Literature search contents
CSISS maintains a user-searchable database of more than 17,000 bibliographical references that feature applications of Spatial Analysis techniques in the Social Sciences, covering the period 1990 to about 2004. There are no current plans to update this resource. The search terms used in developing the database were derived from literature in the following areas:

• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• Map Making and Visualization
• Spatial Econometrics
• Spatial Optimization & Spatial Interaction Modeling
• Spatial Simulation & Spatial-temporal Dynamics

For more information see the Classification Scheme for the CSISS Literature Search.

To ensure relevance to the social sciences, the following online services were used to compile bibliographic entries. The company names are linked to their websites:

• EconLit: Index of economic literature produced by the American Economic Association and hosted by SilverPlatter International
• Sociological Abstracts and Social Services Abstracts: hosted by Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
• Social Sciences Citation Index: produced by Thompson Institute of Scientific Information Web of Science
• Anthropological Literature: produced by Tozzer Library, Harvard University, and hosted by Eureka Interface
• Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life: produced by ABC-CLIO

Searching the CSISS literature database
Users may search by any combination of keywords of their own creation (e.g., “social structure”, visuali*); employ keywords used by CSISS to build the literature database; add names of authors, disciplines, or journals; or include a year of publication (e.g., 1991).

Search results will display those records that have all the search terms entered. If no records are found, expand the search by using fewer keywords. Results are presented as a list of references that contain the search term(s), either in the titles of publications, author names, keywords, or in the abstracts. “Get Citation” formats an individual record as a standard citation. “View record” displays, in addition to the citation, the subject keywords and related disciplines for an article. Abstracts are not displayed. “Find similar” expands the range of results by searching for records using any of the keywords entered in your prior search.

See the Search Engine Help for more information on search effectively.

Note of caution
Users are advised that search results on the CSISS site will not provide an exhaustive collection of all publications using spatial analysis in the Social Sciences. Books and monographs are not monitored. Search results are based on the presence of the user’s search term(s) in the titles of publications, abstracts, authors’ keywords, and names of authors. Thus, articles without abstracts or keywords are less likely to be identified. More refined searches based on the specialized literatures of specific disciplines are possible from the online services noted above, from online resources of specific journals, and from the physical search of journals in libraries. In addition, articles in the humanities and in the physical sciences (e.g., Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index) may also yield relevant applications of spatial analysis of interest to social scientists.

Literature search credits
David Fearon, CSISS Research Associate and PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, developed this resource. Eric White, CSISS Research Associate and PhD Candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, developed the search engine. The assistance of Jorge Sifuentes (CSISS Research Associate and PhD Candidate in Geography at the University of California Santa Barbara), Sum Huynh (CSISS computer systems administrator), Ann Ricchiazzi and Gamaiel Zavala (past and current CSISS Webmasters), and Don Janelle (CSISS Program Director) is gratefully acknowledged.

Literature Search: David Fearon, Eric White, Jorge Sifuentes