A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge ( PMBOK® Guide ) - 7th Edition - The Project Management Institute's core publication, which has been updated with the latest practices and standards for project management.
A User's Manual to the PMBOK Guide - The following publication is considers a user friendly resource for navigating the complex theories and standards addressed in the PMBOK Guide.
Program Management, 2nd Edition - This volumes consists of management guides and international standards and includes that incorporate principles of agile management, change management, as well as the author's own program management principles.
Agile Practice Guide - This guide was created in partnership with Agile Alliance® to provide tools, situational guidelines, as well as an understanding of approaches that are useful to project managers working in adaptive environments.
Project Planning, Scheduling, and Control: The Ultimate Hands-On Guide to Bringing Projects in On Time and On Budget - 6th Edition - "The go-to guide for getting projects done on time and on budget—revised and updated with a sophisticated image program and contemporary examples "
A Project Manager's Book of Templates - "A helpful compendium of ready-made templates for managing every project in alignment with the latest PMBOK® Guide, 7th ed. "
Project Management Professional (PMP)® Cert Guide - "Learn, prepare, and practice for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam success with this Cert Guide from Pearson IT Certification, a leader in IT Certification learning." (Does not come with practice test software that a personally-owned print book comes with)
The FIND Search: This is the search bar on the main library webpage, https://libraries.psu.edu/. It’s not really a database - it’s a search interface that lets you search lots of the databases the library has access to at once. It’s a good place to start and see what’s out there, but it doesn’t search everything we have.
Academic Search Complete: This is a HUGE, broad database with a little bit of info on almost every topic. It shows up in FIND search results, but you can search it by itself too.
JSTOR: You might know this one already - it’s easy to use and has lots of info on the humanities as well as business and similar topics.
Web of Science: As you might expect, this database focuses strongly on STEM, especially life sciences, but surprisingly it does include lots of business-related topics too!
Business Source Premier (EBSCO)
Your first stop for business-related research! Covers virtually all disciplines in business and economics, including: accounting, economics, econometrics, finance, marketing, management, MIS, QMM and supply chain management. Includes research and news articles, as well as case studies
Includes information about business culture and practices in 100 countries. It also includes up-to-date information on importing, exporting, and logistics, and is especially useful for students enrolled in International Business courses.
A collection of original in-depth reports on timely topics in business, management, and supply chain management - new reports are published every other week.
Includes a wide variety of journals on various topics, from the arts to business to social sciences and more. Try entering this search string into the search bar to find articles related to PM
You can also access some useful eBooks on PM through Taylor and Francis' eBooks portal - try searching for the same search string there!
1999 to present - This journal "is the academic and research journal of the Project Management Institute and features state-of-the-art research, techniques, theories, and applications in project management."
Use the Search this journal box at the top of the page to search for specific keywords, or browse all issues to get ideas!
Journal of Modern Project Management
2016 to present - This journal "focuses on the area of project management necessary to promote a balance between theory and practice, highlighting cases studies on different sectors."
Click Search within this publication to get to the full article search!
Journal of Project Management - Open Access Journal = free to read, even after graduation!
2016 to present - This journal publishes articles on project management, with somewhat of an emphasis on construction projects - although they do have articles on other areas of PM as well!.
Subject areas include: project management, scheduling and delay analysis, construction management and engineering, risk analysis and value management, project procurement and supply chain, financing and cost management, operations research models in project management, information technology in project management, change control and contract engineering, construction equipment and machinery, new construction project management models, engineering construction, project scheduling, and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) projects
Project Management Research and Practice - Open Access Journal = free to read, even after graduation!
2014 to present - This journal "a forum where evidence-based, informed dialogue can occur with project management researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders on such challenges."
Use the Search box at the top right side of the page to search for specific keywords, or browse all issues to get ideas!
European Project Management Journal - Open Access Journal = free to read, even after graduation!
2017 to present - This journal "aims to present the most recent knowledge in the fields of project management and other specialized management disciplines."
Use the Search box at the top left side of the page to search for specific keywords, or browse all the articles to get ideas!
International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management - Open Access Journal = free to read, even after graduation!
2014 to present - This journal "publishes leading scholarly theoretical and practical research articles that aim to advance the information systems management and project management fields of knowledge, featuring state-of-the-art research, theories, approaches, methodologies, techniques, and applications."
Search the current issue or access the archive of past issues to find articles.
International Journal of Project Management
1983 to present - This journal "presents new knowledge on areas such as managing projects, programs and portfolios, project-based/oriented organizations, project networks, and project-oriented societies."
Use the Search in this journal box (in the middle of the menu bar beneath the journal's title) to search for specific keywords, or browse all the articles to get ideas!
Project Leadership and Society - Open Access Journal = free to read, even after graduation!
2020 to present - This journal is the open-access "sister" journal to the International Journal of Project Management above, and its articles "study the interaction between projects, project leadership, project management on the one hand, and economic, social, political and organizational processes, on the other."
Use the Search in this journal box (in the middle of the menu bar beneath the journal's title) to search for specific keywords, or browse all the articles to get ideas!
The easiest way to think about this is in terms of access. The source you're usually really looking for is usually an article. Articles are published by journals, which are collected and held by databases.
A library research database is usually a collection of different information sources all around a shared topic. That topic can be really broad, like "world history", or it can be more specific, like "medieval art". And the resources can be anything from individual articles, to whole journals or magazines, to entire eBooks.
A journal is much smaller and narrower than a database. Each journal the library subscribes to is publishing articles that are written about that journal's theme - like "teaching in higher education" or "advances in logistics and operations".
So when you search in a database, you're searching lots of different journals with different specific themes, all at once - but all of them come under the database's "umbrella" theme. For example, the database Business Search Complete contains journals like The European Journal of Operational Research, Human Resource Management Review, The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Entrepreneurial Business & Economics Review, to name a few. All of them are separate journals with individual specific themes to their articles, but they're all somehow related to business, so they're collected by (and accessed through) Business Search Complete.
The most important thing for you to consider is - what do you need?
If you need to find sources that address a specific question or explain a topic, searching a database is usually the most efficient way to find lots of options from different sources.
If you need ideas for a topic, or want to dive more deeply into a topic and see what's being written about it, then you might want to go straight to a few specific journals and browse their issues to see what's being published.
Most of the databases and journals on this page are things that the Penn State University Libraries subscribe to, in order to give you access to them. These subscriptions range from expensive to unbelievably expensive (often thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per year, and sometimes more) for each item on the list.
These resources are free to you as a Penn State student because some of your tuition goes to pay for the shared subscriptions. Once you graduate, you will no longer be covered by the agreements we signed with these companies and you will not have access to these materials again.
We know that having access to the information you need is really important after you graduate as well, though! So, two things to keep in mind:
Your future employer may have subscriptions to these same resources - many large companies use them, not just universities. So being familiar with what these resources are and how to use them can be helpful in your future career (and a selling point in an interview)!
Whenever we can find a free (and trustworthy) resource that anyone can use online, we'll share it in this guide. We mark those resources as "Recommended Open-Web Resources", because they're on the internet and don't require a subscription or payment for access (which is what "open-web" means). These are things that you'll be able to use for as long as their available on the open-web, no matter whether or not you're a student or where you work. So these are definitely good resources to know how to use - and to name-drop to a potential employer!