NYU Journalism Toolbox (Bobst Library)

Getting Started

• New York City Buildings: Research Guide
  Provides sources for finding info about NYC buildings. Please note that this is a guide from the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University. For non-web resources, you’ll need to search BobCat to see if NYU owns a copy.

• NYC Department of Buildings
  Contains statistics, codes, and other reference materials for buildings in NYC.
• Jack Brause Real Estate Library
  Part of NYU, the library contains materials on all aspects of the real estate industry, from finance and investment, to development, management, and economics. Resources include industry forecasts, property ownership, zoning laws and maps, mortgage banking, retail leasing trends, real estate investment trusts, or even job hunting. Open to the public.
• Dictionary of Architecture and Construction (NYU Reference 1 NA31 .H32 2000 Non-circulating)
  Provides definitions of terms.

Building Codes

• NYC Construction Codes

Building Violations

• NYC Department of Buildings
  Provides general info about violations
• ECB Violation Reference Guides, I & II
  Provides explanations of Environmental Control Board violations.
• NYC Buildings Information System
  Find violations, property profiles, safety reports, inspections, equipment tracking (includes elevators), and more. **NOTE: You’ll need the building’s address in order to search.

Building Safety/Design Post 9/11

• National Institute of Standards and Technology and the WTC
  Contains reports and recommendations that were the result of a 3-year investigation of the WTC collapse.
• United States Fire Administration
  Part of FEMA, the USFA provides safety tips, as well as fire statistics.
• Occupational Safety & Health Administration: Safety and Health Topics
• NYC Fire Department Training Bibliography
  Contains links to useful sources about fire safety, emergency procedures, etc.
• FEMA

Information About a Contractor, Company, etc.

• Virtual Business Library: Company and Financial Information

Finding articles

• LexisNexis
  See LexisNexis posting for search tips.
• Factiva
• Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
• Wilson OmniFile Mega FullText
  Includes the database “Applied Science and Technology”; useful for an engineering perspective.

Need access to the AP Daybook outside of the Journalism Dept? Access it via Factiva from any location.

Here’s how:

• Go to Factiva
• Enter the following statement in the free text search box: ny day schedule
• Be sure to UNCHECKMARK the “Obituaries, Sports, Calendars” box in the Exclude from area.
• Select a date; use “in the last day” for today’s schedule

News Media Yellow Book REF6 PN 4899 .W304 N49
Directory of “who’s who among reporters, writers, editors, and producers in national news media” (newspapers, networks, television stations, programs, magazines, etc.) Includes contact information. Also includes non-US media.

NYU Expert Contacts

• Experts at NYU from the Office of Public Affairs
• Office of Public Affairs Press Contacts
• Some individual departments have their own contacts
  • SCPS Experts Directory “offers journalists an online guide to the expertise of current faculty and administrators. These experts can provide comment on a wide range of topics related to adult and continuing education and New York’s signature industries – business, real estate, finance, hospitality, tourism, film, publishing, the arts, and more.”
  • Stern Resources for Journalists
  • Steinhardt Faculty By Expertise
  • Wagner Faculty Experts for the Media
  • Try browsing the faculty section within a specific department and look at faculty research to identify potential experts.

Getting Started: Reference Sources

• Quick Reference Sources
  Lists useful reference sources by category (ex. biographies, directories, etc.). Many are [NYU-Only].
• CQ Public Affairs [NYU-ONLY]
  Provides in-depth reporting on issues. Great for covering controversial topics.
• Fedstats
  Topical gateway to statistics collected by the government.

Finding Biographical Info

• Ancestry Library[NYU-Only]
  Provides basic info (addresses, birth/death dates), etc. for individuals in the US. Draws from census and other mailing directories.
• Marquis Who’s Who [PRINT]
  These guides provide basic biographical information. These can be useful for less well-known field. Numerous Who’s Whos in different fields are published. To find Who’s Who, search for Who’s Who as a title in Bobcat.
• Biography Resource Center [NYU-Only]
  Provides access to articles and full-text entries for individuals. (Better for well-known people.)

Finding News

• LexisNexis [NYU-Only]
  For more LexisNexis search tips see the LexisNexis post.
• Factiva [NYU-Only]
  Like LexisNexis, Factiva covers tons of news sources. There is overlap, but Factiva tends to be better on the trades.
  • TIPS–Use the hlp command to tell it to find your keywords in the Headline Lead Paragraph Ex. hlp=nolita
  • Click on Custom to see all of the searchable field abbreviations.
  • Use the Region menu to limit your search to sources/articles identified with that region.
• EthnicNewsWatch[NYU-Only]
  Includes ethnic newspapers. Note some newspapers may be non-English.

Getting Started: Reference Books

• Bobst Library has a number of books on New York City, New York City neighborhoods, and ethnic groups in New York City. Most books are in the 1st floor Reference area at the call number F 128.

Finding New York News

• LexisNexis –New York News Sources [NYU-Only]
  This pre-defined category searches the New York Post, Village Voice, New York Magazine, New York Times, Crain’s New York Business, and more. For more LexisNexis search tips see the LexisNexis post.
• Factiva [NYU-ONLY]
  Like LexisNexis, Factiva covers tons of news sources. There is overlap, but Factiva tends to be better on the trades. (Factiva also includes Time Out which is not included in LexisNexis.)
  • TIPS–Use the hlp command to tell it to find your keywords in the Headline Lead Paragraph Ex. hlp=nolita
  • Click on Custom to see all of the searchable field abbreviations.
  • Use the Region menu to limit your search to sources/articles identified with that region.
• EthnicNewsWatch[NYU-Only]
  Includes ethnic newspapers from NYC communities. Note some newspapers may be non-English. Sources include: El Diario, El Prensa, New York Jewish Weekly, India in New York, New Voice of New York, etc.
• Gotham Gazette
  Includes “New York City News and Policy” articles as well as links to tons of NYC resources.
  • Check out the Links Section (lower left side bar) for links to Org(anizations) and News Sites (local weeklies, non-English press, etc.)
  • Click on Manhattan in the Boros section to find out more about neighborhood resources. NYC Blogs are also listed.

Neighborhood Information

• Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit: Community Boards (available via the NYC.gov site)
  Use this to identify your community board. Lists contacts, as well as websites (when a board has a website).

• Department of City Planning (available via the NYC.gov site)
  Use the Reference area to identify your community district and get a statistical community district profile. Use Projects and Proposals to see what projects are in the pipe.
• InfoShare
  Provides more in-depth statistics for neighborhoods including immigration stats. Search by neighborhood, zipcode or community district number.
• My Neighborhood Statistics
  Allows you to visualize land-use, as well as data for a neighborhood. See where post-offices, schools, etc. are located in your neighborhood.
• EveryBlockNYC
  Combines news stories, civic information (building permits, restaurant closings, complaints, etc), and web content (photos from flickr) by location. Search for your neighborhood to see what’s going on.
• Search BobCat for books
  • Search by the neighborhood’s name ex. Fort Greene
  • Select “Subject Heading (LCSH)” from the pull-down menu
  • Click on a subject heading to see the titles NYU owns
• Check out your neighborhood branch of the public library
  Click on the Map on the left sidebar to find branches in your neighborhood. Branch libraries often have information about the neighborhood they serve.

Immigration/Ethnic Groups in a Community

• Newest New Yorkers 2000: Immigrant New York in the New Millennium from the NYC Department of City Planning, Population Division. Access via the Index to Current Urban Documents (NYU-ONLY). Once in the database, search for “Newest New Yorkers”.
• Search BobCat for books
  • Try a subject heading search for Immigrants–New York (State)–New York OR the specific ethnic group, ex. East Indians–New York (State) –New York
• Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs
  Includes a directory of services for immigrants in NYC (including associations, etc.)
• IPA-NY -IndyPress
  Includes Voices that Must Be Heard series (which includes translated articles) and a link to a map of Ethnic Press in NYC.

Getting Started: Useful Reference Sources
Most of these titles are located in the Reference section on the 1st floor of Bobst.

• Literary journalism : a biographical dictionary of writers and editors / Edd Applegate. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1996. [Ref 1 PN4820.A66 1996]
  Includes biographies, chronologies, and major publications of writers and editors who fall into the literary journalism category.
• Historical dictionary of war journalism / Mitchel P. Roth ; James S. Olson, advisory editor. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1997. [Ref 1 PN4784.W37 R68 1997] (also available electronically)
• The American Historical Association’s guide to historical literature / general editor, Mary Beth Norton ; associate editor, Pamela Gerardi. 3rd ed. New York : Oxford University Press, c1995. [Ref 1 Z6201 .A55]
  Useful for identifying core historical works. Organized by region/country/time period. Use the subject index (Vol 2) to locate concepts, etc.

Topical Encyclopedias

• Encyclopedia of war crimes and genocide / Leslie Alan Horvitz and Christopher Catherwood. New York : Facts on File, c2006. [Ref HV6322.7 .H67 2006]Topical entries include further references; great for definitions.
• Encyclopedia of genocide / Israel W. Charny, editor in chief ; forewords by Desmond M. Tutu and Simon Wiesenthal Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, c1999. [Ref 1 HV6322.7 .E53 1999]
  Organized thematically; includes some primary source documents.
• Identify an encyclopedia:
  • Search BobCat using the keyword search
  • Search for your topic (in title) AND encyclopedia (in title)

Finding Books

Use BobCat to find books.

TIPS for searching BobCat
For topics, go in through the “back door”

• Go to Keyword Search
• Search for your keywords (in title)
• Once you find a relevant title, see what subject headings have been assigned to it.
• Click on those subject headings to further your researchLooking for info about a journalist/author/person?
• Go to Phrase Search
• Enter the author’s name in reverse order
• Select Subject(LCSH) from the pull-down menu.

Finding Scholarly Articles

• America: History and Life (1964 to present) AND Historical Abstracts (1973 to present)
  Great for getting the historian’s perspective. Search the two databases together.
• PAIS (Public Affairs International Service) (1972 to present)
  Scholarly articles with an international affairs/political science p.o.v.
• Communication and Mass Media Complete (1915 to present)
  Includes scholarly and popular articles examining media from a cultural, critical perspective. Good resource if you’re looking for analysis of coverage of an event.
• Modern Language Association Bibliography (1884 to present)
  This database tends to be used more for lit topics, but can be useful for finding critical analysis on authors/journalists.
  

Finding Translated News/News in English

• World News Connection (1995-present)
  Offers translated and English language news and information that is provided to the National Technical Information Service by the Open Source Network (formerly Foreign Broadcast Information Service). Compiled from non-United States media sources, covers political, environmental, scientific, technical, and socioeconomic issues and events. Contains information derived from full-text and summaries of newspaper articles, conference proceedings, television and radio broadcasts, periodicals, and non-classified technical reports.

• Foreign Broadcast Information Service Index (1975-1996)
  The predecessor to WorldNewsConnect, it is an index to the FBIS extracts of news from the world press (in English). Information from foreign radio, television, news agency transmissions, newspapers, books and periodicals. Foreign language items are translated, English language items are transcribed. Actual FBIS documents are in microform on LL2.
• Factiva
  • Includes both English and non-English newspapers and newswires. Covers more languages than LexisNexis.
  • Supports non-roman character searching
  • Search by Region (Country) to see all of the stories about that country/region; includes stories from all sources (English and non-English).
  • Search by Sources to identify and search sources from a specific region/country.
  • Be sure to change languages to ALL Languages if you want to pick up non-English. (The default is English.)

  Access World News
  

  • Includes over 600+ U.S.news sources and 700+ international news sources—newspapers and wires.
  • English-only.
  • Provides a convenient map for browsing news sources from a country or region.

Finding Historical Coverage of Events in Newspapers

Finding Polls

• See Poll Posting for general polling resources.
• Pollster.com
  Tracks, aggregates, and analyzes political polls. Links to additional political polling resources and agencies.

Analysis of Polls

• National Council on Public Polls: Election Results
  Includes an analysis of how accurate the polls were for previous elections.

Campaign Finance

• OpenSecrets.org
• CQ Politics

News and Analysis

• LexisNexis 2008 Campaign News
  [NYU-Only]
• CQ Weekly [NYU Only]
  Provides non-partisan analysis of Capitol Hill.
• Politico.com

Fact-Checking

• FactCheck.org: Annenberg Political Fact Check
• The Fact Checker: Washington Post
• PolitiFact
  A partnership between the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly

Debates, etc.

• YouTube You Choose ‘08
• CNN: Election Center 2008
• LexisNexis (for transcripts of non-CNN hosted debates)
  Search Transcripts