One resides on the main floor in Reference and the other in the basement in Public Documents and Maps . Each provides access to political reference material of all kinds. The Finding Background Information section of the Library Guide to Research provides an excellent introduction to finding reference sources. In addition, librarians in Perkins have been compiling research guides of selected reference works to assist in your research. Other research guides are available from Public Documents and Maps and Reference .
Reference material is, in general, background material.
The notable exception to this generalization is statistical resources. Use reference sources to start the search and gather basic information. Don't forget that an excellent reference resource is the reference librarian. This site combines reference databases to which the library subscribes with links to free sites offering factual information. Indexes and Databases Databases and indexes provide access to a wealth of information in periodically published sources, namely magazines, newspapers and journals.