Topic Exploration and Background Info - CHEM 360 / COLL 300 - Scaling Sustainability - Research Guides at Swem Library, William & Mary

Search the W&M Libraries Catalog

Google Books

Google has scanned lots of books which are available to you online - snippets unless the book is in the public domain.

Find an overview report or background information

Instead of diving right into the article literature, try seeing if there's an overview report available.

CRS - Congressional Research Reports Collection at UNT
The U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) is where Members of Congress turn for confidential, nonpartisan research and analysis on a range of issues. A number of libraries and non-profit organizations have sought to collect as many of the released reports as possible. UNT's collection is a centralized utility that brings together these collections to search.
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
Journalist's Toolbox
Supported by the Society of Professional Journalists, the Journalist's Toolbox lists web sites to go to for background information on current issues and more general reference sites for topics such as public records, expert sources, and statistics. Formerly housed by the American Press Institute.
Journalists' Resource
Vox Science and Health

Searching the Library Catalog

Searching for recent books in the library catalog can get you a decent overview of a topic before jumping into the article literature and can show you useful subject headings to use in future searches. The video below, though made for an earlier version of the catalog, can still give you a refresher on how to search.