Fitba’ crazy, fitba’ mad? A football inspired reading list

Posted on June 11, 2014 by spslibrarian

The World Cup kicks off tomorrow in Brazil and we’ve pulled together just a small number of the e-books currently available to staff and students of the University in the Library’s collections that look at different aspects of the beautiful (or not so beautiful) game.

The Global Football League: Transnational Networks, Social Movements and Sport in the New Media Age by Peter Millward addresses the themes that have come to define the global flow of images, capital and people that exist in contemporary football today, including case studies on Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City football clubs.

Foreign Players and Football Supporters: The Old Firm, Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain by David Ranc looks at supporters’ reactions to the increase in the number of foreign players in the clubs they support. It concentrates on three case studies on Glasgow (Celtic and Rangers), Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in London and the book charts the evolution of the link between supporters and club between 1995 and today.

Organisation and Governance of Top Football Across Europe : An Institutional Perspective aims to provide an extensive overview of how football is organised and managed on a European level and in individual European countries, and to account for the evolution of the national, international and transnational management of football over the last decades.

Football’s Dark Side: Corruption, Homophobia, Violence and Racism in the Beautiful Game by Ellis Cashmore and Jamie Cleland aims to express the views of thousands of football fans on the game they love, but which they know has an unpleasant underside demonstrating that beyond football’s assumed social value, the glamour and the spectacle an array of serious problems and exclusions endure.

An ethnography of English football fans: Cans, cops and carnivals by Geoff Pearson is based upon sixteen years observation of English football fans who travel home and away with their team – Manchester United, Blackpool and the England national team. The book challenges a number of the myths about hooliganism and crowd control and describes the interpretations, motivations and behaviour of these groups of fans both at home and abroad.

Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science

Study space during exams

Posted on April 23, 2014 by spslibrarian

Need help finding study space?

In order to help ease pressure on study spaces in the Main Library during the exam period, Information Services (IS), EUSA and the University central room bookings team have worked together to identify alternative study spaces in the Central Area.

The map includes information on how far each alternative study space is from the Main Library and also information on opening hours, what kind of study space is available, if pcs and/or cloud printing is available, etc. These spaces are all available from 21 April-9 May 2014, with access to the libraries and open access computing labs mentioned available outwith this period as well.

*The extra study space in the David Hume Tower (DHT) is being opened on weekend of Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 May, 9am-9pm. See map for room details.*

You can access the map at http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/students/study-space

The map is also on display in the concourse of the Main Library as you come through the entrance gates (next to the plasma screen).

Outwith the central area there are other site libraries with study space available. You can find a full list of site libraries at http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/library-locations

Remember there is a free shuttle bus service that runs between the Central Area and King’s Buildings (KB) campus during semester Mon-Fri 8.18am-6.25pm. Shuttle bus timetable: http://www.ed.ac.uk/staff-students/students/shuttlebus

The Main Library is open as always 7.30am-2.30am seven days a week and during revision and exam periods there are restrictions placed on external reference/consultation users access to the building during the day, to ensure that optimal study space is available to University of Edinburgh students.

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

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 and background reading.

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

New books for SPS in Main Library – February

Posted on March 5, 2014 by spslibrarian

Over 150 books from subject areas within SPS were added to the Library collections last month. Here is just a small selection:

Cybersecurity and cyberwar : what everyone needs to know, by P.W. Singer and Allan Friedman at QA76.9.A25 Sin.

The inequality reader: contemporary and foundational readings in race, class, and gender, edited by David B. Grusky and Szonja Szelény at HM821 Ine.

Meaning in life : an analytic study, by Thaddeus Metz at BD431 Met.

The outsourced self: what happens when we pay others to live our lives for us, by Arlie Russell Hochschild at HQ536 Hoc.

Party & society : reconstructing a sociology of democratic party politics, by Cedric de Leon at JF2051 Leo.

The quest for socialist Utopia : the Ethiopian student movement, c.1960-1974, by Bahru Zedwe at DT387.95 Bah.

Recognizing and helping the neglected child : evidence-based practice for assessment and intervention, by Brigid Daniel [and others] at HV713 Rec.

Return : nationalizing transnational mobility in Asia, edited by Xiang Biao, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, and Mika Toyota at JV8490 Ret.

Routledge international handbook of social and environmental change, edited by Stewart Lockie, David A. Sonnenfeld and Dana R. Fisher at HM856 Rou.

The rule of law, Islam, and constitutional politics in Egypt and Iran, edited by Saïd Amir Arjomand and Nathan J. Brown at KMC514 Rul.

Seeing like a feminist, by Nivedita Menon at HQ1742 Men.

The social life of achievement, edited by Nicholas J. Long and Henrietta L. Moore at BF503 Soc.

State and society in the Gambia since independence : 1965-2012, edited by Abdoulaye Saine, Ebrima Ceesay and Ebrima Sall at DT509.8 Sta.

Ten crises, by Peter Montiel at HB3722 Mon.

Vande mataram : the biography of a song, by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya at ML3748 Bha.

You may find some of these books in the New Books display on the 1st floor of the Main Library, where a selection of new books from all subjects across the University are held. Books on these display shelves can be borrowed as normal.

In the Library Catalogue there is also an option to search for new books added to the Library’s collections from the last four weeks, just click on the “New Books” tab.

If looking for a book that has just been newly added to the Library’s collections and you can’t find it on the shelf please ensure you check the New Books display on the 1st floor and/or the Recent Returns shelves on the appropriate floor (shelfmarks starting A-N on 2nd floor, P-Z on 3rd floor). You may want to also double-check the Catalogue record to see if the item is actually in the HUB Collection (ground floor).