PAIS Index

Expanding Your Research with PAIS Index

By Erina Yamamoto and Emily Fong

 PAIS is hosted on the ProQuest platform. Those who are familiar with other ProQuest databases should find PAIS easy to use due to its similar format. Even if you are not familiar with ProQuest databases, the interface is user-friendly and easy to navigate on both desktop/laptop and mobile devices. To access the database, you can simply log in with your university credentials. Unfortunately, ProQuest subscriptions are only available to university, library, and corporate institutions. Individuals not associated with a subscribing institution may still be able to access PAIS Index through public libraries. Users can also download materials as PDFs, or even share full-text materials to non-subscribers via email. 

PAIS Index has two primary search functions: basic search and advanced search. Unlike some other databases, there are no pre-search default access points or suggested materials. Users can utilize  Boolean operators such as “and”, “or” and “with,” to create search strings. For more information on operators and search tools, ProQuest provides Search Tips here. In basic search mode, you can filter the search results by the following categories: 

In the advanced search, users can specify access points for each search term and apply the search limits listed below: 

PAIS Index provides access to mostly secondary sources such as journal articles, abstracts, books, government documents, statistical directories, reports, conference papers, and web content. For academic research purposes, users should utilize the “peer-reviewed” filter, look into the source and publisher details, and cite to materials after evaluating that it is current and authoritative. 

PAIS Index allows users to save search strings and results, organize saved searches or materials into folders, set alerts for specific searches and publications, and save recent search history. It is very important to note that the recent user search history is refreshed once the tab is closed and/or the session is ended. Thus, users will have to remember to do so manually.

Would we recommend PAIS Index for scholarly and legal research project purposes? As with many questions in law school, the answer here is that it depends. PAIS Index has a limited selection of materials and topics in comparison to federated databases, or even to the larger discipline-specific databases. One disadvantage is the lack of primary sources and legal-focused secondary sources. On the other hand, those who tend to be overwhelmed by extensive search results may prefer PAIS Index and its “curated” selection of materials. We believe that PAIS Index would be the most useful for research topics involving international relations, comparative law, and human rights issues. With its wide pool of global sources and translation capabilities, this database could also provide international data that may be difficult to access via other databases, although it would be best practice to verify any translated materials for accuracy before citing to them. We recommend this database for the preemption check stage of research to review scholarly articles on your topic and ensure you have an original idea. 

There are some existing functions that could be improved. The search history would be more useful if it was automatically saved and the “suggested sources” tab tends to either provide suggestions with little relation to the search results (shown below), or sometimes no suggestions at all. 

Despite some minor issues, this database is still a great place to begin your research. We recommend PAIS Index especially for research concerning international law or global issues as this database provides materials from many countries, a great balance of US and international sources, and both historical and current coverage of subject areas that are relevant to today’s public policy issues.