Peace & Conflict Studies Library Resources and Support

Simon Elichko
Social Sciences & Data Librarian

Involvement with Peace & Conflict Studies

Driven substantially by courses and faculty requests
Small amount of additional selection, mainly through TriCo Gobi approval plan (soc sci LC)
- Faculty and student research interests
- Relevance to courses, particularly ones with research assignments
Some recent acquisitions (not strictly PEAC)

Class sessions and individual student meetings for courses in the department and cross-listed courses in HIST, POLS, and SOAN.
Some examples:
- PEAC 91 Capstone
- PEAC 64 Human Rights Advocacy
- POLS 55 Ethics and International Relations
- POLS 61 American Foreign Policy
- HIST 67 National Security Archive - South American "Dirty Wars"

Supporting novice researchers exploring an interdisciplinary field that doesn't map neatly to existing research tools
- Students easily end up in security studies, international relations, etc.
- e.g. Peace & Conflict Studies journals according to Browzine misses titles that PEAC faculty have identified as key e.g. International Journal of Peace Studies, Peace Review
- Reviewed PCS journal coverage in existing databases and piloted a Tripod search for select PCS journals (example search)
Often working with Peace & Conflict Studies students on navigating a range of sources beyond scholarly literature (e.g. social media) and beyond formal library resources.
- PEAC 9 - Engaged Scholarship - community asset mapping (current, global)
- PEAC 71B - Nonviolent Action - activist campaigns (varying time periods, global)
- PEAC 77 - Gun Violence - homicide incidents in Delaware County (recent, local)
Emphasize research as a learning process, including approaching familiar spaces and resources differently, iterating without getting lost (e.g. using Zotero), and evaluating sources.

Tripod & its limits

Example search: Cora Weiss
See filter: Collection
PQ Central Discovery Index
Omits most news articles and many primary source* resources (e.g. JSTOR Reveal Digital)
Includes ebook metadata, not full-text

ProQuest: Search All Databases
- e.g. Cora Weiss (1,041 results, vs. 124 in Tripod), Committee of Liaison...
Strengths:
- Historical US newspapers (late 19th century – early 21st)
- Full-text search of Ebook Central ebooks
- Some materials from NAACP, SNCC, CORE (History Vault) - for example
- Latin American scholarly literature (PRISMA)
- 18th and 19th century US periodicals (American Periodicals Series)
Not included in "All Databases" search:
- ProQuest Congressional
  - See Guide to Government Information for links to PQC, Hein Online, LLMC
- Current news is generally covered better elsewhere, e.g. Access World News, Media Cloud, individual news sites

Historical newspapers in ProQuest include:
- Major US papers including NYT, WSJ, Washington Post, LA Times, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Chicago Tribune
- Philadelphia historical news - Inquirer, Daily News, Tribune
- Black historical newspapers - New York Amsterdam News, Los Angeles Sentinel, Baltimore Afro-American, Philadelphia Tribune
- Guardian and Observer, Le Monde
- For individual titles, coverage typically from first issue through late 1980s-2000s
Current & Historical News:
- Ethnic Newswatch Archive & Current (1959-present)
- GenderWatch (1980s-present) - some scholarly, some popular - e.g. Ms., Windy City Times
To improve relevance, try proximity search:
"Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam" weiss (101 results) vs.
"Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam" NEAR/10 weiss (55 results)

Search most EBSCO databases
20th century US magazines
- Index only: Readers' Guide Retrospective, 1890-1982
- Full text: Time, Life, US News and World Report, Ebony, Forbes, Fortune, New Republic,
  The Atlantic (use Publications tab to browse issues)
Activist and community publications
- LGBTQ+ Source (some fulltext)
- African American Historical Serials (1816-1922, full text)
- Alternative Press Index & Archive (1969-present, index)
- Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America (largely 1900-present, index)
History, Art History, and Literature research:
- America History and Life (US & Canada), Historical Abstracts
- Art Index, Art Full Text, MLA International Bibliography, LitBase (soon)
Regional:
- American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (ABSEES)
- Bibliography of Asian Studies

Early American newspapers (also see Newspaper Archive)
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) translated international news (1941-1996) - for 1995-2013, see World News Connection
African American newspapers and periodicals, 19th-20th century

Journal review
Experimenting (skeptically) with using AI tools as a bridge to help students build research skills, e.g. assistance with creating better search queries, planning and organizing findings
Continuing to adapt resources and instruction to changes in publications, interfaces, politics, etc.

Photo Credit: David Trinks via Unsplash

Thank you!