Simultaneously searches the entire Rice Library catalog, a good number of the library's subscription databases (scholarly articles, newspapers, etc.), the USI Archives' Digital Collections, and the library research guides.
Why Reference Sources?
Reference sources can provide you with valuable information such as:
Background information
Important figures
Dates, places, and people
Definitions and key terms
Lists of additional sources (articles, books, etc.)
They are an excellent way to begin your research by allowing you to become familiar with the topic in preparation to choose the best articles, books, and additional resources.
The ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political and economic conditions of the United States
ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
Statista provides statistics and data within 600 industries and 50+ countries. Statista also contains a variety of industry or topic overview dossiers and reports, as well as shareable data visualizations and infographics that can be exported in a variety of file formats, including .pdf, .xlsx, and .pptx
American Generations
Encyclopedia of the Life Course and Human Development
Encyclopedia of Health and Aging by 
