UN 1001: Perspectives on Inquiry, Library Resources

Contemporary Southern Africa

Instructor: Chipo Hungwe: email, chungwe@mtu.edu

Librarian: Joan Goodbody: email; goodbody@mtu.edu: phone; 487-2698

 

MTU Library Catalog:

Use the catalog to find items that the library owns: Searchable by author, title, subject or keywords. Also after using an index to find a paper/article that you want, youll need to use this catalog to determine whether we have the journal that the article appeared in. Articles from journals we do not have or books we do not have can be ordered through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Many of the databases now have a direct ILL link.

 

Reference resources:

The reference collection is a good place to begin exploring an unfamiliar subject. The encyclopedias and dictionaries found here can give you definitions of terms and background information on your subject. Along with help identifying specific issues within your broad subject area to explore in more detail.

CQ researcher (issues): H35 .E2. REF: This is a multi volume (by year) publication that is put out to help the members of congress and their staff understand public issues. Index is in the front of the newest notebook. The Index is also available at: http://library.cqpress.com/researcher_index.pdf

Encyclopaedia of SouthernAfrica. DT752 .R8 REF

Encyclopedia of world cultures. GN307 .E53 1991 REF

Routledge international encyclopedia of women : global women's issues and knowledge. HQ1115 .R69 2000 REF

The African political dictionary. DT30.5 .P47 1984 REF

The Europa world year book, D2 .E82 REF: Statistical and informational publication on countries of the World.

Twentieth-century Caribbean and Black African writers : second series. PR9205.A52 T89 1993 REF

Twentieth-century Caribbean and Black African writers.PR9205.A52 T88 1992 REF

 

E-Resources access to electronic indexes/abstracts, online books, e-journals and selected websites. From the E-Resource menu select listings by alphabet, topic or collection (e.g. FirstSearch or InfoTrac.) E-Resources are also searchable by name or keyword(s.) Use the index databases to locate journal articles, newspaper articles, or reviews on your topic. Some indexes or collections of indexes especially useful for research in this course include:

 

Databases:

FirstSearch: This database provides access to over 60 indexes. They include:

Worldcat, a comprehensive database for all types of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. This does NOT index periodicals at the article level;

Wilson Select Plus, A full text database comprised of articles represented by selected citations from Readers' Guide Abstracts, Social Sciences Abstracts, Humanities Abstracts, General Science Abstracts, Education Abstracts, and Wilson Business Abstracts.

Infotrac: A comprehensive multi-index database including:

General Reference Center Gold (issues and philosophers): A general interest database that integrates a variety of sources in one easy-to-use interface. Use General Reference Center Gold to find articles from newspapers, reference books, and periodicals, many with full-text and images.

InfoTrac Custom 150 Full Text Newspapers:A collection of newspapers from around the Country and the World;

Expanded Academic ASAP:Gives access to arts and the humanities to social sciences, science and technology scholarly journals, news magazines, and newspapers - many with full text and images!;

InfoTrac OneFile, A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics. Millions of full-text articles, many with images. Updated daily;

LexisNexis:

Academicprovides full-text documents from over 5,600 news, business, legal, medical, and reference publications with a variety of flexible search options. 

Congressional provides a comprehensive online resource from Congressional hearings, public issues, legislation, history, and legal research.

 

JSTOR: is a searchable database containing scanned images of back issues of over 100 scholarly journals in a variety of academic disciplines. Titles currently available are from the fields of: African-American Studies, Anthropology, Asian Studies, Ecology, Economics, Education, Finance, History, Literature, Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Science, Population Studies, Sociology and Statistics.

 

Interlibrary Loan access to items from other libraries.

Request items using an ILL form available at the Circulation desk or online (Under Library Services menu, select Interlibrary Loans.) Many index databases also allow ILL requests through their sites.

Note The ILL process can take time (longer than 10 days in some cases.) Plan your research time accordingly.

 

Websites:

Evaluation of websites: http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webeval.html - Cornell University Libraries Research Skills -One of the best sites on evaluating information found on the Internet.

Firstgov.gov: www.firstgov.gov. This is the official government site that searches over 87 million sites. Can search for just federal, federal and a specific state, federal and all states, all states, or a specific state. Advanced search gives the most flexability.

United Nations: www.un.org. this is the official UN site, it gives you access to publications, news releases, and FAO publications.

CIA World Fact Book: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html General Facts put out by the CIA on individual countries. Includes a general map.

State Departmen Background Notest: http://www.state.gov/www/background_notes/. These are updated on a regular basis.

Africa: south of the Sahara: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide.html. This site is a listing of web resources on Africa compiled by Stanford University.

For Assistance

For individual assistance or instruction from a librarian, visit or phone the Reference/Information Desk (487-2507), e-mail instrlib@mtu.edu,

 

 

The Instructor asked that the following be added. These are excellent resources.

Information sources:

For information on countries in Africa, I would encourage you to sign up for E-mail updates from the United Nations official information service, IRIN. To do this, go

To www.irinnews.org, click on subscriptions, and then choose IRIN Africa English

Service. The subscription form will allow you to choose individual country updates or

regional updates. I also especially recommend the BBCs Africa coverage:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/Africa. The website also offers radio for the BBCs two

radio programs for Africa, Focus on Africa and Network Africa, which are listened to all over Africa.

 

Electronic web sites on Africa

• http://africanhistory.about.com
• http://www.newafrica.com/history
• http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Hornet/sd_machar.html
• http://www.photius.com/wfb2000/countries
• http://www.nationbynation.com
• http://www.infoplease.com
• http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/standards/grade10.html
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/
• http://www.usd.edu/honors/HWB/1999/1999f/imperialism%20in%20africa.html
• http://hist.ucalgary.ca/courses/W2001/205L02LN5.html
• http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/departments/isa/ninvest/imperial/scrambleafrica.html
• http://edweb.sdsu.edu/Courses/EDTEC670/BoardGameDesign1.html

Other helpful resources:

 

Useful resource: UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Available at

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm

 

http://hrw.org/

This is the webpage for Human Rights Watch.  It has a specific Africa section for breaking news across the continent.  You can also access HRW report on the Rwandan genocide at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/

 

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/africa/cuvl/

Columbia Universitys sitea good gateway to newspapers and other resources.

 

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Home_Page/Country.html

University of Pennsylvanias sitethis is the country specific page.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/default.stm

The British Broadcasting Corporationthe BBC, a good source for daily information.