Starting Points - Countries

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Starting Points: Guide to Countries

REFERENCE BOOKS - Available for your use in the library, these books cannot be checked out.

R 031 Wor	The World Book Encyclopedia	An excellent source of country information.
R 306 Cul	Culturegrams	Focus on history, lifestyles customs and morés of the world’s nations.
R 310.58 Sta	The Statesman's Yearbook	Politics, cultures & economies of each nation; international organizations & agencies; weekly round-up of major events for the preceding year.
R 310.58 Wor	World Factbook (At Reference Desk)	The CIA's facts & statistics on each nation. (See the online version below under Web Sites).
R 903 Wor	Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations	Detailed information in 49 categories from “Location, Size and Extent” to “Famous” Natives of the profiled nation.
R 910.3 Col	Columbia Gazetteer	The world’s cities, places, regions, provinces, oceans, rivers, parks, mountain ranges, nuclear plants, military bases, etc. 40,000 U.S. entries.
R 910.3 Eur	Europa World Year Book	Statistics and contact information for governmental, religious, financial, judicial, publishing, transportation and other institutions of a given country.

FINDING BOOKS AND OTHER LIBRARY MATERIALS/ Dewey Decimal browsing numbers: 310.58, 910.3

In addition to reference books, you may want to search for other books and materials (videos, audiobooks, etc.) on your topic. The best way to find good sources of information is to do a subject search in our Library catalog. You can access the Library’s online catalog from the Library or home by going to our Web page (www.wppl.org), then to Search Our Catalog. Good subject headings for this topic are the names of countries: Iraq; Sweden; France; etc.

eBOOKS

You may also want to check out the collection of thousands of online books (eBooks) the Library has to offer located on the Web site www.netlibrary.com. Initially, you must open an account from Library computer terminals, but you will then be able to use the account from home as well. See a reference librarian for more details.

FINDING ARTICLES

The following sources can be used to find magazine articles dealing with your topic:

· The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature - Adult Reference R 050 R Search for articles on a subject within any given year.
· EBSCOhost and InfoTrac OneFile - Access from the Library or at home using your library card number at www.wppl.org.

Search for full text articles on these online databases using your choice of keywords. You can limit your search to a certain year or even a certain magazine.

WEBSITES

The following Web sites give detailed information – government, economy, geography, climate, population, etc - about the countries of the world.
Countries A to Z	http://www.atlapedia.com/online/country_index.htm
Country Reports	www.countryreports.org
Infoplease Countries	www.infoplease.com/countries.html
The Economist – Country Briefings	www.economist.com/countries
Law Library of Congress – Nations	http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/nations.html
Nations Online Project	www.nationsonline.org
U S Department of State’s Countries and Regions	http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn
World Factbook	www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook
Yahoo Countries	http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries
Yahoo Governments	http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/Countries
Of related interest:
Ethnologue: Languages of the World	http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp
The United Nations	www.un.org

See also, the Library's International Information links.