A-Z Databases

BLASE is edited by Frank Houdek and Ed Edmonds, who both bring decades of work on the literature of sports and entertainment to this enterprise. The foundation of BLASE is the focused topical arrangement created by the editors after their analysis of more than 9,200 periodical articles. The treatment of sports-related material is comprehensive, while the approach to entertainment-related material concentrates on movies, music, television, and theater. Each topic contains a scope note that explains the focus of a given topic and the methodology used by the editors when assigning topics to a particular article. This approach, with some slight modifications, is also used for the material in the remaining fourteen tabs, which cover resources other than scholarly articles. The topic assignment is particularly helpful with the tabs that offer a large selection of books and an extensive bibliography of other relevant publications because it allows users to organize and filter titles by topic in addition to alphabetical or chronological arrangement.

In addition to full-text books and bibliographies with links to WorldCat holdings, the collection also contains federal and state documents, including legislative histories; House and Senate hearings and reports; committee prints; and reports from the Comptroller General, the Congressional Research Service, and the Government Accountability Office. The editors also provide carefully selected lists of court decisions important for researching particular issues in both sports and entertainment. The lists include citations and brief annotations describing the significance of each of the highlighted decisions.

Examples of the many business and legal areas included in the database are antitrust and labor law, athlete and entertainer representation, content regulation, contracts, criminal law, gender and race discrimination, governance, injuries and violence, intellectual property, health and safety issues, and publicity rights. By providing a wide range of materials on these and many other topics, the editors have sought to produce a truly comprehensive treatment of both sports and entertainment.

Additional features include an extensive collection of links to relevant external websites, organized topically; full-text access to the valuable publications of the National Sports Institute of Marquette University; and material pertaining to the Athlete Agents Act organized by annual meetings.

HeinOnline editors have analyzed every title within this collection and assigned each title one or more unique title-level subjects. These subjects are: Absentee Voting, Ballots, Campaign Finance, Election Administration, Election Integrity, Election Outcomes, Election Reform, Electoral College, Federal Election Commission, Gerrymandering, Legislative Redistricting, Political Campaigns, Suffrage, Voter Identification, Voter Registration, and Voting Rights. These subjects are both browsable and searchable, allowing users to better target their research.

While presidential elections often receive the most attention, both in terms of study and in voter turnout, this collection focuses on issues relating to and directly about both local and federal elections—including presidential elections, but also encompassing House and Senate elections, as well as state elections. Included in this collection are titles on contested Senate results, debates on extending the vote to D.C. residents, analyses on apportionment and redistricting, and even a scandalous account of fraud in a municipal Indiana election in 1886.

In addition to content about U.S. elections, users will also find hundreds of titles about elections around the world, from elections in Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. These titles report on the outcomes of specific national elections, while others chronicle citizens’ struggles for a free and fair electorate, providing a global overview of election systems.

Complimenting the various books, treatises, reports, legislative histories, congressional hearings and more included within this collection, users will also find hundreds of scholarly articles hand-picked by HeinOnline editors. Articles are both contemporaneous and historical, providing insights both into the scholarly discourse of historical issues and how that discourse has both evolved and impacts the present. New articles will be added monthly. Finally, a bibliography of recommended titles allows users to take their research beyond HeinOnline. OCLC records are linked within this bibliography to help users find these books in a nearby library.