In addition to its vast collection of law journals, HeinOnline contains the entire Congressional Record, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations, complete coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754, and entire databases dedicated to treaties, constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, slavery and much more. Hein
Note: Remote access is restricted to UHV users.
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
A database of full-text encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Gale
- MasterFILE Complete This link opens in a new window
Designed specifically for public libraries, this multidisciplinary database provides full text for more than 2,000 general reference publications with full text information dating as far back as 1922. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, it also contains full text for more than 1,000 reference books and over 164,400 primary source documents, as well as an Image Collection of over 502,000 photos, maps & flags. EBSCO
- Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyOverseen by an editorial board selected by Stanford philosophers and authored by professors drawn from a variety of well-respected institutions, this site represents an attempt to create a dynamic idea driven reference work for professional philosophers and students
- Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyThe Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) was founded in 1995 to provide open access to detailed, scholarly, peer-reviewed information on key topics and philosophers in all areas of philosophy.
