Better together or better apart? Some useful resources on the Scottish referendum.

Posted on June 4, 2014 by spslibrarian

On the 18^th September 2014 Scotland will vote yes or no to independence. There are a wealth of online resources available that can help with your research or help to inform your vote on the 18^th September and here are just a small number that you may find useful.

Referendum on Independence Key Texts has been put together by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) and is intended to be useful to those seeking information on the Referendum on Independence for Scotland, and on the debate around the Referendum. Every effort is made to ensure that both sides of the debate (and neutral commentators) are covered. It is not an exhaustive resource and does not include material from the media e.g. BBC, newspapers, etc., or personal blogs, twitter, etc., however, there are a wide range of resources covered. Continue reading →

European Parliament elections 2014 – suggested resources for your research

Posted on May 20, 2014 by spslibrarian

Voting will take place in the UK on Thursday 24th May for the European Parliament elections 2014. If you are thinking of voting or interested in doing research in this area then you may find some of these resources useful.

Library Resources

These are mostly resources that have been subscribed to by the Library and are only available to staff and students at University of Edinburgh. You can use these to find newspaper articles and commentaries, academic literature, background reading and documentaries and news programmes.

ASSIA (Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts)
Provides abstracts from around 650 UK, US and international journals. Coverage includes all branches of the applied social sciences, with over 375,000 records.

Box of Broadcasts
As mentioned in a previous blog post, this service is a bit like BBC iPlayer but offers much, much more. The service allows you to record and catch-up on missed programmes, schedule recordings, edit programmes into clips, search for recordings already made by other users, etc. Includes 60+ TV and radio channels.

European Sources Online
European Sources Online (ESO) is an online database and information service which provides access to information on the institutions and activities of the European Union, the countries, regions and other international organisations of Europe, and on issues of importance to European researchers, citizens and stakeholders.

Factiva (off-campus access available via VPN)
Provides full-text access to a large number of UK newspapers as well as full-text access to a significant range of international newspapers and news sources.

IBSS (International Bibliography of Social Science)
Produced by the British Library of Political and Economic Science. One of the largest and most comprehensive social sciences databases in the world, indexing 2600 journals and 6000 books per annum, in the core disciplines of economics, sociology, politics and anthropology.

Lexis Library and Nexis UK (off-campus access by clicking on Login via Academic Sign In and UK federation)
Lexis Library includes full-text access to the vast majority of UK broadsheet and tabloid newspapers and a large number of local papers. Nexis UK provides full-text access to a large number of international newspapers and news sources.

Web of Science Core Collection, including Social Sciences Citation Index
One of the biggest online abstracting and indexing databases. Contains citations and abstracts to millions of journal articles and conference proceedings from all subjects. Impact factors, h-indexes and email alerts available.

The LSE Review of Books has suggested some books related to the European Parliament elections. You can see the full list on their blog but the following are available at the Library, just search the Library Catalogue for the title or author:

How Europe Shapes British Public Policy by Janice Morphet
Lobbying in the European Union: Interest groups, lobbying coalitions, and policy change by Heike Kluver
The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion: How health, family and employment laws spread across countries by Katerina Linos
Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and discourse, edited by Ruth Wodak, Majid KhsraviNik and Brigitte Mral.

Tip: An easy way to find other books on similar subject areas is to click on the “Subjects” listed in the Catalogue record or for print books you can also click on the Shelfmark.

Freely available online resources

These are just a small number of online resources available:

European Parliament site for the elections
European Parliament/Information Office in the United Kingdom
PollWatch2014
BBC News
EuroVote
London School of Economics EUROPP blog

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science

New e-resources trials available

Posted on May 13, 2014 by spslibrarian

The Library has set up trial access to a number of online resources that may be useful for those studying politics and international relations. These include:

Declassified Documents Reference System
Allows researchers to easily and quickly access and review selected previously classified government documents. This digital collection fills an important gap in post-World War II domestic and foreign policy studies and provides unique opportunities for undergraduate and graduate comprehensive research in a rich primary source. In addition, it provides basic research for journalism, public policy studies, international law and security, and other disciplines. Available until 9th June 2014

Peace Research Abstracts
Includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to peace research, including conflict resolution, international affairs, peace psychology, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. The index contains more than 267,000 records which are carefully selected from the most important sources within the discipline, such as: Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Journal of Refugee Law, etc. Available until 12th June 2014

Yearbook of International Organizations Online
Compiled by the UIA (Union of International Associations) the Yearbook of International Organizations Online is the most comprehensive reference work and information resource on international non-profit organizations and associations worldwide. The Yearbook includes detailed descriptions of international organizations, and also includes relationships and cross-links with other listed international organizations. In addition, biographical information is provided on principal officers, as well as bibliographical information on the organization’s main publications and information services. Available until 9th June 2014.

Congressional Record 1789-1997
ProQuest Congressional is a comprehensive resource for all congressional activities, providing users access to the most comprehensive collection of historic and current congressional information available anywhere online. Available until 5th June 2014

Armed Conflict Database (ACD)
ACD monitors armed conflicts worldwide, focusing on political, military and humanitarian trends in current conflicts, whether they are local rebellions, long-term insurgencies, civil wars or inter-state conflicts. Available until 11th June 2014

PAIS International
This resource covers issues in the public debate through selective coverage of a wide variety of international sources including journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more. PAIS International is the current file covering 1972 to present. Available until 13th June 2014.

Europa World Plus
Europa World Plus is the online version of the Europa World Year Book and the nine-volume Europa Regional Surveys of the World series. First published in 1926, the year book is renowned as one of the world’s leading reference works, covering political and economic information in more than 250 countries and territories. Available until 22nd June 2014.

These can all be accessed via the E-resources trials website: www.ed.ac.uk/is/databases-trials

There are feedback forms available and we would welcome feedback as this a key part of making a case to subscribe to resources like these.

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science

Searching Searcher – discovering the Library’s resources

Posted on April 6, 2014 by spslibrarian

Do you want to be able to find books, articles and other material using one search? Do you want to find material the University of Edinburgh Library owns in its collections or subscribes to online? Are you looking to use a variety of different information sources?

Searcher may be exactly what you are looking for.

Searcher is the Library’s resource discovery tool and allows you to search the Library’s Catalogue, e-journals and licensed collections i.e. what the Library owns and subscribes to, all in one search. It also lets you search beyond what the Library has in its collections and discover other resources and material that may be relevant to your research.

There are search boxes for Searcher on the Library homepage and in the Library tab on MyEd but you can also access Searcher at http://searcher.is.ed.ac.uk/

As of 1st April 2014, when you first do your search, Searcher will limit your results to All Library Resources, which includes print books, ebooks, ejournals and database content. You can narrow this to searching just the Library Catalogue (only results which appear in the Library Catalogue will display, this includes books, ebooks and ejournal titles but NOT ejournal content) or expand this to search out with the Library’s collections.

There are Basic and Advanced search options, various limiters are available to refine your search results, you can create your own account to save searches and results, and there are options for downloading/saving references.

Where full-text is available to you online then there will be a link to go straight through to this, the link may be slightly different depending on the source of the search result. Look out for the following links Click here for full text, PDF Full Text, HTML Full Text or findit@edinburgh.

More information about using Searcher can be found at learn more about Searcher. See also Searcher: BIG change.

If you find a book in the Library that is already out on loan (Not Available) then you can click on the Retrieve Catalogue Item link to place a request on the book – Requesting an item which is on loan.

If you find material that is not available within the Library’s collections then you may want to consider requesting the material via the Inter-Library Loans service, or visiting another library to access the material or in the case of a book you may wish to recommend this is purchased for the Library – Book recommendations.

If you want to do a more focused search in your subject area or are looking looking for material most relevant to your topic then you should use some of the online databases the Library subscribes to. Find these by subject area or through the Subject Guides.

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science.

Ukraine crisis – suggested resources for your research

Posted on March 24, 2014 by spslibrarian

The Ukraine crisis has been headline news for a few months now. If you are looking to do some research in this area or are just interested in keeping up to date with the situation then you may find some of these resources useful.

Library Resources

Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press
Each week the Current Digest presents a selection of Russian-language press materials, translated into English, the translations are intended for use in teaching and research.

Factiva (off-campus access available via VPN)
Provides full-text access to a large number of UK newspapers as well as full-text access to a significant range of international newspapers and news sources.

Integrum (for access see entry in Databases A-Z list)
Offers the largest database of Russian sources: Federal and regional Russian press, TV channels, websites, libraries and databases as well as full texts of classical literature.

Lexis Library and Nexis UK (off-campus access by clicking on Login via Academic Sign In and UK federation)
Lexis Library includes full-text access to the vast majority of UK broadsheet and tabloid newspapers and a large number of local papers. Nexis UK provides full-text access to a large number of international newspapers and news sources.

Click on Russian studies, Politics or Newspapers for more recommended databases in these subject areas.

Freely available online resources

University College London’s (UCL) School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library (UCL SSEES) have created a fantastic repository of sources, analysis and updates on the Ukraine crisis: http://www.ssees.ucl.ac.uk/library/directory/ukraine2014.htm. This is updated regularly and if you follow them on Twitter you will be alerted to every update.

BBC News
Chatham House
Brookings Institution
Council for Foreign Relations (CFR)
Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.
Voice of Russia
Ukrainian News Agency
Global Voices

These are just a few examples of resources and repositories available online that are covering this subject. The UCL SSEES website provides links to even more useful sites.

Inspiring Research – International Women’s Day 2014

Posted on March 11, 2014 by spslibrarian

International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated on 8^th March 2014. IWD has been celebrated for over 100 years and this year’s theme was Inspiring Change.

The Library subscribes to a number of databases that may inspire you when researching women’s or gender studies. You can find a full list of Recommended databases for women’s studies but a few highlights are:

Women, War & Society: the First World War had a revolutionary and permanent impact on the personal, social and professional lives of all women. Their essential contribution to the war in Europe is fully documented in this collection of primary source materials sourced from the Imperial War Museum, London. These unique documents – charity and international relief reports, pamphlets, photographs and press cuttings – are published for the first time in fully searchable form, along with interpretative essays from leading scholars.

The Vogue Archive: contains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to the present day, reproduced in high-resolution colour page images. More than 400,000 pages are included. Vogue is a unique record of international popular culture that extends beyond fashion. The Vogue Archive is an essential primary source for the study of fashion, gender and modern social history.

Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures Online: an interdisciplinary, trans-historical, and global project embracing women and Islamic cultures in every region where there have been significant Muslim populations. It crosses history, geographic borders and disciplines to create a ground breaking reference work reflecting the very latest research on gender studies and the Islamic world.

Project Muse: provides access to almost 200 full text journals from 30 scholarly publishers, covering the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.

For the full list see databases for women’s studies.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, the editors of the journal Parliamentary Affairs have drawn together recent publications examining the representation of women in parliamentary democracies around the world. All papers are free to access until the end of June 2014. See Virtual Issue: Women’s Representation.
The Library has full access to the journal Parliamentary Affairs available to students and staff of the University, search the Library Catalogue for the Journal Title to get access.

For information on events held at University of Edinburgh to celebrate International Women’s Day 2014 see:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/equality-diversity/news-events/events/international-women

To watch previous International Women’s Day lectures at the University see:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/about/video/lecture-series/international-womens-day

Have you heard of BoB?

Posted on March 4, 2014 by spslibrarian

It’s a bit like BBC iPlayer but can offer you much, much more.

BoB (Box of Broadcasts) National is an online off-air recording and media archive service for UK higher and further education institutions. The University of Edinburgh subscribes to BoB so all staff and students at the University can get access to this fantastic service when working anywhere on the UK mainland.

BoB makes the finding and use of important TV and radio content for education simple and instant. It allows you to choose and record any broadcast programme from 60+ TV and radio channels, including over 10 foreign language channels. Recorded programmes are kept indefinitely and added to a media archive, with content shared by users across all subscribing institutions.

With BoB you can:

Record and catch-up on missed programmes on and off-campus.
Schedule recordings up to seven days in advance.
Edit programmes into clips.
Embed clips into VLEs.
Search the database for content that other users have recorded (over 1 million programmes currently available).
Request programmes from the BBC Archive dating back to June 2007.
Manage off-air recordings in your own playlists, which can be shared with others.
Access the website both on and off campus, limited to UK mainland only.

For more information on the service and how to access and use it see Box of Broadcasts (BoB).

New resources for Social and Political Sciences

Posted on February 3, 2014 by spslibrarian

A new webpage has been created to promote a range of new and featured resources acquired by the University Library – New Acquisitions December 2013.

You can scroll down the webpage to find out about resources specifically for SPS:

SAGE encyclopaedia and handbook collections
American Periodicals
New handbooks for 2013/14, published by Child Poverty Action Group (28 titles)

However, many of the resources featured on the page are useful across academic disciplines and illustrate the range, depth and diversity of new resources available for research and teaching use in all the main subject areas covered by the three Colleges.

So, if you are interested in Hamish Henderson, documents on British policy overseas, the entertainment industry, environmental ethics, point of care resources, British Standards, jazz music, or spiritualism, sensation and magic in Victorian culture (and much more) then there is something for you!

Have a look at New Acquisitions December 2013

SPS Librarian

Academic Support Librarians for staff & students in the School of Social and Political Science blogging on Library resources, services and skills.

Tag Archives: online resources