Online Country Guides || Books in the Library
Magazines and Newspapers

Online Country Guides

• Background Notes from the U.S. Department of State See also Background Notes archives.
• Country Studies Area Handbooks from the Library of Congress
• Country Watch (subscription database) - maps, overviews, and information on economics, politics, society, environment.
  
• Lonely Planet Travel Guides
  1. Select a region of continent in the first box
  2. Then select a country in the second box
  3. Click GO button.
• Portals to the World - From the Library of Congress, list of links to country information.
• UNESCO Photobank (10,000 digitized images including cultural topics from the United Nations - allows searching by country)
• The World Factbook Alphabetical Country Listing.

Try searches on specific countries with a search engine such as Google.

NOTE: You may need to narrow your Web search to the country name or culture and aspects of culture (e.g., Italy religion, Cuba arts, etc.)

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Books in the Library

1. Country name, region, or continent "description"
   Example: Mexico description
2. Country name, region, or continent "customs"
   Example: Cuba customs
3. Country name, region, or continent "culture"
   Example: Asia culture

If you get few results, use a Keywords Anywhere search with the same terms suggested in 1, 2, or 3 above.

To find videos, use a Keywords Anywhere search and add the word "videorecording to any of the above search term combinations.

Example: France culture videorecording

• Area Handbook Series (individual volumes cover different countries)
  U.S. Documents D 101.22:
• Do's and Taboos Around the World
  HF 5387 .D66 (also in REF collection)
• The Do's and Taboos of Hosting International Visitors
  HF 5389 .A98
• Encyclopedia of World Cultures (organized by ethnic groups, not countries)
  REF GN 307 .E53
• The Europa World Yearbook
  REF JN1 .K855
• Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries
  REF HF5389 .M67 1994
• Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations
  REF G63 .W67 1998

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Magazines & Newspapers

• International newspapers by country at onlinenewspapers.com

To find articles from newspapers and magazines about a specific country, try a search in an online database on or off-campus such as:

• ProQuest
• Academic Search Premier

National Geographic may provide the best magazine-based cultural information on a country. You will need to locate which issue features the country/state you have chosen via the National Geographic Indexes on the 2nd floor index tables. Then locate the magazine issues on the 2nd floor periodical shelves.

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