POL Dept. Orientation

Libraries:

• See a map of campus libraries
• Find library study spaces and request a locker in Firestone
• Navigate Firestone: click the "Where to find it" link or map pin  in catalog records for a map to each item's location

Access print collections

• You can access the stacks directly, request books for pick-up, or request digitization of articles/chapters from our print collection. To request an item for pick-up or digitization, click the blue “Request" button in the catalog record. 

Borrowing privileges

• Grads get academic year loans for most materials in Firestone & East Asian; semester for most others (loan periods for graduate students)
• All items can be renewed online through your library account

Requests

• Place a request through the catalog for books which are checked out or in offsite storage (ReCAP). Items come in 1-4 days, depending on location
• Use Borrow Direct for books the Library doesn't own. Items come in 3-4 days
• Use Interlibrary Loan for books not available in Borrow Direct or other item types (DVDs, journals, microforms)
• Use Article Express for electronic delivery of articles, conference papers, book chapters, etc.

Printing privileges

• Graduate students are allotted 3600 per year. A sheet is defined as an actual piece of paper. This means that if you print double-sided, you can not only save paper but make the most of your allotted quota. Note: color prints "cost" 3 sheets from your quota.
• OIT has instructions on printing to the PawPrint clusters, which are available in the library and other locations on campus

Data sources

• Annotated library guides to our collections and data sources
  • Politics guide
  • Economics and Finance data guides
  • other subject guides
• Data and Statistical Services microdata catalog
• Research databases 

POL Dissertations

• You can browse POL dissertations in our repository (Note: many recent dissertations are embargoed from digital access)
• You can also access them in print via the catalog

Citation management tools

• Guides to setting up and working with citation management software, especially Zotero

Statistical Services

• Library statistical consulting (we also hire grad students!)
• Training workshops on Stata and R (both live and online tutorials)
• Politics Dept’s statistical consulting service: The Program for Quantitative and Analytical Political Science (Q-APS)

Research Computing and Software

• OIT provides access to a number of major software tools, including Stata, ArcGIS Pro, Adobe Creative Suite (including Acrobat), Mathematica, MATLAB, SAS, SPSS, and more. Some of these are available for installation on faculty/staff computers; others are available to everyone, including students, through the Princeton Virtual Desktop.
• If you need more computing horsepower, request an account on Princeton's Research Computing clusters. If you're not as comfortable with the Unix command line, you can also run RStudio, Stata, Jupyter/Python, and MATLAB through a graphical interface on the web
• Research Computing also provides numerous workshops, tutorials, and office hours for help with computing questions

GIS/Spatial Analysis

• Get an individual consultation with our GIS Librarian, Wangyal Shawa (see link on left to make an appointment)
• Search for GIS datasets in the Map Data Portal
• Attend GIS workshops on campus or get access to an extensive set of online courses by ESRI

Open Access Publishing

• Princeton’s Open Access Publication Fund aims to help Princeton authors, especially graduate students, junior faculty, and researchers in the humanities and social sciences, underwrite publication charges when publishing in fee-based Open Access publications when no other funding sources are available.
• Cambridge & Wiley Read & Publish OA agreements
  • These agreements allow Princeton University corresponding authors to publish their work as Open Access articles without paying the typical Author Processing Charge (APC). You can publish your articles as “gold” open access (meaning the official published version is freely available to anyone in the world) in any of Cambridge or Wiley's broad catalog of political science journals, including the APSR, AJPS, Perspectives on Politics, PS: Political Science & Politics, IO, Review of Politics, Political Analysis, BJPS, EJPR, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and more!
  • See here for Cambridge’s submission process. For more in general about Cambridge’s Open Access publishing program, see https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/authors/journals/publishing-open-access.
  • See here for Wiley's OA submission instructions
  • Princeton doesn't have a specific policy on selecting a CC-license; choose the one that best meets your needs. My library colleagues have provided additional information here: https://libguides.princeton.edu/OpenAccessSupport, including details on similar agreements with ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), and PLoS (Public Library of Science).

Research Data Management

• Get tools and training on creating data management plans and archiving data

Off-campus access to electronic resources

We subscribe to many journals, websites, and other databases (think JSTOR), but most of these resources are currently set up to recognize Princeton users by IP address. When you're off-campus, you won't have access to our subscribed resources. If you have trouble accessing an electronic resource, here are some solutions to try:

• Connect to resources through links on the Library website.
  • Ebooks, databases, journal articles, etc., that are linked to from library.princeton.edu have some code embedded in the links that will prompt you to authenticate with your netID and password and then pass you through a proxy server to the resource. (If you're curious, those links will generally look something like this: https://library.princeton.edu/resolve/lookup?url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/.)
• Use the Zotero connector browser extension to remember proxy links
  • Using this method, you connect through the library the first time you access a resource, and then the extension remembers the proxy link and routes you directly in the future. (Note: there are a handful of resources that don't work via proxy links, so in those cases, use method #3.)
    • After installing Zotero, in your browser click on the Zotero Connector extension and then Options/Preferences>Proxies, and replace %h.example.com/%p with %h.ezproxy.princeton.edu/%p (be sure to leave the %h. and /%p on either end). Then visit a subscribed resource from the library website and Zotero will automatically add the proxy link. See a short video demo. (NOTE: Chrome may pop-up a security warning; click the Ignore button to be routed through the proxy.)
      
• Use the SonicWall VPN to connect to resources
  • The University's primary VPN software, GlobalProtect, will NOT work for accessing most library resources. Our older SonicWall VPN software does. It will make your internet browser look like it's on campus, allowing you to access most of our subscribed resources directly, without having to link through the library's website.
  • Watch a short demo on using SonicWall VPN
• If you're on a publisher's website, check to see if they support OpenAthens authentication. If so, select "Princeton University Library", and it should prompt you to login with your netID and password and then give you access to subscription resources. See more details and examples.
• For easier access (often in one click) to journal articles, install the LibKey Nomad browser extension.

Personal reading and learning

• New York Times (provides mobile app access)
• Washington Post (no mobile app access)
• Wall Street Journal  (provides mobile app access)
• Financial Times: access through www.ft.com. (If not registered go to the SSO signin.) Mobile Devices FAQ.
• Dixon collection of popular fiction and nonfiction ebooks and audiobooks (these titles, both print and e-, are all listed in the catalog)
• As a member of the University, you can get a free Princeton Public Library card
  • Check out Princeton Public Library’s Muesum Pass program to get free tickets to popular museums, many in NYC
• Our Video Library provides a number of language learning materials
• DVDs and sound recordings are listed in the catalog.
• We also have a number of streaming audio and streaming video options, including many documentaries .