PAIS, from the Public Affairs Information Service, provides access to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. It contains references to more than 553,300 journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, microfiche, Internet material, and more. Newspapers and newsletters are not indexed.
PAIS International includes publications from over 120 countries throughout the world. In addition to English, some of the indexed materials are published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Search tips:
- Use the advanced search mode for the most powerful search. Within the advanced search mode you can use Boolean operators which define the relationships between words or groups of words. They are: AND which is used to narrow the search and retrieve records containing all of the words it separates. OR which is used to broaden a search and retrieve records containing any of the words it separates. The | symbol can be used instead of the word OR, for example mice | rats is the same as mice or rats. NOT which is used to narrow a search and retrieve records that do not contain the term following it.
- Truncation can be used in the advanced mode to include all forms of a root word. The * after a word retrieves all possible endings for that root, for example patent* will retrieve patent, patents patentable etc. Using * within a word will find alternative spellings of a word and can stand for an unlimited number of characters. For example, behavi*r retrieves behavior or behavior. For finding only one character use a ?.
Each ? will represent one character. For example carbon fib?? will retrieve carbon fiber or carbon fibre. The ? is useful in restricting the number of possible characters retrieved. - Proximity searches, within the advanced search mode, limit the number of words between your search terms. If you do not use a proximity operator, the search engine assumes you want the words immediately adjacent to one another in the exact order entered. The proximity operator within “x” finds words within a specified radius. For example carbon within 3 fiber retrieves records that contain carbon and fiber in any order and within a three word radius of one another. Near is used to find words within ten words of each other. Before finds words in a specific order, for example social before security, but not necessarily adjacent to each other. After can be used similarly to before, but for the opposite order relationship. Use double quotes to search for the words “near”, “before” or “after” as a term or part of a phrase.
Where is it: Go to the UNLV Libraries' home page http://www.library.unlv.edu. Select the Articles and Databases tab, click on the A-Z List of Databases and then on the letter P and select PAIS.
Quick Link:
http://www.csa.com/htbin/dbrng.cgi?username=lasv7&access=lasv77&db=pais-set-c"