Information about Montgomery County and the State of Maryland is available on the county and state Web sites:

Montgomery County, Maryland Web site
State of Maryland Web site

The State of Maryland has information about the Chesapeake Bay, for example, at BayStat Chesapeake.  The Maryland Department of the Environment has information about water conservation on their Water Conservation page.

The federal government keeps statistics on many topics by state, county, or metropolitan area.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, for example, keeps statistics on crime at Crime in the United States, 2006.  Normally it takes two years or more to compile, analyze, and publish statistics.  Statistics from the 2000 census are available from the Census Bureau. 

You can do a general keyword search in the Library catalog, and limit to the Germantown campus.  If you get too many irrelevant results, try searching your topics by Subject Keyword.  You will still be able to limit to the Germantown campus.  Search types with an asterisk, such as "*Subject contains" cannot be limited to one campus.

Put phrases such as "Chesapeake Bay" in quotes for a Keyword search, but not for a Subject search.  A Subject search will search every character typed as a phrase, including the quotation marks.  

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For current information on local topics, the best place to search is a database of newspaper articles.  Both the Montgomery College Library and the Montgomery County Public Library have the ProQuest National Newspapers database.  At Montgomery College, this includes the Baltimore Sun.  At the public library, you will have to search the Baltimore Sun separately.  Use your public library card number to sign on from outside the public library.

Examples of searches that produce good results in a newspaper database are:
"gambling and Maryland"
"steroids and sports and Maryland"
"Potomac River" and environment and (watershed or Maryland)

If you have a complex topic with multiple keywords, use the Advanced  search tab's menu boxes to combine your terms.

The "Current Issues" box at the top of the page contains two useful databases: SIRS and Opposing Viewpoints.  Both sites will give you a list of current topics.  If your topic is in the list, you can click on the matching term to start your research.

SIRS and Opposing Viewpoints divide the results by tabs for newspaper articles, magazine and journal articles, essays, and other types of results.

On the Montgomery College Library page of databases of journal articles, the first two databases listed are the largest:  Academic Onefile and Academic Search Premier. 

Select the "Full Text" box to narrow down your search. 
Both databases have a Subject Guide or Subject Terms list that will also help you to narrow down your search.  
Since both of these large databases are global in their scope, be sure to add "and Maryland" to your search if your topic is in Maryland.

Here are some examples of searches in Academic Search Premier: 
(teenagers or young adults) and (stress or anorexia or depression)
(food or water or blood supply) and safety

If you have a complex topic with multiple keywords, use the menu boxes under the "Advanced Search" tab to combine your terms.

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All of the databases have Help screens.  If you need more assistance, please do not hesitate to stop by the Reference Desk in Germantown, or ask a librarian over the phone or by e-mail.  You don't have to come in to the library.  You can ask a question in any one of the four ways mentioned at

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