Chicago, 1950, Another Look: The Erving Goffman Memorial Lecture 2014

erving_goffman_lectureThe Erving Goffman Memorial Lecture is being held today as part of the year-long celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Sociology department at University of Edinburgh.

Today’s lecture is titled ‘Chicago, 1950, Another Look’ and will be delivered by the eminent Professor Howard Becker. This will look at Becker and Goffman’s time at the University of Chicago Department of Sociology in the late 1940s and early 50s, which is now seen by some as the birthplace of something called “The Second Chicago School”.

 

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Ladies in the Lords: Chrystal Macmillan Lecture Oct 2014

On Thursday 30th October the Lord Speaker Baroness D’Souza will deliver the Chrystal Macmillan Lecture on the topic of Ladies in the Lords: Women’s Representation in Political Life.

house_of_lordsToday there are 189 women in the House but it is only since the 1958 Life Peerages Act that women (as well as those without an inherited title) were allowed to sit in the House of Lords.

We’ve put together just a short reading list of journal articles available online through the University Library that allow you to read about and around this particular topic. So if you are unable to attend the Lecture or just wish to find out a bit more then read on. Access only available to University of Edinburgh students and staff unless otherwise noted. Continue reading

Get the Best from the Library Week for SPS

27th-31st October

Drop-in sessions on the 1st floor at Pop-up LibraryIF

Get the Best from the Library Week is all about helping you find out more about how the Library can work for you at the University of Edinburgh.

During the Get the Best from the Library Week you can:

  • Discover the full range of information resources available to you
  • Find out about new resources purchased recently
  • Get one-to-one support from a library specialist in your subject area

All next week the Library Academic Support team are taking over the Pop-up Library desk in the afternoons (1st floor, Main Library, Mon-Fri 2-4pm) so why not pop-up for a chat and find out how you can Get the Best from the Library?

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New books for Social and Political Science

Thanks to recommendations from members of staff and requests via RAB from students the Library is continually adding new books to its collections both online and in print. Here are just a small number of the books that have been purchased by the Library for Social and Political Science subject areas since the start of semester.

fire_belowThe symbolic representation of gender: a discursive approach by Emanuela Lombardo and Petra Meier (shelfmark: HQ1075 Lom. Also available as e-book)

The fire below : how the Caucasus shaped Russia edited by Robert Bruce Ware (shelfmark: DK511.C2 Fir. Also available as e-book)

Urban planning and the pursuit of happiness: European variations on a universal theme (18th-21st centuries) edited by Arnold Bartetzky and Marc Schalenberg (e-book)

Illicit by Moisés Naím (shelfmark: HV6252 Nai.) Continue reading

New online resource for SPS: Peace Research Abstracts

The Library has recently subscribed to the online database Peace Research Abstracts. This is a comprehensive database for peace and conflict resolution research and is a particularly useful resource for those studying International Relations and Politics.

PeaceResearchAbsPeace 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. Continue reading

New online resources for SPS: China Law Info and PAIS International

The Library has recently subscribed to the online databases China Law Info and PAIS International.

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China Law Info
China Law Info is a bilingual database for China legal documents and information. The database provides both the original Chinese version and the English translation of China laws and regulations, judicial cases, tax treaties, white papers, law journals and gazettes, as well as other China legal information such as legal news and legislative/regulatory updates. The database is updated daily.

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PAIS International
PAIS (originally, the Public Affairs Information Service) International 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. Fields of study covered include:

  • Civil rights movement
  • Economic conditions
  • Energy resources and policy
  • Government
  • Health conditions
  • Human rights
  • International relations
  • Labour conditions and policy
  • Politics
  • Social conditions

You can access China Law Info and PAIS International via the Databases A-Z list on the Library website.

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science

Very Short Introductions – Social Sciences

VeryshortintroductionsThe Library has recently subscribed to the online version of Oxford University Press’ Very Short Introduction series for the Social Sciences.

The Social Sciences collection includes titles within the following fields of study:

  • Anthropology
  • Human Geography
  • Politics
  • Sociology
  • Warfare & Defence

And also includes titles on business, management, economics, education, research and information.

You can access Very Short Introductions via the Databases A-Z list on the Library website. Once into the site you can click on Browse by Subject and click on the relevant subject under the Social Sciences heading. Or you can use the search facility on the site, though full text access is only available to titles within the Social Sciences collections.

Launched in 1995 by OUP, Very Short Introductions offer concise introductions to a diverse range of subject areas. Since the series was launched it has continued to offer new books each year for students and scholars, and the avidly curious, offering a bridge between reference content and higher academic work. All titles provide intelligent and serious introductions to a huge range of subjects, written by experts in the field who combine facts, analysis, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make challenging topics highly readable.

The Library also holds the print copies of many of the Very Short Introduction titles; you can find these in the Library Catalogue.

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

Top five Canadian library resources for Canada Day

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It’s Canada Day! We thought we’d give you a taster of Canadian library resources here at the University of Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh Library has one of the largest Canadian collections in the UK.

1. Have you seen the America: History and Life database? This bibliographic database for US and Canadian history covers the history of the United States and Canada comprises almost 400,000 bibliographic entries and covers over 2,000 journals.

America: History and Life

2. The letter F … is where you’ll find books on Canadian history in the University of Edinburgh Main Library. That’s on Floor 2, folks. Canada starts at F1001, up to F1200 where we’re into Latin America.

Canada and the British World

3. Find e-journals like the Journal of Canadian Studies by searching the online library catalogue or e-journals web pages.

Journal of Canadian Studies

4. You can read all about it in Canadian daily newspapers The Globe and Mail and National Post – available online via newspaper database Factiva.

gam-masthead

5. You’ll find e-books for Canadian Studies on the library catalogue – like this one, the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature.

OHOCanadianLiterature

Need more? Have a look at the  Subject Guide to Canadian Studies – our very own one-stop shop for Canadian Studies library resources at the University of Edinburgh.

Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian – Social & Political Science

 

New OUP ebook library collections for Social & Political Science

OHOcomparative politicsOSOpoliticalinstitutionsWe’ve recently expanded our e-book collections with the Oxford Handbooks Online collection for Political Science (43 titles). This includes high demand titles such as the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics and the Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions.

 

OSOidentitiesOSOSparentappThe successful negotiation of consortial  purchasing agreements across Scottish Higher Education institutions has now given us access to all the collections in Oxford Scholarship Online. We already had access to the Political Science collection, but we now also have access to titles in Sociology and Social Work.

These collections allow unlimited user access and (within copyright) printing and saving of articles, making them good choices for inclusion on student reading lists.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – SPS

Chrystal Macmillan Lecture: Professor Veena Das reading list

On Wednesday 18th June 2014 Professor Veena Das will deliver this year’s Chrystal Macmillan lecture.

Krieger-Eisenhower Professor at John Hopkins University and a founding member of the Institute of Socio-Economic Research in Development and Democracy, Professor Das is an established figure in Indian anthropology and her research interests also include feminist movements and gender studies, anthropology of violence, social suffering and subjectivity.

For the Chrystal Macmillan Lecture she will be speaking on the topic:

War and Intimate Violence: Reading the Ethnographic Record in the Light of the Mahabharata.

Professor Das has been published extensively and has worked as an editor on a number of publications. Using Resource Lists @ Edinburgh we’ve put together a Professor Veena Das reading list with just a small selection of books and articles authored or edited by Professor Das that University of Edinburgh staff and students can access through the University Library.

Professor Veena Das reading list

For more information on the 2014 Chrystal Macmillan lecture and how to book see:

Professor Veena Das to deliver 2014 Chrystal Macmillan lecture

For previous lectures see: Chrystal Macmillan lectures

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science