New for Politics

Project for Excellence in Journalism / Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.
Available online.   Printed copy to be added to the collection.
"In the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, the media had already winnowed the race to mostly five candidates and offered Americans relatively little information about their records or what they would do if elected, according to a comprehensive new study of the election coverage across the media. The press also gave some candidates measurably more favorable coverage than others... All of these findings seem to be at sharp variance with what the public says it wants from campaign reporting."
A link will be maintained on this library Web page.

Members of the Washington and Lee University community -- faculty, students, and staff -- now may check out Reference materials and bound periodical volumes from the Leyburn Library and Telford Library collections.

These items can be checked out through "normal" circulation procedures, with proper identification at our Circulation Desks, but for a period of no more than 24 hours.

No renewals or holds are allowed.

If you have questions about how this works, please contact a Reference librarian or Elizabeth Teaff, our Access Services Manager.

Congressional Quarterly.
Available online.
Free political news service from CQ, mostly focusing on U.S. issues.
Links will be maintained in several locations on our Web site, including here.

Columbia University.
Available online.
The library has subscribed for several years to Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO), a database of working papers, policy briefs, journal articles, course packs, and other materials from think tanks, research institutes, NGO's, and other sources. The latest monthly updates to the database include a complete book on North Korea, an East-West Institute paper on cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on nuclear terrorism, and a European Union Institute for Security Studies paper on issues relating to Turkey's acceptance into the EU.
Links are maintained in several locations in the library Web site, including here.

National Survey of Student Engagement / Indiana University.
Available online.   Printed copy to be added to the collection.
Based on information from about 313,000 randomly selected firstyear and senior students at 610 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada... Now in its eighth year, the survey findings annually provide comparative standards for determining how effectively colleges are contributing to learning. Five key areas of educational performance are measured: 1) level of academic challenge, 2) active and collaborative learning, 3) student-faculty interaction, 4) enriching educational experiences, and 5) supportive campus environment.

American Political Science Association.
Available online.   Also available in printed form.
Published in the journal PS: Political Science and Politics, "this forum empirically evaluates what we have learned about the effects of various election reforms in the 50 states."

U.S. Congressional Research Service.
Available online.
"The Bush Administration has outlined a strategy of 'tailored deterrence' to define the role that nuclear weapons play in U.S. national security policy. There has been little discussion of this concept, either in Congress or in the public at large. This leaves unanswered questions about how this strategy differs from U.S. nuclear strategy during the Cold War and how it might advise decisions about the size and structure of the U.S. nuclear arsenal."
A link will be maintained on this library Web page.

National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Available online.
"While voters may have the final say on ballot measures when they vote “yea” or “nea” at the ballot box, they have little to do with the funding of those measures. In 2006, only 23 percent of the $648 million raised to support or oppose ballot measures came from individuals... The 2006 election also saw a jump in the number of measures faced by voters: 219 measures appeared in 37 states, almost double the 111 measures in 28 states in 2004."
A link will be maintained on this library Web page.

Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
Available online.   Printed copy to be added to the collection.
"Today’s students — part of the Millennial Generation born between 1985 and 2004 — are more engaged in their communities and feel responsible to become civically involved. They recognize the importance of being educated and involved citizens, but discard much of the information available to them because of its polarizing and partisan nature. They are turned off by intensely combative political debate, the report says. We also find that colleges and universities are providing very unequal opportunities for civic participation and learning."
A link will be maintained on this library Web page.

Oxford University Press.
Available online.   (W&L subscription)
Multifaceted, ever-growing database contains "over 3,000 A-Z reference entries, chapters from scholarly and introductory works, Qur'anic materials, primary sources, images, and timelines." Includes Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, the Oxford History of Islam, and other significant works.
Links will be maintained in several locations in our Web site, including here.

Congressional Quarterly Press.
Available online.   (W&L subscription)
The library's Supreme Court Yearbook account has been updated to cover the 2005-2006 term of the Court. There is a separate overview of the term and the appropriate updates have been incorporated into all the subject sections ("Environmental Law," etc.).
Links are maintained in various locations in the library Web site, including here.