Welcome to your library guide to POL 220: US Public Policy! I designed this guide with your research needs in mind, especially as you tackle your policy history paper. Be sure to spend some time exploring what's here!
If you need a refresher on using the library, consult our Library FAQs and an overview of the Library. We also have a guide on how to do research well - use it to brush up and expand your research skills! Finally, we also have a guide on how to cite sources.
Newspapers are an EXCELLENT source for tracing policy histories. If you search for newspapers online, however, you often hit paywalls. Fortunately, you can access that exact same content - for free - through the library! Use the databases below to access full text of newspapers. The databases are updated constantly, so you'll even find today's papers already in the databases.
We have a number of primary source and other resources that might be useful, depending on your topic. Browse the databases below to see what might fit.
Here are the slides from our library session.
You'll be able to access many government documents online, although it gets a little trickier the farther back you go, as not everything has been digitized. These resources will point you to on legislation at both the federal and state levels.
Georgetown Law Library has an excellent guide to finding government documents and legislative histories (although note that we have access to some - but not all - of the resources mentioned on that guide.)
You can also search the Gustavus Library catalog for other government documents, both in print and online. We're a selective Federal Repository Library (and scroll to the bottom of this page for more links on finding government documents).
Federal
State
If you're researching state-level policies, here are some relevant sites for the state of Minnesota. If you're working on a different state, search for these same kinds of resources from your state.
Consult our Guide for Law for more ways to search. If you are looking primarily for US Supreme Court cases, you can also consult the research guide for POL 390: Constitutional Law.
