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Brooks Library Research Guides: Military Science
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A series of guides for over 270 countries and territories. These include features, demographics, geography data, interactive world maps, satellite photos, scrollable city images, and links to resources about each country within the Intute database. You can even compare data between countries. You may go straight to the entry for a specific country via the dropdown menu, or you can search for satellite images and features by keyword.
This title now includes over 775 maps, with locator, physical and political maps for each country, over 120 island maps, state maps for North America, Canada, and Mexico, and more than 100 city maps. It is part of a suite of reference materials available through the subscription database Oxford Reference Online. The database is available in full from the CWU library's homepage under "Research" -- "Databases by Title".
For digital collections of original maps, see also the research guide section "Images Online & in Databases".
Print Location: Third Floor, CT213 .A68 1999
American National Biography is a comprehensive biographical dictionary of American history; it contains over 17,500 biographic profiles of historical figures along with a bibliography. The scope of the work is from the earliest recorded European explorations to the very recent past.
Check at the Reference Desk on the First Floor for suggestions on searching for biographies of people from specific cultural groups and people outside of the United States. Another possible place to look is in a Subject Search for ‘Biography’.
Print Location: Ref U52 D53 1984
Biographical essays with a revisionist twist, in that the authors are no longer interested in rehashing the same old tales of heroism or turning points. Rather, these biographies are more inclusive in scope, providing descriptions of the lesser known as well as the famous in an effort to create a more realistic portrait of the American Military. Included in the appendices is a chronology, a listing of rank and units, an index of biographies arranged by the person's place of birth, by conflict and by service.
Print Location: Ref U51 K43 1976
The authors begin with 1453 because, as they see it, this was the start of war with cannons and not just personal firearms. The biographies are arranged alphabetically, not chronologically, and there are great illustrations and photographs of some of these military leaders. There is a glossary and a number of maps at the end.
This site, operated by the Biography Channel, contains tens of thousands of biographies, some quite detailed. Biographical video and short biographical video clips are also available. There is also a page with examples of how to properly cite this site.
Print Location: Ref Q123 .M15 2003
A dictionary thorough in scope and intended for a general audience. A list of scientific fields it covers is provided in the front of the book, and included in these are aerospace engineering, biochemistry, building construction and civil engineering, communications, computer science, electronics, mapping, navigation, and ordnance.
Oxford Reference Online, with over 2 million entries, many of which are illustrated, is a superb cross-searchable resource to use when you are at the 'looking for a clue' or 'needing verification' stages of your research. Oxford Reference provides quality, up-to-date reference content from its extensive series of well-respected books - and unlike Wikipedia you can cite Oxford Reference in a paper!
The Quick Reference materials include information on many Subjects, a series of informative Timelines, a wide variety of Quotations, as well as English Dictionaries, and Bilingual Dictionaries.
The Reference Library is divided into Subject Categories, drawn from the 308 volumes of the Oxford Reference Library. Those categories are:
at this link, and by contacting your friendly neighborhood Brooks Library Librarians.
Notes: The Search Box is in the upper right corner of each Oxford Reference page, with additional options on the left-side and in the center of the page before you scroll down. Most Oxford Reference results pages are scrollable lists of information, and scrolling is worth doing.
There is also an Advanced Search available.
To cite an entry click on the individual entry, the Citation Tool is now visible - it is the 'little pencil' to the right and above the entry that you wish to cite.
Oxford Reference Online is a suite of encyclopedias, dictionaries and reference companions available electronically through Oxford Press. The entire suite is available to the CWU community through the library's Databases by Title page, directly off the library homepage. The Military History section contains the searchable full text to The Oxford Companion to American Military HIstory, A Dictionary of Contemporary World History, The Oxford Companion to Military History, The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military, and The Oxford Companion to World War II.
Cattrax is the online catalog that describes nearly all the materials held by the Brooks Library: books, government documents, maps, microforms, journals, and other items. Below is everything you might want to know about how to use Cattrax - but all you need to know to start searching is summarized in the numbered items and note directly below:
Using Cattrax to find an item in the Brooks Library:
1. Enter a search term – a word, a phrase, whatever – in the search box.
2. Use the drop-down menu to select whether you wish to do a keyword/word search, a title search, a subject search, an author search, or one of the other options. Click 'Search'.
3. Results that are 'relevant' to the search term that you used will be retrieved. Examine the results. Repeat steps 1 through 3 as needed.
*** Note: Information is often described in several different ways; you may need to try a variety of terms before you find ones that provide you with the information you are looking for. And spelling counts.***
More Information about Cattrax:
You can sort the results by 'relevance', date or by title, by clicking on those words below the Search Box.
Click on a title to see a detailed bibliographic record about that title. The ‘bib record’ will contain a variety of additional information about the book: the author, location, call number, often a summary, status, subject terms, etc. Any and all of that information can be important clues.
The ‘bib record’ will also have a link to a location map, two ways to send the information to your mobile phone, a citation tool, and will often have book cover images.
You can also save the ‘bib record’ to either ‘My Lists’ (requires you to use your ‘Library Log-in’) or you can ‘Save to Bag’ and remember to email, save, or print the resulting list of titles before you finish your session with Cattrax.
Once you have saved the useful results of your first search you can perform more searches – perhaps starting by opening the author link, the subject terms (towards the bottom of the ‘bib record’), or the 'Call #', in a new browser tab, or using the search box to start a totally new search using what you have learned so far from your search.
(Note: the books are in Call Number order on the shelves and clicking on the "Call #" will display a list of books in something like 'shelf order', which can help you find some good ideas for searching Cattrax. It is also a good idea to look on the shelves, discovery happens in many ways.)
When you finish your session with Cattrax remember to email, save, or print the ‘Save to Bag’ list of items that you found.
Additional Cattrax Information:
- Note: the “Request” service located in the upper left of a 'bib record' page is only available for Center Campus Students. This is because the Center Campus Students would need to use more than the stairs or the elevator to get the book from the Brooks Library. (If you are a Main Campus student wishing to check out a book in a Center Library please consult the Circulation Desk.)
- The ‘Modify Search’ link at the top of any Cattrax page is almost the same as the ‘Advanced Search’ option. The ‘Modify Search’ option is very useful for narrowing down your list of results. The "Limit/Sort Search" option is a way to narrow your Subject, Author, or Title search results.
- If you have the citation for an article you can select Journal/Serial Title to find out what kind of access (print/digital, which issues/years) we have to a particular journal. We often have access to a journal through more than one database. If you do not succeed in locating the journal or article that you need please consult one of our charming Brooks Library Librarians, or submit a request to our very resourceful Interlibrary Loan Department.
- If your professor said that something you needed to read was 'on Reserve' (the professor may have said 'in the library' or something else roughly equivalent) you can check our Reserved List by searching in Cattrax by course name or by the professor's name.
- Last, but certainly not least, if what you are looking for is not available in Cattrax try repeating your searches in Summit. Summit enables you to search the catalogs of 37 academic libraries in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and request materials owned by those libraries; a courier service provides near-daily delivery of library materials here to Central Washington University.
- Summit Notes: There is usually a three to five day interval between your making a request and receiving the book, DVD, or other item. Summit is part of Worldcat. Each result will have a notation "Libraries that own this item:". Items owned by a Summit member library can be requested by clicking the purple 'Request Summit Item' button. Items owned by a Worldcat Library will need to be requested through Interlibrary Loan.
The book collection is shelved on the 3rd (A-J) and 4th (K-Z) floors of the main campus library and shelved by Library of Congress subject classification. The Government Documents, Maps, and Microforms are on the 3rd floor. The Music Library is on the 4th floor. Our physical journal, magazine, and serials collection is on the 2nd floor. DVDs, video tapes and films are on the 1st floor. Children's Books are on the 4th floor. Cattrax also contains links to a variety of e-books, and links to digital materials located elsewhere.
The Brooks Library has permanent access to 3037 digital books from the EBSCO eBook Collection. EBSCO eBooks are digital full-text versions of books in the areas of:
You can copy and paste from these ebooks, you can access them from off-campus, and you can save portions of them as a pdf.
Summit is the unified library catalog of 37 universities, colleges, and community colleges in the Pacific Northwest. Through Summit you have access to over 9.2 million distinct books, CD’s, DVD’s, and more (that the Summit unified collection is over 28.7 million items virtually assures you of access to a copy of what you want or need). The unified catalog enables you to find with a single search books and other items at any of the 37 member libraries.
(Note: It generally takes between three and five days for a physical item to be sent from one Summit Library to another so please plan ahead.)
In addition to Books, CD’s, DVD’s the Summit Catalog is also one of the many ways that you can locate useful journal articles. In order to find an article through Summit, type a keyword, a subject, or an article title in the Search Box near the top of the Summit page (an ‘Advanced Search’ is also available). Select the “Full text articles” box (next to the Search Box or on the left side of the page). The Results List will be initially sorted by ‘Library & Relevance’, but you can also sort by Author, Title, and Date. Click the title link of the article or the “View Now” or “View Full Text” link to see more of the article and then download a pdf of it. (You can also click “Find It @ Your Library”, select ‘Central Washington University’ and find out what access we have to that article here.)
If the article, book, DVD, CD, etc. that you wish or need to acquire appears to not be available through Summit please consult one of our talented Help Desk Librarians. It is quite possible that we have access to the article through one of our other databases, or that the book, article, etc., can be gotten through Interlibrary Loan.
WorldCat is an essential service run by the imaginatively named Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs.
WorldCat aspires to be a library catalog for the entire world; it contains all the records cataloged by the more than 72,000 OCLC member libraries around the world. WorldCat offers millions of bibliographic records and includes records in 400 languages.
The more than 179 million records cataloged by OCLC member libraries include books, manuscripts, websites and internet resources, maps, computer programs, musical scores, films, slides, videotapes, DVDs, newspapers, journals and magazines, sound recordings, articles, chapters, and papers. The dates covered in WorldCat range from before 1000 BCE to literally earlier today.
The Basic Search is useful when you know precisely what you are looking for. The Advanced Search is the default search and works well for most everyone. There is also an Expert Search available in which you can write your own Boolean Search Expressions.
Assistance is available from WorldCat at this link, and from Brooks Librarians at this link.
Daily updates of the latest in civil and military aviation and space industry news and analysis. Includes selected full-text articles from the print version, plus headlines and links to news from Aviation Daily and Aerospace Daily magazines and nice list of other Web aviation resources.
The World News (WN) Network was founded with the goal of being the most comprehensive, one-stop news resource on the Internet. Currently World News has over 130 million pages indexed covering news about, among many other topics, Film, Sport, Entertainment, Science, Business, Health and every Region on Earth.
World News Network presents news from more than 1000 reputable sources including mainstream providers (BBC, CNN, Reuters, Washington Post, Al Jazeera, etcetera) and more regional and local sources (The Independent, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times of India, etcetera). This aggregation from other sites provides a wide variety of perspectives and different interpretations of breaking news events.
Information is available in two ways through the WN site. News links that open in a new tab go directly to the headlined article on its original site. Links that open in the same tab provide you with a link to the article on its original site, there are also links to the left and elsewhere on the page to information that helps you put the news article in context, as well as links to other version of the story or to related stories.
Finding Scholarly Journal Articles
A scholarly, multi-disciplinary database containing more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed, scholarly journals, and with indexing and abstracting for more than 9,300 journals. Academic Search Complete is an EBSCO database, and like most EBSCO databases it includes a "Choose Databases" link near the top of the page that enables you to search multiple EBSCO databases at the same time (an EBSCO multi-disciplinary database that is good to search at the same time as ASC is "MasterFILE Premier").
If the article whose title and abstract you found is not available in the Academic Search Complete database try clicking on "Search for Full Text". If that option does not provide you with the full-text of the article please consult a librarian or submit an Interlibrary Loan Request. Many articles are readily available in another database or through Interlibrary Loan and we are here to help you get the information you need!
The Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) provides this index of more than 27,000,000 of the articles published since 1990. The articles are from over 16,000 journals, covering nearly all fields of knowledge. The items indexed include every article, news story, letter, or other item listed on the table of contents page of the journal. This database also provides, for most items, a list of libraries that have the journal title – information that makes finding the article in the Brooks Library Collection, or through Interlibrary Loan, much easier.
Please ask the Reference Help Desk, on the 1st Floor of the Brooks Library, or at (509) 963-1021, for any assistance you might wish in searching this index or searching for citations found in the index.
The PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) International database covers a wide range of current and past public policy issues, emphasizing factual and statistical information. Business topics are covered, with emphasis on economic factors, industry surveys, business-societal interactions and similar issues, rather than details of business operations.
The PAIS International database is continually updated with information about over half a million journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more from over 120 countries throughout the world. (Newspapers and newsletters are not usually indexed.) A useful 'Advanced Search' is available, as well as a way to search for Figures & Tables.
PAIS is an index, it does not contain the full text of articles – but you do not care about that until you find a citation for an article you would like to read. When you find citations for possibly useful articles you can search for the full text by doing a Journal Title Search. You can also search for a full text copy through Google Scholar. As always more assistance in acquiring the full text of an article is available at the Reference Desk.
Note: The PAIS database is provided to us by Proquest. In the upper left corner of the PAIS search page there is a link that will say “Searching:1 database”. If you click that link you will see a list of the 9 databases that you can select and search through this interface. In addition to PAIS you can also search:
- ERIC (1966 - current),
- PAIS International (1972 - current),
- Physical Education Index (1970 - current),
- PILOTS: Published International Literature On Traumatic Stress (1871 - current),
- ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I (1639 - current),
- ProQuest Newsstand (1984 - current),
- Social Services Abstracts (1979 - current),
- Sociological Abstracts (1952 - current), and
- The Wall Street Journal (1984 - current).
(Three of these databases are fulltext. The Proquest Sitemap page can provide you with information about some useful options.)
Comprehensive set of links to establishments of the United States and international military, police and intelligence community.
The Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Grants and Training and the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security. The Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) is the nation's premier collection of homeland security policy and strategy related documents.
USA.gov is the U.S. government web portal to all federal, state, tribal, and local government web resources and services. USA.gov is intended to help people navigate government information, procedures, and policies.
Through USA.gov you can apply for benefits online (including grants), contact a government agency or department, or use the most comprehensive search of government websites. You can also search for Government Publications, for information specifically relevant to you, and for contact information for government employees and officials.
Print Location: Ref TK6550 R18 2008
The handbook's focus in on ham radio for amateurs, but it does discuss how radio communications work, electrical fundamentals, antennas, and even technology used for space, the web, wi-fi, and wireless communications. The alternate title to this handbook is "American Radio Relay League Handbook for Radio Communications".
Print Location: Ref D25.A2 M34 2001
Five volumes of alphabetically arranged entries on wars, battles, and those people(s) connected to military history. What it doesn't look like it contains, however, are definitions of weaponry, theory, lingo, etc., that make up the lexicon of military history. For that type of information you should look at a dictionary of military terms. See the list in this subject guide.
Listen to recordings and read transcripts of interviews representing "approximately twelve hours of opinions recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the United States." Searchable, and browsable by name, subject, title, or geographic location. From the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress.
The Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War, and seeks to accelerate the process of integrating new sources, materials and perspectives from the former "Communist bloc" with the historiography of the Cold War which has been written over the past few decades largely by Western scholars reliant on Western archival sources. It also seeks to transcend barriers of language, geography, and regional specialization to create new links among scholars interested in Cold War history.
Also take a look at their list of links to other military related websites.
The mission of this Washington state organization is to "collect, restore, fly and preserve combat aircraft and artifacts representing technological, ideological, political, and economic views of aerial conflict in the 20th century, with emphasis on World War II and the Cold War era." The site features images of planes on display, video clips, and details about making an appointment for a guided tour of the facility in Arlington, Washington.
The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. The series, which is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian, began in 1861 and now comprises more than 350 individual volumes. The volumes published over the last two decades increasingly contain declassified records from all the foreign affairs agencies. Foreign Relations volumes contain documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Agency for International Development, and other foreign affairs agencies as well as the private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy.
This companion website to a 1992 Library of Congress exhibit contains documents made available by the Russian Archival Committee, covering "the entire range of Soviet history from the October Revolution of 1917 to the failed coup of August 1991." Exhibit topics include Joseph Stalin, the murder of Sergei Kirov, the secret police, Gulag labor camps, the Ukrainian famine, Chernobyl, perestroika ("Mikhail Gorbachev's program of economic, political, and social restructuring"), relations with the U.S. (including the Cold War), and more.
This website has a number of books and archive materials available in full text or extracts online. So if you need to research a historic military event and just can't make it inside the library, this is another resource to try. NOTE: The Center’s role is to preserve and make available the official history of the U.S.Army and the records within.
Includes location and personnel info for units and bases of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Army.
A well-organized, annotated collection of links to the major players in the space industry and to useful resources on the Web to improve your job search. The Careers section has the name of the company or organization followed by a short description, a link to the main page and, if available, directly to the job opportunities.
List of websites to government agencies that support U.S. military organizations.
Book Index with Reviews™ (BIR) is a comprehensive database that provides information on over 5 million book titles. BIR also contains almost 800,000 full-text searchable book reviews from some of the most trusted reviewers: Library Journal, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and the New York Times Book Review.
Fiction and non-fiction book titles are included in the database, in all genres, to help you find books to read for fun, for information, or for research. BIR’s subject headings/genres and flexible search engine can help you find out about popular titles that are currently available, along with those that will soon be published or released.
The FedStats website, plainly and simply, enables you to search for and link to more than 95 agencies that provide data and trend information:
- Topics A to Z: More than 700 topics and subtopics.
- Links to summaries of the major Federal statistical programs.
- Links to Federal Agencies with statistical programs.
- Search: Enter keywords or phrases. The FedStats database is updated twice per month, 'advanced search' is available as 'modify search'.
- Statistical Reference Shelf: access to collections of published statistics.
- MapStats: profiles of your state, county, federal judicial district, or congressional district.
- Statistics-by-geography from U.S. agencies: international comparisons, national, state, county, and local information.
- Press releases: links to the releasing statistical agency.
- Data access tools: view predefined reports and/or generate your own tables with data obtained through searches and queries of summary and microdata files.
- Kids' Pages: A fun way to explore statistical concepts, geography, and the rich sets of data Federal agencies make available through FedStats, using a series of games and web applications developed for kids in elementary through high school. Include fun facts, games, project ideas, and career information.
The Human Security Report (2005) is a report published by Oxford University Press and also available online. It is a study done by the Human Security Centre (at that time located at the University of British Columbia) which surveys trends in all forms of political violence (except international terrorism). Findings show that there has a been a decrease since the decline of the Cold War.
Print Location: Ref U21.2 S57
International in scope, this book looks at the numbers attached to warfare--ranking wars by severity, intensity and magnitude; ranking nations and regions as to their propensity for war, and of course, the statistics of deaths by battle.
A desk reference tool containing Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, The World Almanac for Kids, The World Almanac of the U.S.A., and The World Almanac of U.S. Politics.
A Basic Search, Advanced Search and a Boolean Expert Search are available.
Aerospaceweb.org is a non-profit organization operated by engineers and scientists in the aerospace field. The goal of this site is to provide educational information on a variety of subjects ranging from aviation to space travel to weaponry. Our primary areas of expertise include aerodynamics, propulsion systems, vehicle design, engineering career information, and aerospace history.
This is by far the most thorough site--a megasite really--with links to topics such as leadership, strategic planning...etc. topics related to the coursework you take in the military science discipline here at CWU.
Interesting and sometimes educational websites are featured on this annotated, topical gateway of websites. Each website is recommended and annotated by a librarian working for the Librarians Internet Index as a quality resource. You can also quickly group resources by domain type, so it is easy to see which sites are commercial, from organizations, and from the government.
"MERLN is home to the Military Policy Awareness Links - MiPALs - which provide direct access to defense-related U.S. policy statements on selected key topics. Access the MiPALs through the quick links at the left side of the screen or the MiPAL link in the menu bar at the top of the screen."
"The U.S. Military has changed over the decades. Today's military is more professional, technologically advanced, and offers more rewards than ever before. This site is designed to assist the modern day service member find the information they need to be successful, either while on active duty, or as a retiree or veteran." Includes links on military acronyms, a glossary, publications, military history, and graphics, among others.
The "Service Links" on this website is a page that has resource and publication links for each military service and other uniformed, federal services, such as the National Park Service, and the U.S. Border Patrol. This page, therefore, acts as a portal to military service related resources.
Look here for information on the Battle of Rorkes Drift. (CWU also has books on Rorkes Drift in stacks. Check the library catalog using a keyword search). Not all of the pages on this website contain scholarly information from reputable sources. You will need to use sources with care.
Not connected with the U.S. military or government. Information on mission tools, flight plans, training publications, airfields, NOTAMS, weather reports, etc. useful for a military pilot. There is also military pilot message board where you can post questions and get opinions from the people who know.
OAIster is a catalog more than 25 million records of open access digital resource. The Catalog was built by harvesting information from open access collections around the world The digital resources in OAIster include items such as digitized books and articles, born-digital texts, audio files, images, and movies.
The OAIster Catalog is searchable by title, author/creator, subject, language, keyword and several other forms of metadata. Searching in the OAIster Catalog is by Boolean Search (And, Or, Not). Like playing chess the best way to become good at boolean searching is to do a lot of boolean searching. Here are the 'basic moves' for searching the OAIster Catalog:
Combining the search terms 'Cat' and 'Dog' (Boolean)
Cat and Dog
Cat or Dog
Cat not Dog
Note: 'and', 'or', & 'not' are in drop-down boxes to the left of the search boxes.
Plurals, truncation, and wildcards
Use + for plurals (s and es)
Use * for truncation
Use # for a wildcard character
Use ?N for up to N characters
Adjacent terms (proximity)
Cat w Dog (Cat is followed by Dog)
Cat wN Dog (Cat is followed by Dog with at most N terms between)
Cat n Dog (Cat is next to Dog, either order)
Cat nN Dog (Cat is within N terms of Dog, either order)
The available Limiters are Year, Document Type, and Language. A Basic Search and an Expert Search interface is also available. You can also create an account that will enable you to save searches.
NOTE: Sometimes OAIster may direct you to items that are access restricted. The Librarians in the ARC or at any of the service desks can help you with accessing information that is ‘access restricted’ and with any questions that you might have.
COS Funding Opportunities has been replaced by COS PIVOT.
This database provides access to funding opportunities as well as scholar profiles, with the ability to add your own scholar profile and to view the profiles of various research organizations. PIVOT allows you to also prioritize and save your searches to receive weekly alerts.
You must register your own account and log in thereafter in order to use PIVOT. Registration and log in is in the upper righthand corner of screen.
Previous CWU users of COS Funding Opportunities may log in with their existing username and password, as the accounts have been transferred over into PIVOT.
NOTE: For some opportunities, sponsors accept only a limited number of proposals or applications from an institution, or require an institution to rank or prioritize applications before submission. Please contact the Office of Graduate Studies and Research before applying if an opportunity is marked "Internal Coordination Required".
= Restricted resource
= Some full text
= OpenURL enabled
= Images
= Video files
= Audio files
Daniel CannCasciato
Librarian, Head of Cataloging
Tel: (509) 963-2120
- Call #s E181-- Military history
- See Government Documents 3rd Floor Military law
- Call #s U -- UH, for Military Science, see-- Military art and science
- Call #s U 161-163 Strategy
