Guides: Journalism: Fact-checking Resources: Library Resources for Fact-checking

Looking up information on people

American national biography online This link opens in a new window
Discover biographies of more than 19,000 men and women — from all eras and walks of life — whose lives have shaped American history and culture.
Gale In Context: Biography This link opens in a new window
Indexes and provides full-text access to a variety of news and reference sources containing the biographies of individuals from all time periods.
World biographical information system This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing to biographical entries in major reference works published from the 16th to the 21st centuries.

TruthFinder
Searches public records, social media, police records, civil and criminal records, etc.
Full reports are not free
Spokeo
Spokeo is a people intelligence service that helps you search, connect, and know who you are dealing with. Searches public records and social media accounts.
Not a free service

Looking up information about companies

Lexis Nexis Academic - Company Dossier
Locate the "Get Company Info" box on the LexisNexis page. Enter your company name or ticker information. For more search option, click on the "Company Dossier" link at the bottom of the search box. Here you have options to build a company list, compare companies, find company profiles, locate information on executives and locate SEC filings.
Mergent online
Mergent Online is a corporate financial database that provides information on U.S. and international companies. In addition to complete company profiles, information includes comprehensive company research, including financial statement data (current and historical), annual reports, company histories, subsidiaries, joint ventures, executive bios, industry reports and more.

Looking up information about countries

Europa world plus
Europa World is the online version of The Europa World Year Book and Europa Publications' nine-volume Regional Surveys of the World series, which are indispensable sources of information on world-wide affairs.
CIA - The World Factbook
The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. Our Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, a World Oceans map, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.

Looking up legislative information

ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
Explore Congress in action with the most comprehensive online resource available for congressional publications and legislative research.
Congress.gov This link opens in a new window
Provides accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public.
"This site, sponsored by the Library of Congress, provides access to a wealth of congressional information on Bills under consideration, Public Laws, Committee Reports, the Congressional Record, and the Senators and Representatives themselves that is well organized making the site easy to navigate. The site also provides links to other government web sites, including the GPO Access, a site that could be used, hand-in-hand, with this one for a larger picture of government publications available to the public"

Looking up government statistics

Government publications are free to the public. You can find them in Federal Depository Libraries (Baylor is designated one) and available on the web as well. Here are a few places to start your search.

Statistical Abstract of the United States
The Statistical Abstract of the United States, published since 1878, is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the USA.
Use the Abstract as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a guide to sources of more information both in print and on the Web.
Sources of data include the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private organizatio
FedStats
FedStats provides access to the full range of official statistical information produced by the Federal Government without having to know in advance which Federal agency produces which particular statistic. With convenient searching and linking capabilities to more than 100 agencies that provide data and trend information on such topics as economic and population trends, crime, education, health care, aviation safety, energy use, farm production and more.
data.census.gov
Your source for population, housing, economic, and geographic data from the US Census Bureau
Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor is the principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy. Its mission is to collect, analyze, and disseminate essential economic information to support public and private decision-making. As an independent statistical agency, BLS serves its diverse user communities by providing products and services that are objective, timely, accurate, and relevant.
Texas State Data Center
The Texas State Data Center and Office of the State Demographer, in cooperation with a network of affiliates, functions as a focal point for the distribution of Census information for Texas. The Center also disseminates population estimates and projections for Texas, as well as other information from the federal government, state government, and other sources.

Looking up other government information

Copyright Records (LOCIS)
A database of copyright records, searchable by documents, serials, and multimedia (including books, music, films, sound recordings, maps, software, photos, and art).
Historical Census Browser
A data bank of historical US census data dating back to 1790 compiled by the University of Virginia.
CIA Electronic Reading Room
A searchable database of declassified CIA documents.

Government provided databases

ERIC (from the Dept. of Education)
ERIC provides unlimited access to more than 1.3 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials, with hundreds of new records added multiple times per week. If available, links to full text are included.

Within the ERIC Collection, you will find records for:

* journal articles
* books
* research syntheses
* conference papers
* technical reports
* policy papers
* other education-related m

Uspto.gov : the United States Patent and Trademark Office This link opens in a new window
The home page of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and provides a searchable database for patents and trademarks as well as information and resources on patents, trademarks and other intellectual property.

PubMed (from the National Library of Medicine)
PubMed comprises more than 20 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.

Journalism: Fact-checking Resources