International Encyclopedia of Public Policy. [Shafritz] 4v. 1998
Includes articles on Interest Groups and Lobbying and concepts related to public policy.

Encyclopedia of American Public Policy. 1999
Entries arranged alphabetically under key concepts or issues such as agriculture, civil rights, commerce & transportation, education, energy, health, and labor.

Public Policy Dictionary. 1987
Entries arranged alphabetically within the topics of nature, formulation, implementation, types, evaluation, and impact of public policy.

Elections A to Z. 1999
Includes articles on Interest Groups and Polical Action Committees.

Guide to Political Campaigns in America. [CQ] 2005

• See article on "Interest Groups", pp.199 ff.
• Provides brief historical background on interest groups and PACs, activities & resources, strategies & decision making, and impact
• Includes an extensive bibliography of resources from books, journals, newspapers, and Web sites

Guide to Congress. [CQ] 2v. 2008
See "Lobbying", pp.805 ff.

Guide to the Presidency. [CQ] 2v. 2008
See "The President and Interest Groups", pp.1035 ff.

Public Interest Group Profiles, 2006-2007 [Congressional Quarterly]
Covers over 200 of "America's most influential public affairs groups" and their contact information, mission, membership, budget, publications, political orientation, PAC, current concerns, and effectiveness as determined by "third-party sources".

Encyclopedia of Associations
Lists over 23,000 nonprofit American organizations, including contact information, Web address, membership, budget, publications and a brief description of their focus. Arranged by topic with an alphabetical index.

Ref
HS17
G322

Encyclopedia of Associations: Regional, State, and Local Organizations
Lists over 129,000 U.S. nonprofit organizations, including contact information, Web address, membership, budget, publications, national affilations, and descriptions of their focus. Arranged by city and state with alphabetical and keyword indexes.

Idealist.org: Action Without Borders
http://www.idealist.org/
Select an AREA OF FOCUS. Can select further by country, state, or local.

Yahoo: Issues & Causes
http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Issues_and_Causes/
To find the home pages of organizations arranged by their primary cause, click on an issue or cause of interest, then on the link for Organizations.

Advocacy Group Spending in the Elections
http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/index.asp
Includes major 501(c)s, 527s, non-federals, and PACs that have contributed to the 2004 - 2008 campaigns, identifying issues of concern and amounts contributed.

FactCheck [Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania]

• Mission of this site is "to monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases." - from the Web site
• Provides summary and analysis of "hot" issues that are currently being addressed by politicians with links to statistical and news sources that support the analysis
• Archives go back to December 2003

University of Michigan Documents Center Web Directories on Elections

• For each election year, 2004, 2006, 2008, check the section on Campaign for links to sites on campaign advertisements, lobby groups, lobby group ratings and media coverage
• The section on Policy Issues leads to some interest groups that support or oppose issues such as abortion, affirmative action, energy, environment, gay marriage, and gun control

For additional sites, check:

• Stanford University has a collection of presidential candidate ads for 2008, 2004, and 2000
• Swift Boat Veterans ads drew a lot of attention for the image that they portrayed of Kerry in 2004

Stateline.org

• Up-to-date news stories on "hot" issues in state policy and politics
• Searchable by state or by issues such as crime, economy, education, environment, health care, social policy, and transportation
• Legislative Review section provides summaries of current activity in state legislatures on issues
• Complementing the Legislative Review section, the Backgrounder section provides background legislative activity covering the last few years on issues such as immigration, same-sex marriage, death penalty, and stem cells
• Visit the State public policy resources bibliography for additional information sources

National Conference of State Legislatures

• Identifies issue areas of interest at the state and national level, providing a wealth of information on each topic including current news, statistics, and charts comparing laws state-by-state
• Great starting place for an overview of "hot" issues such as stem cell research, internet privacy, welfare reform, immigration, No Child Left Behind, among others

Public Agenda Online:The Inside Source for Public Opinion & Policy Analysis

• Nonpartisan briefing on policy issues, supplemented by polling data, and a list of concerned PACS and advocacy groups
• Click on Issue Guides on the menu bar for a list of "hot" issues overviews that include facts, trends & statistics, pros & cons, major players, and public opinion
  • Links to related sources of information on an issue such as polling organizations

Politics1: Online Guide to Hot Issues & Debates

• Links to political organizations arranged by political ideology: Right, Left, Libertarian, Radical
• Interest groups listed under issues such as campaign & political reform, environment, foreign relations, health care, and immigration

Project Vote Smart

• Click on Issues and Legislation on the menu bar on the left of the screen. Next click on Issue and Interest Group Ratings. Choose an issue from the drop-down menu and search to see organizations that are concerned with the issue.
  

Congress.org [Capitol Advantage]

• Check http://congress.org/congressorg/issuesaction/organization/ to identify organizations that are posting action alerts on legislative issues. Search for organizations or action alerts by issue area.
  

Political Information.com: A Search Engine for Politics & Policy

• Identify issues using the search screen on the home page. Click on http://www.politicalinformation.com/links/Issues/ to identify interest groups by issue.
  

SpeakOut.com: Politics, Activism, Political Issues, Government, and Elections
http://speakout.com/
Click on Activism Center topics or the Issues tab to read about current issues before Congress.

Open CRS:Congressional Research Reports for the People

• Prepared by staff of the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service and are intended to provide an overview of the legislative topics being addressed by the U.S. Congress
• Intended to provide fact-rich, unbiased, non-technical background information on policy issues
• Web site allows keyword searching of and provides summaries for over 8,000 CRS Reports that are available through various repositories sponsored by organizations such as National Council on Science and the Environment, Federation of American Scientists, and Thurgood Marshall Law Library at University of Maryland School of Law
• zFacts is another service that provides access to about 16,000 research reports.
• University of North Texas Libraries includes CRS reports back to 1990.
  

Advocacy and Public Policy Making [Penn State University and others]

• Project supported by NSF to track the effects of advocacy groups and lobbying on policymaking.
• Each issue accompanied by an overview, and the surrounding federal agency and organizational activities, legislation regarding the issue, and media coverage.
  

Yahoo: Issues & Causes

• Lists groups by cause
  
  

Health Care Policy and Politics A to Z. [CQ] 2000
Profiles government agencies, nonprofits, and congressional committees that influence health care policy. Brief summaries of current laws that impact health care issues, including Americans with Disabilities Act, COBRA, embryo research, Medicaid, Medicare, and HMOs.

Yahoo!News: Politics

The NewsCenter: Politics [Gary Price]
Scroll down page to view links to documents from Congress, House of Representatives and Senate.

Academic Search [Ebsco]
Search for citations, abstracts and some full text articles from magazines and journals in various disciplines including Political Science, Law and History. Note: The truncation symbol in this database is *. For example, environment* = environment, environments, environmental

• Search Academic Search [Ebsco] and Social Sciences Abstracts [Ebsco] together by going into Academic Search , and selecting the appropriate databases using the dropdown menu and clicking on [Submit].Then click on the Advanced Search tab and on the resulting screen, type in the full name of an organization (no abbreviations) or an issue. Academic Search indexes scholarly (peer-reviewed) journals, news magazines, and the New York Times.
• Social Sciences Abstracts indexes a broad selection of journals in the Social Sciences.

LexisNexis Academic
For Major Newspapers: Under Search, click on Power Search. Next to Sources, select US Newspapers & Wires from the drop-down menu. Provides full text of major newspapers including New York Times (1980 - ) and Washington Post (1977 - ) and Baltimore Sun (last 6 months only).

• Click on show options to select specific document sections
• Type in appropriate topic next to the word Terms
• Select HLEAD to search for your words in the article title and lead paragraph
• Click on the blue button - Add to Search
• Specify date, as desired, by selecting from the drop-down menu below the search term box
• Once you get a list of results, Sort by Relevance to change the arrangement of results so that the "best" articles are listed first, instead of the "most current".

Note: Search for organizations by both the full name of the organization and its initials, connecting the two forms by the word 'or'. (e.g. pirg or public interest research groups).

Note: The truncation symbol in this database is !. For example, environment! = environment, environments, environmental

For State/Local Newspapers & News Services: For full text of U.S. newspapers, click on Sources. Select United States. Select appropriate state. Select News folder.

• Select state news folder.
• Click on show options to select specific document sections
• Select HLEAD to search for your words in the article title and lead paragraph
• Search for organizations by both the full name of the organization and its initials, connecting the two forms by the word 'or'. (e.g. pirg or public interest research groups).

NOTE: The truncation symbol in this database is !. For example, environment! = environment, environments, environmental, etc.

Note: Probably the best place to look for articles about state organizations and their activities, as it provides full text of newspapers from across the country. However, use National Newspapers database to check The Sun back to 1990.

National Newspapers
Provides full text of 5 newspapers including The Sun (Baltimore) (1990- ), Christian Science Monitor (1988- ), New York Times (1851- ), Wall Street Journal (1984- ), and Washington Post (1987- ).

Note: The truncation symbol in this database is *. For example, environment* = environment, environments, environmental, etc.

Note:To limit a search to The Sun (Baltimore), from the main search screen, click on select multiple databases next to the words News - Proquest Newspapers, deselect Proquest Newspapers, select The Sun.

Note: To search multiple papers, such as The Sun (Baltimore) and the Washington Post, from the main search screen, click on the words select multiple databases. Uncheck Proquest Newspapers, check off the Washington Post and The Sun. Click on Continue and type in your search topic.