Quick Links
- United Nations LibGuideWhere to find official UN documents.
- Country Information LibGuideWhere to find information on a specific country (beyond the CIA World Factbook)
- Ask a LibrarianGot a question? Want to set up a research appointment? Ask a Librarian!
- International Studies LibGuideResearch Guide for IS majors (with lots of Model UN-relevant information)
Getting Started
How to Write a Background Guide -- from ChoMUN (via bestdelegate.com)
UN Global Issues -- what the UN is saying about your topic.
Books
Finding Books:
- Library Catalog - Searches books (and e-books) owned by the University of Chicago Library. Start here for finding books.
- Worldcat - Searches the book catalogs of major university libraries in the United States, Canada, and beyond.
- HathiTrust - Digitzed books from the collections of major universities libraries. Mostly older material (pre-1923), but also includes government documents.
- Google Books - Books digitized by Google and/or contributed by publishers. Usually NOT full-text, but searchable and with "previews."
Book checked out? Not owned by the U of C Library? No problem!
If the book you want is checked out, or is a title we don't own (yes, we don't own every single book), then borrow it from another library for free!
- Borrow Direct - Ivy League, MIT, and Chicago expedited interlibrary loan
- UBorrow - CIC (Big Ten) schools, including Chicago, expedited interlibrary loan
- Interlibrary Loan - regular interlibrary loan between virtually any library in the United States (and many worldwide).
If you see the FindIt! button, you can access Borrow Direct, UBorrow, and Interlibrary Loan with a few clicks.
Online Magazines
- Financial TimesAvailable from ProQuest, Access World News and Nexis Uni with a 30 day delay from the date of publication.
Chicago Booth students have access to FT.com through Booth Career Services
- Factiva This link opens in a new window1000s of (current) news sources from many different countries.
- New York Times CURRENT1980-current, via ProQuest. Full text, but no page images.
- New York Times HISTORICALNew York Times 1857-2010, with page images. Need to see what the front page looked like back in 1957? Start here!
Journal Articles
Scholarly research on Model UN conferences – it exists.
Finding scholarly journal articles:
- Articles Plus This link opens in a new windowCross-searching many (though not all) Library databases. Use FindIt! buttons to get full-text.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowLarge basket of journals, all full-text. BUT: beware the "moving wall" -- JSTOR titles often run 3-5 years behind due to agreements with publishers.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle's subset of scholarly websites. (Note that Google's definition of "scholarly" is quite broad.)
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window1 of 2 core journal databases for political science. Covers political science, law, international relations, and public policy.
- PAIS International This link opens in a new windowCore international relations database. Provides selective subject and bibliographic access to periodicals, books, hearings, reports, gray literature, government publications, Internet resources, and other publications from 120 countries.
- Political Science Complete This link opens in a new window1 of 2 core databases for political science. Complements Worldwide Political Science Abstracts -- search both to get a comprehensive look at the journal literature.
Statistical Data
Finding data and statistics:
- International Statistical AgenciesScroll down to see the list of statistical agencies compiled by the US Census Bureau.
- World Development Indicators Online This link opens in a new windowData collected and published by the World Bank.
- OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
