Tag: Politics

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10 online resources for Politics students.

New to the University or just not sure where to start other than the Politics reading lists you’ve been told to follow? Then check out our list for where you might to look.

1. Library Search for ebooks and articles

When working off campus, you can still access the full collection of ebooks, electronic journals and professional magazines, newspapers, conferences and more, from Library Search.

Additional ebook titles are being added to the collection every day while we are all working remotely. Search by author, title or keyword to find books to help you with your essay topic.

We’ve put together a page of tips and help videos all about Library Search on our finding information skills guide .

To find academic journal articles from across our collection that match your topic keywords, use the everything search option and filter your results on the left to peer-reviewed journals.

Watch our introduction to the main Library Search features.

2. Your Subject Guide

The Subject Guide for Politics draws together in one place, the resources available from the library to help you with your academic work. Use the Journals and Database page to access subject databases such as Social Sciences Premium Collection and JSTOR.

The Social Sciences Premium Collection is a brilliant place to start if you would like to refine your results to politics and the social sciences, while still searching broadly across different information types.

Find out more about the Social Sciences Premium Collection, how to search it successfully and use the advanced features. It is a brilliant resource for politics.

You can contact the Liaison Team for one-to-one support or send your questions to Library Help, where there are staff logged into our live chat service, 24/7.

Between Library Search and your Subject Guide, you will be able to find excellent information to use in your academic essays, but there are many other resources you may want to try.

3. JSTOR

JSTOR is a full-text collection, giving you online access to scholarly journals, books and book chapters in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

It has basic and advanced search options that allow you to search by topic keyword, author, subject area, title or publisher

Screenshot showing the JSTOR homepage

4. Scopus

Scopus is a large, multidisciplinary database, which indexes peer reviewed journal articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings and trade publications.

One of the main advantages of using Scopus is that it provides a lot of useful information about the articles it indexes. This includes full reference lists for articles and cited reference searching, so you can navigate forward and backward through the literature to uncover all the information relevant to your research.  

You can also set up citation alerts so you can be informed of new, relevant material automatically. Other useful tools include citation overviews, author and affiliation searching, visual analysis of search results, a journal analyser, and author identifier tools (if you are interested in publishing work).

https://youtu.be/qCu-obYMFsE
Watch this video from Scopus about how to expand your search from a known article reference.

5. Government publications

Government publications provide information in a variety of subjects. Statistics, White Papers, Parliamentary Bills and a whole range of Official Legislation published by the Government provide a good, reliable, source of accurate statistics, and can give support to your argument in essay topics.

We have put together a resource guide for government publications that will give you quick access to the United Kingdom gov.uk publications search and the Office For National Statistics, European and international official publications.

6. OECD iLibrary for statistics and global reports.

OECD iLibrary is the online library of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and gives you access to books, analytical reports and statistics, covering a broad range of topics relevant for studies in politics.

  • Agriculture and food
  • Development
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Employment
  • Energy and nuclear energy
  • Environment
  • Finance and investment, taxation and trade
  • Industry and services
  • Science and technology
  • Social Issues / Migration / Health
  • Transport
  • Urban, Rural and Regional Development

OECD iLibrary is certainly worth searching to provide reputable supporting information for your academic work.

7. Statista for easy statistics and global outlook

Statista is an extensive statistics platform covering over 1.5 million data sets. It includes reports, statistics and forecasts on a range of topics. So if you want to know which social media platforms are most popular across the globe, compare homelessness statistics, explore industry trends or how many people play video games, Statista is a brilliant place to start.

Statistics and reports can be exported in a range of formats including images and PowerPoint, giving you flexibility to include the visuals in your assignments. The statistics source is included, giving you the information that you need to cite it successfully.

Find out more about Statista with this brief introduction.

You will find a similar sources on our Statistics and Market Research resource guides.

8. Current newspapers with LexisLibrary

Newspapers are an excellent resource to explore, to provide a range of perspectives on a topic. You can find opinion pieces, social commentary and identify trends in public opinion.

We have a range of newspaper resources available from the Library, and LexisLibrary is an excellent place to start. It provides access to UK national and regional newspapers, from the 1990s to today. It includes the copy text without the images or formating and all of the details you need to create a citation are on the article page.

Once you have followed the Library Search link to access Lexis, make sure you click on News at the top of the page for full text access to all UK publications.

As so many articles are published every day, you will need to refine your searching using date ranges, combined keywords or by selecting specific newspapers or publication type (i.e. broadsheet or tabloid).

Remember to use your critical skills when using newspapers however, and watch out for Fake News. They are so biased sources and are best used in balance with other sources. You can find our tips on our Evaluating Information skills guide.

9. Newspaper archives and international news

We have a huge range of newspaper archives, historic newspapers and international sources such as Nexis that can mostly be access online and off campus. Our Newspapers resource guide collates all of our resources and will guide you through how where to look.

If you want to search across a range of newspapers, we suggest you start with Gale Primary Sources, as this gives access to nearly all our British newspaper archives, except for The Guardian and The Observer.

10. Box of Broadcasts

Box of Broadcasts can be used to access TV and radio broadcasts from over 65 channels, including most of the UK’s freeview network, all BBC TV and radio content from 2007, and several foreign language channels. It’s a great resource to use to find documentaries or critical opinions.

You can view archived programmes, record new ones, create clips and playlists and see transcripts to help with citation and translation. You can also search for other user’s public playlists to help you in your own search. 

Unfortunately, Box of Broadcasts is not available outside the UK.

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Books added to the Library by students in GPS (Semester One 2019/20)

We have a service called “Books on Time” for students. This allows you to tell us about the books you need for your studies. If we don’t have the books you need, simply complete the web form and we’ll see if we can buy them. For books we already have in stock, if they are out on loan please make a reservation/hold request using Library Search.

Further information about Books on Time

In Semester One, academic year 2019/2020 we bought the following items after requests from students in GPS.

There were 91 requests from 44 students totalling £4249.13 (43% from Undergraduate, 14% from Postgraduate taught and 43% from Postgraduate Research)

Title Now in stock
A Brutal Friendship – The West and the Arab Elite 2xlong
A Research Agenda for Housing 1xlong
Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle 1xlong
Animal to Edible 1xlong
Animals, Property and the Law 1xlong
Beautyscapes mapping cosmetic surgery tourism 1xlong, 1xebook
Beyond Gridlock 1xebook
Bloodborne Official Artworks 1xlong
Blur: How to know what’s true in the age of information overload 1xlong
Britannia unchained: global lessons for growth 1xlong
Cameronism: the politics of modernisation and manipulation 1xlong
Cameronism: The Politics of Modernisation and Manipulation 1xlong
China’s Eurasian Pivot: The Silk Road Economic Belt 1xlong
Class Notes Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene 1xlong
Communication, Public Opinion and Globalization in Urban China 1xlong
Crashing the Party: From the Bernie Sanders Campaign to a Progressive movement 1xlong
Dance of the Dialectic 1xlong
Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism 1xlong
Diverging Mobilities? Devolution, Transport and Policy Innovation. 1xlong
Educational Choices, Transitions and Aspirations in Europe 1xlong
Emotions, Technology, and Health 1xlong
Essays on Economics and Economists 1xlong
Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight 1xlong
Feminist Fight Club: An Office Survival Manual for a Sexist workplace 1xlong
Financialising City Statecraft and Infrastructure 3xlong, 1xebook
For Whose Benefit? The Everyday Realities of Welfare Reform 1xlong
Gendered Spaces 1xlong
Geopolitics and the Western Pacific: China, Japan and the US 1xlong
Glacier Science and Environmental Change 1xlong
Global Media Ecologies: Networked Production in Film and Television 1xlong
Governing with the News 1xlong
Happy Abortions 1xlong
Hog Wild: The Battle for Workers\’ Rights at the World\’s Largest Slaughterhouse 1xlong
Holidays in the Danger Zone: Entanglements of War and Tourism 1xlong
Home: international perspectives on culture 1xlong
How the market in changing China’s news 1xlong
Humanitarianism: A Dictionary of Concepts 1xlong
Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? 1xlong
Justifying New Labour Policy 1xlong
Kant’s International Relations: The Political Theology of Perpetual Peace 1xlong
Land Matters: Power Struggles in Rural Ireland 1xlong
Literary memory, consciousness, and the group oulipo 1xlong
Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won’t eat Meat 1xlong
Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives 1xlong
Meatpackers: An Oral History of Black Packinghouse Workers and Their Struggle for Racial and Economic Equality 1xlong
Media Clusters: Spatial Agglomeration and Content Capabilities 1xlong
Mobile Urbanism: Cities and Policymaking in the Global Age 1xlong
Negotiating water governance 1xlong
Neoliberal Housing Policy 1xlong
Networking China: the digital transformation of the Chinese economy 1xlong
On the line: slaughterhouse lives and the making of the new South 1xlong
Opera: dead or alive 1xlong
Organisational anthropology: doing ethnography 1xebook
Parenting Collection 1xlong
Participatory Research in More Than Human Worlds 1xlong
Perpetration-induced Traumatic Stress: The Psychological Consequences of Killing 1xlong
Philosophical Genealogy I: An epistemological reconstruction of Nietzsche and Foucault’s Genealogical Method 1xlong
Political Street Art: Communication, Culture and Resistance in Latin America 1xebook
Proteinaholic 1xlong
Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformations 1xlong
Queer Representations: Reading Lives, Reading Cultures 2xlong
Routledge Handbook of Global Environmental Politics 1xlong
Routledge Handbook of the Belt and Road 1xlong
Samsung, Media Empire and Family: A power web 1xlong
Scale-sensitive governance of the environment 1xlong
Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawaii and the Philippines 1xlong
Serious Leisure: A perspective for our time 1xlong
Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America (Case Studies on Contemporary Social Issues) 1xlong
Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S Meat Industry 1xlong
Social work, cats and rocket science: stories of making a difference in social work with adults 1xlong
Sociology of Home: Belonging, Community and Place in the Canadian Context 1xlong
Statelessness and Citizenship: A Comparative Study on the Benefits on Nationality 1xlong
Steppenwolf 1xlong
Still the promised city? African Americans and the new immigrants 1xlong
Submarine Landslides: Subaqueous Mass Transport Deposits from Outcrops to Seismic Profiles 1xebook
Television news and the limits of globalisation 1xlong
The Ashgate Research Companion to Media Geography 1xlong
The ironic spectator: solidarity in the age of post-humanitarianism 1xlong
The mandate of heaven and the great Ming code 1xlong
The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business 1xlong
The Oxford handbook of the American Congress 1xlong
Think tanks in America 1xebook
Think Tanks, Foreign Policy and Geo-Politics Pathways to Influence, 1st Edition 1xlong
Thinking Straight: The Power, Promise and Paradox of Heterosexuality 1xebook
Till: A glacial process sedimentology 1xebook
To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World 1xlong
Understanding the Business of Global Media in the Digital Age 1xebook
Walking Methods: Research on the Move 1xlong
Welsh Writing, Political Action and Incarceration 1xlong
Who Owns Britain? 1xlong
Women with Intellectual Disabilities: Finding a Place in the World 1xlong
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The Research Reserve and Desktop Delivery Service (DDS)

The exterior of the Research Reserve facility in the Team Valley.

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed a curious thing on Library Search. Where normally you would expect to see the name of one of the libraries next to an item’s shelfmark, occasionally you’ll see “Research Reserve”.

If you’ve ever wondered just what exactly the Research Reserve is, this is the blog for you, discover here exactly what the Research Reserve can offer you and your studies.

Before an item’s shelfmark is its location. This book is held off-site at the Research Reserve facility in the Team Valley.

The Research Reserve is the Library’s stores, located throughout campus and including a state-of-the-art storage facility in the Team Valley. These facilities allow the Library to keep less-used material for much longer than other academic libraries. These combined storage facilities provide over 29 kilometres of storage space, which is used to house old editions of journals and books which are consulted infrequently.

If you’d like to request items from the Research Reserve facilities, click the “Request Scan/Borrow” button once you’ve located the item on Library Search.

You can loan a variety of materials from the Research Reserve, including: books, theses and journal volumes. These can be requested from Library Search. Simply log in using your campus ID, find the item you are looking for and then click the blue “Request Scan/Borrow” button. You’ll get a choice of pickup locations (either the Walton or Philip Robinson libraries).

There are request forms to complete if you’d like to borrow a thesis or an entire volume of a journal.

Requests can be viewed by going to “My Account” in Library Search and clicking on “My Requests” from the drop down menu. If you’d like to cancel your request, simply click the blue cancel hyperlink (as seen below). You’ll receive an email confirming your cancellation shortly afterwards.

You can cancel requests for Research Reserve items by clicking the blue ‘Cancel’ hyperlink, as shown above.

There is a collection service that runs between the Research Reserve and the various libraries (weekdays only, not on bank holidays) and your request will be generally be fulfilled within 24 hours. Anything requested on a Friday or over the weekend will be delivered on the following Monday afternoon.

Once your item has arrived at your chosen library, you’ll receive an email letting you know it’s available to loan. The item will be kept on the reservations shelves for five days before being returned to the Team Valley, or passed on to the next person in the reservation queue. Items from the Research Reserve are issued in the same way as standard long loan items, either using the self-issue machines or at the service desk. Once you’ve finished with the item, simply return it as normal.

The Desktop Delivery Service (DDS)

The Desktop Delivery Service can also be reached at: http://dds.ncl.ac.uk

The Desktop Delivery Service (DDS) allows you request a scanned article from a journal held in one of the Library’s stores. Articles can be requested via Library Search (same as a book) or by filling out the relevant request form. Please try and include as much detail as possible on your request form. This helps Library staff locate your article and fulfil your request quicker.

You are only able to request one scanned article per journal issue. The scanned article will be delivered to your University email address, where it can be downloaded and printed off. Requests are generally fulfilled within 24 hours, although this may take longer over the weekends or on bank holidays. You have 30 days to download your article before it is ‘archived’ and no longer available.  

We do not scan items that are available electronically or can be borrowed.

If you have any other queries about the Desktop Delivery Service, read the FAQs.

Just some of the amazing treasures held at the Research Reserve facility in the Team Valley.

You can also visit the off-campus Research Reserve facility in the Team Valley. Daily access is available by appointment only with the Research Reserve team, weekdays between 10AM and 4PM. Access outside of these hours can be organised given sufficient notice. There is a large car park available at the facility and buses stop nearby.

Full contact information, directions and opening hours for the Team Valley facility are available via the Library website.

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GUEST POST – OFF THE SHELF

Off the Shelf poster

Hi! I’m Caitlin, a final year law student and law library aide – and by now I’m used to the stress of exams and deadlines.

I tried the ‘poetry-pick me up’ after going into the common room for a revision break.

I stumbled across Sue (@kind_curious) in the Law School Student Common Room, where she asked, ‘do you want a poem?’. Not really knowing what to expect, I had to overcome a bit of social awkwardness! I was surprised by Sue’s passion and love of poetry, which was clear in the way she spoke about how she’d used poetry in the NHS before and it was what she enjoyed most.

I was asked questions about my current stress levels and how I was feeling with exams, and how I dealt with stress. I told her that when I get stressed I talk even more than usual, which for anyone who knows me sounds like I’m going at a million miles an hour, and she suggested something that would relax me.

I laughed as I saw no signs of chocolate or Netflix – my usual go to relaxation strategies.

Instead she said I needed something like a lavender bubble bath – again I saw no sign of a bubble bath in the Law School and I’d yet to find one in the Dungeon.

She picked out two poems that would make me feel like the relaxing in lavender: she suggested ‘Sonnet’ by Elizabeth Bishop and Shennagh Pugh’s ‘What if This Road’.

What if this road reminded me of Robert Frost’s ‘A Road Not Taken’, and was great for me as a an indecisive person. It was matched perfectly to the questions that Sue had asked me, as I read it as a  ‘roll with it’ approach to life, which is definitely needed to cope with exams and deadline stress.

The second poem, Bishop’s ‘Sonnet’, had great visualisation techniques, almost like a meditative poem – which was spot on to turn off the stress and slow everything down!

The experience was a great switch off from deadline stress, and a great use of the 10 minutes which I’d usually scroll through twitter or Instagram. It was something different, and really quite unique and relaxing, which I would definitely recommend to help have a break from any exam and deadline stress!

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Resource in focus: Historic Digimap

Who doesn’t like maps?

Historic Digimap is an online map and data delivery service, available to all staff and students of Newcastle University. It delivers access to historical Ordnance Survey maps of Great Britain dating from 1846-1996 across various scales, including 1:25,000 and 1:10,650.

If you are a first time user of Digimap then you will need to complete a brief registration form and agree to the license agreements for each collection, but that takes seconds and then you’re ready to go!

Viewing historic maps (3:36 min)

If you want to ‘roam’ through the ages in an area, then you can use the timeline tool to see how the landscape has developed through the years, or view two maps side-by-side to compare and contrast your findings. Imagine looking at the Newcastle University Campus and seeing what used to be on the site before buildings such as the Henry Daysh Building, Stephenson Building and Philip Robinson Library graced us with their facilities!

Once you have your area of interest, the Roam service will allow you to view, annotate and print the map in PDF format. Data Download will allow you to download OS data for use in GIS/CAD (if you wish!).

The full scope of what Historic Digimap (and the other collections available to you including Ordnance Survey, Geology, Marine, Environment, Aerial, Lidar and Improvement Service) are covered in EDINA’s comprehensive Help service:

(Improvement Services is an organisation dedicated to the improvement of local government services in Scotland. This data collection comprises of 37 local authority datasets, such as planning applications, green belts and school catchment areas. A wealth of information, who’d have thought.)

Go on, give it a try! But please do read EDINA’s Digimap FAQs on what you are permitted to do with the data you use, to ensure you comply with the educational use licence.

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Resource in Focus: Times Literary Supplement Archive

Screenshot of TLS banner

We have access to the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) archive from 1902-2014.

The archive brings you the full content of this world-renowned weekly literary and arts publication, dating back to its first issue. For over a century, the TLS has published reviews, features, debates and original works from across the arts world, not to mention its legendary letters page!

Many of the world’s most notable writers and thinkers have contributed to the TLS over the decades, including T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Seamus Heaney, Noam Chomsky, Virginia Woolf, Bertolt Brecht and Umberto Eco. Until 1974, contributions published in the TLS were often anonymous, but the digital archive now reveals the identity of all contributors.

To find out more about the TLS, click Research Tools to read a selection of essays about different periods of its history.

Menu screenshot

You can browse the TLS by date to find a specific issue, or search in various ways (choose Advanced Search to see all options, including searching by contributor, book title, or document type.)

Additional search features on the home page include Term Frequency, to trace how often a word, phrase or person has featured in the TLS over the years, and Topic Finder, to explore and visualise connections between topics.

Screenshot of topic finder
Topic finder

As the TLS archive is published by the company Gale, you can cross-search it with any of the other Gale archives to which we have access, via Gale Primary Sources.

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Resource in focus: Electronic Enlightenment

How did social networking operate before the internet? Explore Electronic Enlightenment to find out!

Electronic Enlightenment is a valuable resource for anybody studying or researching the long eighteenth century. It is an archive of digitised correspondence, comprising nearly 80,000 letters sent between 10,000 individuals, written from the 17th to mid 19th centuries. Its geographic scope covers Europe, the Americas and Asia, and it encompasses a cross-section of society, including philosophers, scholars, shopkeepers, servants and diplomats.

The letters are supplemented with contextual information, including annotations and biographical notes, plus teaching aids such as lesson plans and discussion ideas (choose about ee on the home page). Annual updates ensure the content keeps growing.

You can search or browse Electronic Enlightenment in various ways (e.g. by name, occupation, date or place).

Want to learn more? Choose take a guided tour from the home page to get an overview of content and how to search/browse.

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Exams: we are here to help

Woman throwing books up in the air

Exams are a tricky time. Often you will be juggling different exams themselves, on top of other deadlines. However, we want you to know that you aren’t alone at this crazy time of year. We are here to help you through.

But how exactly can we help? Sadly, we can’t take go into the exam with you, or magically freeze time to give you more hours in the day, but do make the most of the following:

  1. Library Help – the place to go when have a question via chat, email, text, twitter, Facebook. Or alternatively search our Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) database.
  2. Librarians – yes you heard right. Book a one-to-one appointment to get the best out of the University Library resources. Also remember our staff in every library are friendly and approachable. There is no such thing as a silly question, so ask away!
  3. Study Space – The University Library has a range of different study rooms and spaces to suit your needs.
  4. 24/7 – The Philip Robinson Library is open 24/7 during the exam period. We want you to sleep and get enough rest, but if you do need to study through the night, we are here.
  5. Subject guides – we have a range of subject guides put together by expert librarians which draw together all the main resources for your studies.
  6. Be well@NCL collection – we don’t just have books for study. This new collection includes tried and tested books that support your wellbeing.
  7. Additional support – don’t suffer and please don’t be shy. You can seek additional support from your NUSU, Student Wellbeing Service, Nightline and the University chaplaincy.

So remember……pace yourself, access the help you need and believe that you can do this!

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New resource: Irish Newspaper Archives

Following a successful trial, the Library now has access to the Irish Newspaper Archives: a fascinating resource for any aspect of Irish studies.

It provides access to the archives of national and local Irish newspapers from the 1700s to the present day. Major national titles such as the Irish Examiner, Irish Independent and Sunday Independent are included, together with a wide range of regional titles, such as the Meath Chronicle, Kerryman, Connacht Tribune and Ulster Herald.

The archive is updated daily with the latest editions of current titles, and it also includes significant newspapers which are no longer published, such as the Freeman’s Journal and The Nation.

Title pages of Irish newspapers
A selection of title pages from the archive.

You can search and refine your results in various ways, or choose browse to look through individual newspapers by date. Various save and export options are available, and there are some short help videos on the archive’s home page to give you some tips (note, these don’t have sound). Follow Irish News on Twitter for interesting highlights from the archive.

Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback on the trial.

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Historic newspaper archives upgrade

If you use any of our historic newspaper and periodical archives which are published by Gale, you’ll notice they have recently upgraded their platform.

There is no change to the content, but you should notice a more unified design on the search pages, together with improvements to the display of search results, plus new search tools, including ‘topic finder’ and ‘more like this’. You can also use ‘term frequency’ on all Gale databases to analyse the use of a particular term over time.

The following collections are affected:

British Library Newspapers; Burney Newspapers; Eighteenth Century Collections Online; Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.

Together with these individual archives:

Picture Post; Punch; The Daily Mail; The Economist; The Financial Times; The Independent; The Listener; The Sunday Times; The Telegraph; The Times; The Times Literary Supplement.

Read more about the improvements.

Where can I find all these resources?

They are all individually catalogued on Library Search, or you can find quick links to them all (plus resources from other publishers) on our historic news guide. If you would like to search across several Gale resources at once, search Gale Primary Sources.

Where can I get more advice about searching historic newspapers online?

Watch our short video for lots of helpful tips.