Library Catalog

Online Databases

Library Home

Current Issues (Hot Topics)

  Choosing a Topic

Some places to look for topic ideas might be:

• General news magazines, such as Time or Newsweek
• Journals on a specific subject, such as the Phi Delta Kappan (for the field of Education)
• CQ Researcher  Ref H35.C672 (print editions 1996-present)
• CQ Researcher Online  http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher (1991-present)
• Hot Topic web sites

  Books [top of page]

The San Juan College Library is organized using the Library of Congress Classification.  Use the online SJC Library Catalog on the Library web page to search the collection by Subject or Keyword for your topic if you do not already have a book title or author in mind.

Subject Search:  searches for the terms you enter, such as “cloning”, in the Subject field of the bibliographic record.

Keyword Search : searches for the terms you enter in the entire bibliographic record, not just the subject field.   In other words, it may catch the word “cloning” in a title or subject field, as well as a note field describing the book and other fields in the record.  You get a bigger “hit list” with a keyword search, but it may not be as exact.

A number of “hot topics” are the subject of books in series.  You can do a Keyword Search for a series title. The following are some of the series titles that will prove helpful for researching hot topics:

  New Mexico State Documents   [top of page]

Publications from the state of New Mexico and its various agencies provide a wealth of data on various regional and local subjects.   These can be found in the SJC Library in the New Mexico State Documents area of the Reference section.   They are also cataloged in our library catalog, however their call numbers are assigned by the State Library and are not Library of Congress.   Each call number begins with NM.   For example:   the San Juan County Health Profile  Call #: NM H 204.45 S19 999.

Conduct a “Simple Search” in the SJC Library Catalog using the term “New Mexico and (your topic)”.   For example:   "New Mexico" and DWI.

  Journal & Newspaper Articles   [top of page]

To find articles on your topic, indexes to periodicals are a good place to start.   Some of the electronic indexes also provide the full-text of articles.   Our list of electronic indexes can be found in the “Magazine Indexes and Online Databases” section of the SJC Library web page.

Electronic Indexes

Ethnic NewsWatch provides full-text access to over 200 different newspapers from Minority presses, including The Navajo Times and Indian Country Today.

FirstSearch is a collection of over 58 different databases, including over 6 million full-text articles.

NewsBank is a collection of 26 different full-text newspapers, including the Arizona Republic, the Denver Post, and the Santa Fe New Mexican.

ProQuest indexes over 8,000 different magazine and newspaper titles.   Contains full-text of the Albuquerque Journal back to 1998.

Note:  check the Online Resources section of this page for links to online newspapers and news services.

Print Indexes

A list of all the magazines, journals, and newspapers to which the San Juan College Library subscribes can be found in the “Periodical Listing” notebooks near the computers and the Index table in the library.   This list can also be found on the SJC Library web page under the Periodical Collection section.

The print indexes to periodicals (such as the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature) can be found at the Index Table near the periodical back issues in the library.   The Reference Librarians will be glad to assist you in locating periodical articles using these indexes.   Periodical titles which the library does not subscribe to may be requested through InterLibrary Loan.

  Online Resources   [top of page]

There are a number of excellent web sites and online databases that can provide information for research involving current issues.

Hot Topics Web Super Lists

Best Information on the Net   - Hot Paper Topics – St. Ambrose University http://library.sau.edu/bestinfo/Hot/hotindex.htm

Controversial Topics – North Harris College Library, Houston, Texas http://nhclibrary.nhmccd.edu/research/subject/controversial/index.html

Google Directory of Society Issues                                                                  http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Issues

Hot Topics Supersites – San Diego State University                                        http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/guides/hot/supersites.shtml

Hot Topics Websites – Long Beach City College                                                                       http://lib.lbcc.cc.ca.us/sociss.html

Miscellaneous

News Sources and Newspapers

Please visit SJC News Sources for more links.

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Updated 4/03/2007
MSartin