Peace & Conflict Studies Library Resources and Support
Simon Elichko
Social Sciences & Data Librarian
Involvement with Peace & Conflict Studies
Collection development
- 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
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Some recent acquisitions (not strictly PEAC)
Instruction & research support
- 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"
Instruction & research support
- 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.
Resources for Peace & Conflict Studies
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
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ProQuest: Search All Databases
- e.g. Cora Weiss (1,041 results, vs. 124 in Tripod), Committee of Liaison...
- e.g. Cora Weiss (1,041 results, vs. 124 in Tripod), Committee of Liaison...
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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)
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18th and 19th century US periodicals (American Periodicals Series)
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Not included in "All Databases" search:
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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
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ProQuest Congressional
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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
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For individual titles, coverage typically from first issue through late 1980s-2000s
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Current & Historical News:
- Ethnic Newswatch Archive & Current (1959-present)
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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
- 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
Search all Gale primary source databases
- Women's Studies Archive - including materials from SCPC
- Archives of Sexuality and Gender - 1940s-2000s
- British newspapers (17th-19th century, Times, Sunday Times)
- Archives Unbound - temporarily have all (trial)
- Wide range of types of historical materials
- Collection browser by time period, region, theme
- Better international coverage than our other licensed resources
Search all Readex primary source databases
- 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
What's next:
- 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!