Long Beach City College
Pacific Coast Campus Library
Subject Guide

Terrorism


This handout is compiled by Ramchandran Sethuraman for students in Karen Faulkner's International Business class and others who are interested in this subject.

It is designed to help you begin your research at the LBCC Library and on the World Wide Web. If you need further assistance, please consult a librarian at the Reference Desk during library hours.
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"When in despair I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall."   M. K. Gandhi

In order to understand terrorism in the global context, especially as it relates to India and Pakistan, we must study the history, economy, geopolitics, and cultures of the two countries that have already fought two bloody wars over Kashmir.

Given the interdisciplinary nature of your assignment, the following bibliography brings you resources from history, economics, politics, geography, cartography, and international trade.

FIND REFERENCE BOOKS
In order to get ideas for your research paper, you may want to browse through the following reference book:

Encyclopedia of Terrorism & Political Violence Ref HV 6431 .T56 1987


FIND BOOKS TO CHECK OUT
Voyager, the Library's online catalog, indexes books, pamphlets, and other material by subject, author, title, keyword, and call number.
To search Voyager by subject, enter a term and click on "subject search" in the pull-down menu. Like most American academic libraries, LBCC Library uses Library of Congress subject headings, such as the following:

Terrorism [Subject Heading Search]
Nuclear terrorism [Subject Heading Search]
Political violence [Subject Heading Search]

To search Voyager by keyword, enter essential keywords preceded by the "plus" sign; enter phrase searches in parenthesis, as shown below:

+fanaticism [Keyword Search]
"weapons of mass destruction" [Keyword Search]

To search Voyager by title, enter the title (omitting leading articles, such as "a," "an," "the") and click on "title search" in the pull-down menu, as shown below:

Terrorism: Opposing Viewpoints [Title Search]
Evolution of India and Pakistan, 1848 to 1947 [Title Search]
International Terrorism: National, Regional, & Global Perspectives [Title Search]
Legitimate Use of Military Force Against State-Sponsored International Terrorism [Title Search]
New Terrorism: Fanaticism & the Arms of Mass Destruction [Title Search]
Weapons of Mass Destruction: Opposing Viewpoints [Title Search]


Since LBCC Library has a partnership agreement with CSULB, you may check out books from the University Library. To identify books, search CSULB's online catalog, called Coast, which is accessible over the Web at http://coast.csulb.edu.


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FIND ARTICLES

The Library subscribes to a number of online databases, which are accessible over the World Wide Web, from remote computers or those located in the Library. These databases index and abstract articles, and in some cases, provide the full text, enabling you to print a copy at a cost of $.10 per page. Alternatively, you may e-mail a copy of the article to your e-mail address, if you have one, and print it later at home.

The databases that are perhaps the most useful for your assignment are Facts.com, CQ Researcher, ProQuest, and Biography Resource Center. To access the Library's online databases, first point your browser to the Library’s homepage at http://lib.lbcc.edu. Click on the button labeled “Online Databases.” You will see a list of databases available for searching. Click on the database you want to search. If you are accessing the databases remotely from your home or office, you will be prompted for a user name and password. You may obtain a list of the current user names and passwords from a librarian at the Reference Desk.

To become proficient in database searching, the librarians recommend that you attend the free, drop-in workshops, offered this summer on Thursday from 1:30 to 3 pm in Room L208 (the Open-Access Lab.). There, you will receive individual instruction and hands-on practice.


Facts.com
This database brings together complete content from the Facts on File World News Digest and other sources to answer questions about events, issues, statistics, and people of the last 20 years.

Sample search
Indian Parliament Attack December 13, 2001


ProQuest
ProQuest covers literature published in newspapers, magazines, trade journals, and scholarly journals. The basic search allows you to search for keywords and combine keywords with the following connecting words (known as Boolean operators): AND, OR, NOT.

Sample basic search
terrorism and Kashmir

The guided search allows you to use fields to focus your search on a specific piece of information. Sample fields are subject, author, publication name, and article type.

Sample guided search
terrorism [Subject]
Pakistan [Geographic]
Musharraf, Pervez [Personal name]


Selected business magazines and newspapers
Shelved alphabetically by title in the Periodicals Room
Business Week
The Economist
Far Eastern Economic Review
Forbes
Global Finance
Money
Publish Wall Street Journal
Wired


FIND WEB SITES

Google is a powerful search engine equipped with technological innovations that retrieve the most relevant results to any query. Google has a huge database--2 billion fully indexed Web documents. To access Google, go to http://www.google.com. To enter a query, type in descriptive words and press “enter” or click on the Google search button. Since Google is designed to retrieve pages that include all of your search terms, there is no need to include “and” between them. Following is a sample Google search:
terrorism Pakistan


Librarians' Index to the Internet (LII) is an annotated subject directory of Internet Resources. To access this site, go to http://www.lii.org. Select a search category or enter your search terms, such as "terrorism."

Selected Web Sites
The LBCC librarians have selected many useful Web sites, related to topics frequently researched by students. They are accessible from the Library’s homepage at http://lib.lbcc.edu. Click on “Internet Resources,” then click on "Hot Topics," and then on "Terrorism." (Note: Information on the Web is extremely dynamic, and some of the links may be “dead”--that is, they may no longer work.)

When selecting additional Web sites for research, consult Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources. This page, prepared by UCLA librarian Esther Grassian, presents an excellent set of criteria for evaluating the authority and reliability of Web sites.


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E-mail questions and comments to rsethuraman@lbcc.edu
Ramchandran Sethuraman, Ph.D., Pacific Coast Campus Library
http://lib.lbcc.edu/seth/terrorism.html
Last updated: August 1, 2002