Selected Resources
Economics 210
Spring Semester, 2006

Table of Contents

Overview
Resources for the course will cover a variety of media including print materials, library resources on the Web and the World Wide Web. The items listed below are excellent resources for starting the research on your topic. You may want to start with some books and/or articles to get an overview of the topic. This page provides an annotated list of the BEST resources that you are most likely to need in Eco 210. A detailed list of other resources you may need to consult from time to time follows this page.
Best Resources
Many resources have qualitative information on your topics. The resources that are listed below are the best sources for your project:

Books (For explanations of these resources, please go to the Book Section).

  1. ASA
  2. WorldCat

Journal Indexes and Additional Resources (For explanations of these resources, please go to the appropriate section).

  1. America: History and Life
  2. American Periodical Series Online
  3. Early American Imprints: 1801-1819
  4. Econlit
  5. New York Times (Historical Newspapers)
Books
There are two resources that will assist in locating items in the Lehigh University libraries and in other libraries. They are:
  1. ASA, Library's Online Catalog. This lists all the items in the library and their locations. This resource is available in MYLibrary on the Portal and on the Library Services page.
  2. WorldCat. This is a catalog that lists over 51million items including books, journals, Audiovisual, and software. REMEMBER: Over 25 thousand libraries are involved with this resource. These resources may be obtained via Lehigh's Interlibrary Loan Service.

Use ASA to locate the books on your topic. Remember: Journal articles are NOT indexed in ASA. These subject headings are a sample for your research. They are:

  1. Economic geography
  2. Industrialization--United States--History--19th century.
  3. Infrastructure (Economics)--Middle West--Finance--History--19th century.
  4. Inland water transportation--Middle West--Finance--History--19th century.
  5. Roads--Middle West--Finance--History--19th century.
  6. Space in economics
  7. Structural adjustment (Economic policy)
  8. Transportation--United States--History--19th century
  9. United States--Commerce--History--19th century.
Journal Indexes and Other Resources
To locate information on your topic, these indexes may be use to identify appropriate articles related to your topic. The URL for the databases page is http://databases.lib.lehigh.edu/finder/. They are:
  1. ABI-Inform Global. This is an excellent source for articles written on the topic since 1986. About half of the journals are available in full text.
  2. Academic Index, Expanded (a.k.a. Infotrac) Covers over 1400 journal going back to 1980. Some articles are available in full text.
  3. America: History and Life. This covers articles related to America and Canada. This is available in print and on the Web since 1964.
  4. Business Periodical Index. 650.016/B979 (Located in the stacks) This index is available in print and available from 1958 to 1995.
  5. Econlit. This is the best source for articles on economic topics. It goes back to 1969.
  6. Historical Abstracts. This is an excellent source for Europe and the rest of the world. It is a twin to America: History and Life. Coverage goes back to 1955 in print and on the Web.
  7. JSTOR. It is a collection of full text journals that Lehigh has access including subject areas of economics, history and philosophy. Generally the holdings of individual journals are from its starting date to within 3 to 5 years of the current calendar year.
  8. Lexis Nexis Academic. Provides full text of journals, newspapers, and wire services. It also has full text legal materials such court decisions, legislation and regulations. It is available via the Web.
  9. New York Times (Historical Newspapers). Covers from 1851 to 2000. Use this in conjunction the New York Times for full coverage.
  10. The New York Times index. FM-1-INDEX. Indexes the New York Times. The volumes cover from 1851 to 2000.
  11. PAIS International (public affairs). Good source for information on government and public policy issues.
  12. Poole's index to periodical literature 050/P82/FM-1-Ref/Mini-Linderman. Coverage is from 1802-1882
  13. Research Library. Indexes a broad spectrum of journals including some scholarly ones. Some journals are available full text.
  14. Social Sciences Index. 050/I61a (Located in the stacks). Covers the social sciences including economics. Coverage is from 1974 to 1994 and only available in print.
  15. Web of Science and Knowledge. This resource covers the sciences, social sciences including business, the arts and humanities.
Statistical Information
  1. Datapedia of the United States, 1790-2000 : America year by year. Lanham, MD : Bernan Press, c1994. 317.3/K96d/FM-1-Ref. Good source for statistics.
  2. Historical statistics of the United States. 317.3/U58h/1976/FM-1-Ready Reference. This reference contains information from 1790 to 1970. It is available in print if you have problems with the web version. This has statistics dating back to 1790 and some prior to that date.
  3. Statistical view of the United States ... [electronic resource] : being a compendium of the seventh census . This is a good source for statistics ca. 1850 with some dating back to colonial times
World Wide Web
Using a search engine, e.g., Google, you will find information that may be useful.  Examples are government, associations, and companies.   They provide facts, figures, and reports that may be important to your research.  There are multi-search engines that makes searching the Web more efficient.  Dogpile.com is an example of these multi-search engines.  Remember: anyone can put up a web page with information. Is the information on the web page reliable ? So always question the source of the Web page. Examples of the resources include:
  1. Association of Business Historians. Its URL is http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/abh/#updates.
  2. Two web sites that maybe useful are the History of Economics Society and the WEBEC (World Wide Web Resources in Economics).
  3. There is another site related to the WEBEC site. It is the Resources for Economists on the Internet maintained by Bill Goffe, University of Southern Mississippi.

The one advantage of the web sites is that they have links to additional web sites that may help in your research.

Additional Resources
These resources may assist in locating information for your projects:
  1. American Periodicals Series Online This has full text content from periodicals and journals from 1740-1900.
  2. America's Newspapers. This has full text content of over 650 U.S. newspapers with the back runs varying for each title.
  3. Associations Unlimited. Good resource to locate historical information, e.g. maps, diaries.
  4. Early American Imprints: 1659-1800 Full text of articles and other material written in the 17th and 18th Centuries
  5. Early American Imprints: 1801-1819 Full text of articles and other material written in the early 19th Century
  6. Encyclopedia Britannica is available to provide background information on a topic.
  7. Oxford Reference Online Good source for information, definitions and related informaiton on a variety of topics.
  8. Project Muse Scholarly Journals Online
  9. United States Government Manual. Washington: GPO. 353.04/U58ua/FM-1-REF
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