New Research selected by LSE Library

Does your heart rule your head?- celebrate with our Valentines resources.

2012-02-13T09:45:00.010Z

The 14th of February is Valentines day - celebrate is history and science with our recommended resources!

The Times Educational Supplement has links to some histories and teaching resources and quizzes.
View some historic images of cards on these sites.

Wisconsin Historical Society has over 90 images of romantic cards sent by Americans from 1840-1980

The British Postal Museum and Archive has a fascinating online exhibition of the history of the valentine. It includes many scanned images from its archives.They include telegrams and spiteful cards!

Another fun site is the Nurse Romance covers from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee See several hundred examples from the collection.

Search the Uk advertising archive for examples of posters and leaflets used in campaigns.

LSE staff and students might also like to access the JISC Mediahub database to find more still and moving images (access using Firefox.)access some images of engavings plus news broadcasts from the 1970s on celebrations!

alternatively take the scientific route the BBC has an interesting article on the language of love
Psychology Today has some postings as does psychPort from the American Psychological Association

Social science sites of the week

2012-02-09T19:49:00.019Z

London Conference on Somalia
The UK will host the London conference on Somalia on 23 February. It will involve a number of governments along with the United Nations, African Union, European Union, World Bank, the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, and the League of Arab States with the aim of presenting a communique of practical actions to aid the region. The FCO website has details and lists of attendees. Also is useful the blog from special representative Matt Baugh which has comment from a British diplomatic perspective.
Al-Jazeera has some comment on the aims and possibility of success of the conference
Marreg.com distributes some news from and about the Somali community. News analysis is also on All.Africa.com And IRIN. Chatham House website has an expert comment plus report from earlier meetings with Somali nationals.
Other useful websites for background on the situation include Relief web which has the recent communique from the International Contact Group (ICG) on Somalia

African Union Mission in Somalia United Nations Humanitarian Affairs has maps and detailed situation reports of conditions.

On a related theme also recently launched the Somalia Speaks initiative.See this news flash
Somalia Speaks is a collaboration between Souktel, a Palestinian-based organization providing SMS messaging services, Ushahidi, Al Jazeera, Crowdflower, and the African Diaspora Institute. It hopes to increase access to voices from the region by enabling residents to send messages from SMS this is then displayed on a map. The messages are translated into English. They are pinpointed by region and also accessible by general topic.Economic, political , social.

UN Pulse from U.N. Dag Hammarskjöld Library Moves to new location.
Get the rss feed from http://un-library.tumblr.com/rssIf you have not used it before it is an excellent current awareness source for highlighting the latest United Nations documents.
Key features of the library website also include: include a un documentation guide which explains the symbols used in UN documents.

Deutschlandfunk 50(DLF)
is a German public broadcasting radio station. It Commemorates 50 years with a conference considering Politik. Medien. Öffentlichkeit. Does journalism/ Media still cover politics well in the digital age? Does it still have a role to play? The website has information, blog postings and some archived resources. The latter include:
Audiofiles of discussion in German of Wikieconomics and crowd sourcing./
discussion of the Arab spring.

US election sites this week.Pew Forum on Religion and Public life now has a site with news and comment on the role of religion in the 2012 presidential election.

Also released is a database provided by California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting which forms part of their Money and politics data center. See who's donating to super PACs Data center http://californiawatch.org/datacenter/money-and-politics
For a useful snapshot of how the internet is changing voter behaviour see this recent Google blog post.

Measuring anti-Muslim Attacks Project, (MAMA Project).
Faith Matters (Uk based NGO ) launch the Measuring anti-Muslim Attacks Project, (MAMA Project).This aims to map and support victims of attacks.
Other useful sites for tracing projects, news and reports on race and islamophobia in the Uk include the Runnymede Trust And the Institute of Race Relations. For example see this recent publication. Voices against Islamophobia European Race audit briefing papers.

What do people really need to know about the Internet?
Listen to an audiofile of this recent lecture from Professor John Naughton which took place at the LSE on the 25th January 2012.
The speaker is also known as an Observer contributor .It discusses issues relating to the development and impact of the Internet.
Other LSE podcasts and lectures can be accessed via the main lse website
Other recent titles include: the Greek bailout and the future of the European Union.
Another really good source is the Backdoor Publishing Company. See this recent example
Developing Your Research Career – Getting Journal Articles Published
From Birkbeck college. Other recent examples include: Being-In-Human: The Critical Theory and Law of Human Rights
(A conference supported by The Leverhulme Trust, Birkbeck School of Law, LSE Department of Law and Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities)
/ Topics include: philosophy, literature, law and politics. Ted talks on politics, business.
Data driven journalism
Useful site maintained by the European Journalism Centre (EJC) with partial funding from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
It aims to gather together in one place news stories, case studies, tutorials covering the use of data (including data visualizations) by journalists. For example see this report of this recent conference
Open data Londonwhich unveiled a number of new exciting projects.

Ideal homes: Exploring the origins and significance of suburbia as revealed through the history of South East London
Really interesting site created and maintained by designed and produced by the University of Greenwich. Its content was provided by a group of librarians, from London's Boroughs: Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark also including citizen contributions.
Case studies include Blackheath, working class housing in Deptford, the entries include articles, and historic maps and images. Fascinating for social and urban history.

Gateway
This project is co-funded by the European Commission and the United Nations Development Programme. It aims to provide a set of tools to aid project developers to help them assess and choose tools for corruption assessments. Over 300 tools to diagnose and analyse corruption are currently indexed. In this context a tool is defined on the website as 'any research methodology whose primary aim is to identify the extent of corruption, corruption risks, and/or anti-corruption (integrity, transparency, accountability) in a given context'. It is possible to search tools for nation./ international analysis. Or by type of corruption e.g. government, businessEach record details the methodology, coverage and then links through to its website. In many cases reports based on the tool can then be downloaded.

GALA games and learning alliance.
EU funded project examining and building expertise in the use of games for serious educational learning. Led by ELIOS Lab - University of Genoa
Site currently includes project information and news. There is also an interesting blog which highlighted news and events.

Education reports 6-10th February 2012

2012-02-09T15:48:00.003Z

How visible are universities on social networks? ecoconsultancy analysis of weekly data for 20 Russell Group universities.

Solving the maths problem: international perspectives on mathematics education RSA report maths education often inadequate.

Staying the course- Barnardostakes a close, initial look at the new 16-19 Bursary Fund for England and its impact on disadvantaged 16 to 19-year-olds in education and training.

Media reports 6-10th February 2012

2012-02-09T10:59:00.004Z

Geolocation analysis of Twitter accounts by Semiocastfind out which country has the most accounts.

Tweeting is Believing? Understanding Microblog Credibility PerceptionsMicrosoft research paaper.

What is the most popular library book?

2012-02-07T13:05:00.005Z

This week Public Lending Right (PLR)announced that the most borrowed book from UK public libraries last year was “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown.the Guardian datablog has some really good data visualizations of this.
For some more free data on libraries and book reading try the Lampost site from Loughborough University.
The International Digital Publishing forum has basic statistics on ebook growth
the Bookseller provides free news headlines with publisher and market news.
For some useful data on the value of Uk public libraries and discussion of the cuts see this blog.There is also this recent blog posting on the value of Prison libraries. If you are interested in UK academic Librarians the Library Impact project blog has recent reports and data.
LSE staff and students might also like to search for relevant articles on LISTA Library, information science & technology abstracts and the Times Higher Education Supplement. Information on publishing trends can be found on the Global Market information database and Business source Complete.

Development reports 6-10th February 2012

2012-02-07T09:32:00.002Z

Crises in a New World Order: Challenging the humanitarian project
Oxfam report.

Economics reports 6-10th February 2012.

2012-02-07T09:19:00.012Z

Fair Employment: Why Scotland’s workers need a Fair Employment Commission
Citizens Advice scotland.

Visa Europe expenditure index.

Future risk Learning from historyCentenary Future Risk Series: Report 1 Chartered Institute of Insurance.

BRC-KPMG RETAIL SALES MONITOR JANUARY 2012

Council of Mortgage Lenders repossession rates 2011

Youth unemployment the crisis we cannot afford: NIESR

LSL Property Services/Acadametrics E&W House Price Index

Environment new reports 6-10th february 2012

2012-02-07T09:16:00.001Z

Protecting the wider countryside
Mapping the potential impact of the National
Planning Policy Framework Campaign to Protect Rural England report.

Government reports 6-10th February 2012

2012-02-07T09:04:00.010Z

Home Affairs Committee - Nineteenth Report
Roots of violent radicalisation additional evidence. HC 1446.

HM Revenue and Customs: National Statistics review of child benefit statistics - Results

Public Accounts Committee - Sixty-Seventh Report
Whole of government accounts 2009-10 HC 1696.

Health Committee - Fourteenth Report
Social Care HC 1583. volume one. volume 2

Defence Committee - Ninth Report
Operations in Libya HC 950 volume 2

English Housing Survey - Headline report 2010-11

Department for Education: GCSE and equivalent attainment by pupil characteristics in England 2010-11

Department for Transport: Road traffic estimates - Quarter four - 2011

Department for Transport: Congestion on local authority managed 'A' roads - October to December 2011

Department for Transport: Cycling England - Cycling City and Towns end of programme reports

National minimum wage - Final government evidence to the Low Pay Commission 2011

Public Accounts Committee - Sixty-Eighth Report
Ministry of Defence: The Major Projects Report 2011 HC 1678.

Managing change in the Defence workforce National Audit Office HC1791.

Equity investment in privately financed projects National Audit office. HC 1792.

Social science sites of the week.

2012-02-02T16:16:00.005Z

Gov.uk launched.
Beta site opens for public testing. It is the intention that this will eventually replace Directgov as a single one stop shop for citizens to access uk government information. Try it out to give your opinion.
Other good places for finding commentary on e-government in the UK are
The E-government bulletin from Headstar which discuses and summaries news stories.
PEPNET – network of interested citizens, public bodies interested in e-participation.
Socitm- membership association for all ICT professionals working in Local Authorities but some news releases offered for free. Se the free downloads from meetings.

LSE Digital Library Launch
The LSE has recently launched a digital library. The first collection is the diaries of Beatrice Webb.
Beatrice Webb was born in 1858, the eighth daughter of Richard Potter, a wealthy businessman, Beatrice records the activities of her daily life, the interactions with friends and family, and her most private thoughts and fears. In 1883 Beatrice took up social work in London, acting as a rent collector for the Charity Organisation Society and working undercover as a seamstress in a sweatshop in 1888. She began writing on social subjects and eventually started moving in the same circles as Sidney Webb, her future husband. The Webbs devoted their lives to socialism, becoming central members of the Fabian Society, founders of the London School of Economics, and constant campaigners for the welfare state
Entries we particularly liked:
Take a look at these pages - written in 1937 which describe her attitude towards psychoanalysis and the new science of psychology which might help with war insanity!
Take a look at these pages - written just before the 1910 election in which Beatrice Webb discusses ' the rotten issues' that have recently dominated British politics, the possible impact of the payment of MPs and women's suffrage!
Other useful page includes her famous comments that the 1926 general strike will fail and criticisms of Miner’s leader AJ Cook in the 1920s.

This is due to be the first of many launches of collections relevant to social science, economic and social history.Keep checking the digital library for more updates

Kuwait elections this week.
See the coverage in our blog.
If you are looking for Middle East information. Good starting points are
TEIM Election WatchAn excellent site for monitoring elections in the Middle East and Arab World.
Administered by Observatorio Electoral (Election Watch TEIM)
Taller de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Includes country profiles, newsletters and reports on elections from Morocco and Mauritania in the West to Malaysia and Indonesia in the East. Good assessments of whether elections are open and democratic. Free access to background reports on recent and forthcoming elections. an electoral calendar .
Other good sites for academic studies of for Arab elections are

Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (Pogar)A United Nations Programme.
Which aims to promote reform. Includes reports on anti-corruption programes, parliament and democracy

Arab Reform initiative.
A network of policy institutes based in Arab, North American and European nations which aims to promote and research economic, social and political reforms in the region. A key place for finding recent project news, research publications
Amman Center for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS)
A non-governmental organisation which promotes and studies human rights across the region Its website has reports covering justice, the death penalty and parliamentary democracy

Latest Global think tanks ranking 2011
Compiled by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) at the International Relations Program, University of Pennsylvania. Ranks the most influential research centres worldwide. Categories include top by region, top by area of research (includes health, environment, development, economics, social policy) website also has a useful think tanks directory by region and/or theme.

Get ahead of the games.
Site launched by Transport for London on behalf of the Olympic Delivery Authority, London 2012, the Department for Transport, the Highways Agency, National Rail and the Mayor of London. Includes information and maps of travel hotspots likely to be effected by the London 2012 Olympic Games. See interactive maps of different times of the day.
For research on the Olympics see the UK web archiving consortium initiative. which is creating a permanent web archive of sites created by key organizations during this period. There are currently over 240 being saved. Browse the collection.

National Railway Museum online posters collection.
Browse online this fascinating collection of several hundred historic railway advertising posters from the UK.
Fascinating for study of advertising history, social history see this example of attitudes towards gender and travel some items are records only. Others have full colour images. Each has date copyright details. Sort by region, company.

Creative Diversity Network
Membership forum which seeks to make the business case for increased diversity. Membership includes BBC channel 4, Sky ITV. Includes ethnic and other forms of diversity. For instance see this report on age diversity in TV broadcasting. A good place for finding out about projects/ research covering bias in the media coverage,

FlackCheck.org
A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, it aims to check and hold the us media accountable for reporting of political issues with frequent use of humour and parody.

There is currently a section for presidential debates. Coverage of political campaign ads in Florida

Value of the web
Interesting site supported by Google which aims to provide quantitative data research on the value of the internet to society. Contributors include: Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte Access Economics, McKinsey Global Institute, Nomura Research Institute, Sogang University Research, Institute for Market Economy.
The site posts reports that emphasise the positive impact on such sectors as the economy. It includes worldwide examples.

Bangladesh Journals OnLine (BanglaJOL)
Free access to a collection of over 75 academic journals published in Bangladesh
Covering a range of topics. There is an emphasis upon scientific topics but there is also coverage of health and development topics. good for locating materials which may have been missed by the more mainstream journal indexes Journals Online project as part of the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERii) which provides support to researchers around the world through access to information and training and support for the use of information. Other JOL projects are: Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL), 67 titles Philippines Journals Online (PhilJOL) 43 titles and Sri Lanka Journals Online (SLJOL) over 300 titles many with full text articles.

Other good free listing of Ejournals include: African journals onlineand doaj which is a great listing of titles from
Lund University currently over 7,400 listed covering all disciplines.

Education reports 30 January-2nd feb 2012

2012-02-02T13:54:00.005Z

Reskilling for research - interetsing report from RL UK on researcher's needs and libraries. What skills do librarians now need?

social policy reports 30th January-3rd Feb 2012

2012-02-02T10:49:00.005Z

Age Uk - care in crisis report 2012.

Improving health and social care in London: supporting integrated commissioning London Councils report.

Consortium of Associations in the South East (CASE) a group of nine leading housing associations - publishes a report on the impact of welfare reforms on housing

Media reports 30 January-2nd February 2012

2012-02-02T09:49:00.005Z

UK fixed-line broadband performance, November 2011 Ofcom

New Research Reveals Widespread Tracking and Behavioral Targeting on Children’s Websites; Groups Call on FTC to Update Online Privacy Safeguards for Children
Source: Center for Digital Democracy

A Manager’s Guide to Evaluating Citizen Participation The Obama administration’s Open Government Initiative is now three years old. But is it making a difference?..IBM center for Government report.

Mobile Internet & Smartphone Adoption New Insights into Consumer Usage of Mobile
Devices, the Shift to Smartphones & the Emergence of Tablets Google research. Published by Google covers: United States (US), United Kingdom (UK),
Germany (DE), France (FR) & Japan (JP).

Government reports 30th january-3rd February 2012

2012-02-01T08:40:00.005Z

Department for Education: Review of vocational education - The Wolf Report

Report three - Baseline and counterfactual - Meta-evaluation of the impacts and legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games

Cost reduction in central government: summary of progress
National Audit Office HC 1788

Science and Technology Committee - Twelfth Report
Malware and cyber crime

Public Accounts Committee - Sixty-Fifth Report
DFID: Transferring cash and assets to the poor

Delivering the free entitlement to education for three- and four-year-olds
national Aufit Office report.

International Development Committee - Ninth Special Report
The Closure of DFID's Bilateral Aid Programme in Burundi: Government Response to the Committee's Tenth Report of Session 2010-12

Health reports 30th January-3rd feb 2012

2012-01-31T14:22:00.003Z

Lansley’s experiment with the NHS must never be repeatedJoint editorial from Jenni Middleton, Editor, Nursing Times
Alastair McLellan, Editor, Health Service Journal, Fiona Godlee, Editor, BMJ

Are you in a travel hotspot?

2012-01-30T15:08:00.002Z

This week a mapping of potential travel hotspots during the Olympic games was launched on the Get ahead of the Games website
Transport for London also has its own planning site
they also have real time traffic alerts for London.
Other innovative sources of online maps include:
UNITAR: satellite maps support humanitarian aid operations. View a free selection online. Relief web also has mappings of recent disasters

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection- at the University of Texas, Austin, has a good selection of recent and historic maps. Including political data.

The CIA Factbook has basic country and regional maps.

LSE staff and students also have access to Digimap
Log in via the Uk federation service
This has contemporary and historic ordnance survey maps, It is also possible to generate and download maps for GIS systems.

Social Policy reports 6-10th february 2012

2012-01-30T08:37:00.002Z

Consortium of Associations in the South East (CASE) a group of nine leading housing associations - publishes a report on the impact of welfare reforms on housing

Economics reports 30 Jan-3rd Febb 2012

2012-01-30T08:35:00.008Z

Hometrack monthly house prices.

Latest public pension reforms unlikely to save money over longer term; Four-year pay squeeze returns public-private differential to pre-recession level - IFS report

IFS launch Green Budget

Nationwide House Price Index.

The development of cloud computing will promote economic growth, increase productivity and shift the type of jobs and skills required by businesses, according to a new study by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Case for a shorter working week.NEF

Narrow Money (Notes & Coin) and Reserve Balances
January 2012 Bank of England.

UK and World economy forecast NIESR.

Social science sites of the week

2012-01-26T16:42:00.017Z

27th January is Holocaust memorial day
To mark the occasion a new educational tool has been launched by University of Southern California's Shoah Foundation Institute
IWitness
Developed for school children 13-18, it has over 1,000 video testimonies from survivors and eye-witnesses. Selected guests to the site can edit and exchange films. See the FAQ for access requirements. (Which currently seem to be US based) Other features of the site include timelines, glossaries and bibliographies to guide further reading.

Here are other some useful resources.
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) website has details of events in the UK plus links to resources for teachers. They include podcasts from survivors. Also useful for UK teachers are the Holocaust Educational Trust which was established in 1988. with the aim of educating young people about the Holocaust. Its website has timelines of events. and podcasts of academic lectures it has sponsored, many from leading historians such as Sir Ian Kershaw.
Also offering good quality practical lesson plans for teachers is the Guardian educational website.
For those involved in academic study, The United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumSite is a good starting point. It has a holocaust encyclopaedia, a learning site for students. Plus a section on on-going research publications. The YouTube channel has lectures on the work of the museum
The United Nations' International Holocaust Remembrance Trust Provides free access to academic discussion papers, study guides for teachers Also excellent is the Yad Vashem the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. It has the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names Online photo archive, Online library catalogue and bibliography of reading on holocaust related topics and an online archive of survivors testimonies.

World Economic Forum 2012
Official website of the meeting at Davos. Get the latest reports and news. The website also provides free access to the most recent reports produced by the organization. These include the Global Risk report. Global Competitiveness report. Global Gender gap report. Its YouTube channel has interviews with world economic leaders. http://www.youtube.com/user/WorldEconomicForum/featured
You can also view some past interviews and presentations on Fora.TV
For some quick commentary on the events see the Bloomberg news section.

Deloitte lTalent Edge 2020
A longitudinal survey series conducted in collaboration with Forbes Insights launched in 2011. It aims to track trends in talent management by businesses worldwide.
The latest report from January 2012 is Talent Edge 2020
Redrafting talent strategies for the uneven recovery

Another useful resource for tracking economic trends.
Global MetroMonitor 2011: Volatility, Growth, and RecoveryLaunched by Brookings institution recently.
An analysis of per capita GDP (income) and employment changes in the 2010 to 2011 period for 200 of the world’s largest metropolitan economies, the website also has interactive maps.

Armenian Genocide denial and France.
This week the French senate made it illegal to deny the 1915 Armenian genocide. Get the text and further information from their website. You can also search the French Assembly nationale report for French government committee reports.
The Armenian Genocide Museum is a research center of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences. Its website has chronologies and details. It includes a research bibliography. Further shocking images can also be seen. On the French language. Comité de Défense de la Cause Arménienne website
along with selected news campaigns about the legal battle in France. Most items offered in French only.

UK Education select committee uses Twitter
Interesting development of the use of twitter by the committee to They asked the public to pick a question they would ask the education minister Michael Gove.

Colonial Film moving Images of the British Empire.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and features films from the British Film Institute, the Imperial War Museum, and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. They include British armed forces films, Empire Marketing Board, and missionary films. View over 150 online and find details about 350 more. Choose the advanced search form to restrict to online content only. Individual entries have copyright right and bibliographical details. Many also have research notes. The database can be searched by country or theme. Themes include empire and health, independent, industry and independence.
Examples include:
Wives of Nendi from 1949 Described by the voiceover as 'the true story of Mai Mangwende, the wife of Chief Mangwende of Southern Rhodesia and the African women's clubs she founded all over the Mangwende reserves' Examples from the Colonial Film Unit include: Mr English at home 1940.
A day in the life of a 'typical' English family. Intended for African distribution. Reveals representation of Britain sent to African audiences.

London School of Economics sets up Growth Commission.LSE Growth Commission (in association with the Institute for Government) which aims to provide contribution to the formulation and implementation of a long-term growth strategy the UK. It will run for a year from January 2012. The website currently has information about those involved and the launch event from the 23rd January.

Discovering Britain
Website launched in association with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)the website has a series of fun and informative walks which will help people explore/ learn more about the social economic and political history of their area. Choose a walk, by region, type of landscape all are graded with difficulty. Examples include: District 45Travel back in time to London’s Deptford 100 years ago this has maps, downloads of audio tours., images which use Booth maps to show poverty in the region. There is also a collection of links to online archives where more can be found.

The ICAA Documents of 20th-century Latin American and Latino Art digital archive
Hosted by the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), Houston. This new website provides free access to primary sources and critical documents tracing the development of twentieth-century art in Latin America and among Latino populations in the United States over 2,000 materials are currently archived. Topics covered include diasporas, immigration, race class and gender issues. Find examples of online posters, artist notebooks, articles and discussion these include the discussion of art in political movements, murals (including Diego Rivera in Mexico) registration required to download resources.

Index of Postal Freedom, 2012
Launched by the Consumer Postal Council.

Get facts and figures about the provision of postal services in countries worldwide.
Typical entries include overviews, history, information on market competitiveness, universality of service, and privatization with links to the main bodies.
A good supplement to the Universal Postal Union website.This has far more detailed statistics on numbers of staff. Post offices etc. in many nations worldwide.

Health reports 23-27th 2012

2012-01-26T11:15:00.002Z

Induced Abortion: Incidence and Trends Worldwide from 1995 to 2008, by Gilda Sedgh et al., was published online by The Lancet.

Media reports 23-27th January 2012

2012-01-26T08:46:00.006Z

Canada – Governing by Wiki: Fast, Flat, and Furious Social Media Foresight Study
Policy Horizons Canada is a organization within the Government of Canada. The report considers government policy issues arising from the current and future use of social media for e-government in Canada.

BBC Trust publishes initial analysis of BBC's Delivering Quality First proposals

#qldfloods and @QPSMedia: crisis communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland floods - new report by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI

internet in 2011 statistics on the Royal Pingdom website.

Do you lack integrity?

2012-01-25T08:22:00.003Z

the radio 4 Today programme recently invited listeners to take an integrity test
This was devised by the Essex Centre for the Study of Integrity. One of the issues they are considering is whether Britons are more dishonest than in the past.The centre will be officially launched this week and the website has details of its ongoing work.
Find some more articles on honesty and guilt and corrption from a psychological perspective by searching the free CogPrints working papers. As an alternative to Google scholar Microsoft Academic search will also help you locate scientific working papers and articles.
LSE staff and students might also like to try
Psychinfo - for articles about psychology.
Criminal Justice Abstracts for discussions of criminology.
and Scopus and ISI web of Science for social science and scientific articles.

Government reports 23-27th January 2012

2012-01-24T08:43:00.010Z

Business support for social enterprises - Findings from a longitudinal study- Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Smart regulation and economic growth - Seizing the tourism opportunityDepartment for Culture, Media and Sport

Department for Education: National pupil projections - Future trends in pupil numbers - December 2011 update

Executive remuneration discussion paper - Summary of responses

House of Lords Constitution CommitteeVoting at the Close of Poll

Defence Committee - Eighth Report
Ministry of Defence Annual Report and Accounts 2010-11

Department for Education: Local authority and school expenditure on education, children's services and social care for 2010-11, including school revenue balances

Home Affairs Committee - Eighteenth Report
Rules governing enforced removals from the UK

Public Administration Committee - Twentieth Report
Government and IT - "a recipe for rip-offs": time for a new approach: Further Report, With the Government Response to the Committee's Twelfth Report of Session 2010-12

Transport Committee - Fourteenth Report
Cable theft on the railway

Home Office: Police service strength - England and Wales - 30 September 2011

Home Office: Children entering detention held solely under Immigration Act powers December 2011

DCMS: Target timetable for Local Broadband Plan submission and approval, and DCMS assessment of likelihood of timetable being met

Department for Transport: Public attitudes to climate change and the impact of transport in 2011

Department for Education: Engaging adults in youth volunteering

Department for Education: GCSE and equivalent results in England, 2010-11 - Revised

Department for Education: Barriers and facilitators to pro-social behaviour among young people: a review of existing evidence

Defra: Farm business incomestatistics

Mobile technology in policingNational Audit Office report.

Social Policy reports 13-27th January 2012

2012-01-23T09:12:00.003Z

Reducing the numbers in custody: looking beyond criminal justice solutions Centre for Crime and Justice Studies

Child Neglect Review 2011Action for Children report.

Serving deprived communities in a recession Annette Hastings et al. Joseph Rowntree report on impact on council services.

Economics reports 23-27th 2012

2012-01-23T08:41:00.007Z

Squeezed Britain - Resolution Foundation report on life on middle to low income.reveals what life is really like for families who are in work but on a low to middle income.

BRC-GOOGLE ONLINE RETAIL MONITOR Q4 2011: summary

Hometrack - monthly house price survey.

Cities Outlook 2012- Centre for cities.

£1 in every £5 of council tax goes on council pensions:
4,548 councillors now claiming council pensions Taxpayers Alliance.

Deloitte launches Talent Edge 2020—a longitudinal survey series conducted in collaboration with Forbes Insights

Social science sites of the week.

2012-01-19T16:36:00.015Z

King Center Digital Archive launched
Fabulous full text digital library providing free access to thousands of items relating to the life, times and political legacy of civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King. It is hosted by the The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change with financial support from the JPMorgan Chase's Technology for Social Good. Browse the site by themes: these include non-violence, economics, notable sermons, and politics. It is also possible to browse by type of material including letters, photographs, oral histories, letters, sermons, speeches.

Haiti Earthquake after Two Years. Facts, Figures, and Photos- UN Dispatch feature.
UN dispatch links to some official United Nations facts and figures. These are good for a quick overview. Also useful is the MINUSTAH United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti English language details.
Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti And Haiti Standing which was created to commemorate the work of peacekeepers from the UN and includes photographs. the Haiti Quake archive contains more oral history testimonies, pictures and online video. It has been compiled from a variety of sources including: UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), OCHA, UNICEF, World Food Program, UN Foundation, and the UN. Material collected between 12 January and 1 May 2010.

DevInd
Useful graphic display of statistical data from the Indian government which has been developed using figures from various government ministries. It includes useful state profiles It is a useful supplement to the Ministry of Information website which has a full data catalogue, plus free access to some reports. Another good source of data is the Indian Census website which has some free downloads see the options on the left of the page.

Of course general facts about India can also be found in publications from international organisations including the Human Development reports and the general World Bank data site which has a country section on India.

The Economist launches free app for 2012 presidential elections.
See the explanation on the Guardian blog.explains its Electionism HTML5 app for iPad and Android. It will take content from The Economist and CQ Roll Call. It also has a noted elsewhere feature which will include twitter.
Another app (for purchase) from iTunes is the New York Times. Maclife blog has a list of other apps which it has noted.

United Nations Oral History website launched.
The Dag Hammarskjold Library now provides free access to sound recordings of its collection with key figures involved in UN history from 1945-2005. This includes insight into the founding of the UN and its peacekeeping work. The thematic index includes Cuba, anti-apartheid and conflicts in Iraq, Middle East, Korea and the Second World War. Technical and copyright information displayed on the website.

East Anglian Film Archive
Free access to clips of over 200 hours of historic film via the website. The content mainly relates to the East of England region (Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk).Highlights for economic and social historians include films of garden and New towns (e.g. Harlow) War time home front.
The Atwater collection of AIDS Education Posters University of Rochester.
Free access to one of the world’s largest collections of health promotion campaigns regarding HIV aids. Includes materials from 1981 to the present day. Over 2300 can be viewed. Search or browse by keyword, date, there is also the facility to browse the collection by language or country. Holdings cover Africa, Asia, Latin America as well as Europe and North America. Copyright information is displayed on the website.
The Wellcome Library provides free access to 1980s UK government public health campaign films on this topic.

ESRC creates riots: research sub-site.
The UK Economic and Social Science Research Council has created a subsection on its website for you to quickly locate materials, projects and research outputs. Topics include: causes, community development, policing and anti-social behaviour. The Guardian also has a good section which highlights recent research

The Mexican Digital Library (BDMx)
Free access to treasures, from the Prehispanic, Colonial, Independent and Revolutionary periods. Includes Códice de Yanhuitlán.Of value to anthropologists and students of Mexican colonial history.

The US Department of State has released Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XV, Soviet Union, June 1972–August 1974.
It covers communications between President Richard Nixon and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev critical to understanding of cold war history. Includes SALT talks on nuclear weapons. Other sites useful for this are George Washington University National Security Archive which has free electronic briefings books of declassified materials covering a wide range of cold war history topics. Cold war International History Project also has an excellent digital archive with papers and reports as well as details of ongoing research.

Development studies reports January 2012

2012-01-19T13:10:00.003Z

Left Behind by the G20? How inequality and environmental degradation threaten to exclude poor people from the benefits of economic growth
Oxfam.

Haiti - The Slow Road to Reconstruction: Two years after the earthquake

A Dangerous Delay .The cost of late response to early warnings in the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa. Oxfam

Media reports 14-20th January 2012

2012-01-19T10:54:00.003Z

Neilsenwire- state of the media : consumer usage report 2011. includes graphs and charts on US media usage. There is also graphs of an online survey of internet users from over 50 nations.

Not Just a Wink and Smile: An Analysis of User-Defined Success in Online Dating Source: Drexel University iSchool paper.

Education reports 14th-20th January 2012

2012-01-19T09:24:00.004Z

New video criticises HE reforms (via Times Higher Education website).
is produced by Martin McQuillan, professor of literary theory and cultural analysis and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University, and Joanna Callaghan, lecturer in media, art and design at the University of Bedfordshire.
Higher Education Statistics Agency - latest release on staff in employment in Uk universities.

Economics reports 14th-20th January 2012

2012-01-18T10:27:00.004Z

German Lessons: Developing industrial policy in the UK TUC report.

The Full Cost to Households of Renewable Energy Policies
Policy Exchange.

Nationwide consumer confidence survey

Development studies reportsd 6-10th February 2012

2012-01-18T10:26:00.001Z

A Dangerous Delay .The cost of late response to early warnings in the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa. Oxfam

Can you survive without Wikipedia?

2012-01-18T07:50:00.009Z

Today the English language version of wikipedia is offline due to protest against proposed anti-piracy legislation in the USA.
Wikipedia can be great if you remember to evaluate the source of the information. An effective use is to look at the bibliography and references list on entries. Often these lead to better sources where full text resources can be found!
However, LSE staff and students, might like to try our some of our recommended subscription based dictionary and encyclopedia services!

Dictionary of National Biography.Over 50,000 entries for influential men/women who have shaped British history from earliest times to the present day.
Also available is Who's who

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) World famous dictionary. Noted for its information on word origins.

Oxford Reference online Cross-search over 170 specialist English and foreign language dictionaries and encyclopedias. Includes media and management dictionaries.

We also have many examples of specialist subject dictionaries and encyclopedias online. Check our subject guides for details. Key examples include
New Palgrave Dicitonary of Economics
Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Social policy reports 14th-20th January 2012

2012-01-16T10:32:00.002Z

and the Pursuit of Happinessreport from Institute of Economic Affairs Government should not have happiness as a policy.

British Retail crime survey 2011. British Retail Consortium - download from left of screen.

Government reports 14-20th January 2012

2012-01-16T10:31:00.010Z

Review of Film policy final report “A Future for British Film – it begins with the audience”,

Public Accounts Committee - Sixty-Third Report
Preparations for the roll-out of smart meters HC 1617

Investigating the triggers into claiming Pension Credit Department for Work and Pensions

Justice Committee - Eleventh Report
Joint Enterprise HC1597
volume 2

Home Affairs Committee - Seventeenth Report
UK Border Controls HC 1647.

Audit Commission and Monitor guide: Delivering sustainable cost improvement programmes in NHS.

International Development Committee - Thirteenth Report
Private Foundations HC 1557. Volume 2.

Reorganising central government bodies National Audit Office- HC 1703

Home Office: Homicides, firearm offences and intimate violence 2010-11 - Supplementary volume two to Crime in England and Wales 2010-11

Home Office: Crime in England and Wales - Quarterly update to September 2011

Health and Safety Executive: Violence at work - Statistics

Health and Safety Executive: Review on the validity and reliability of self-reported work-related illness

Social Science sites of the week

2012-01-12T20:22:00.015Z

Scotland independence Referendum
the Scotsman announced 1,000 days to save scotland
The facts about the proposal can be found on the SNP Scotland Forward site. Deputy SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has some historic discussion on Twitter. See more examples and press releases from the SNP on their website /
BBC news has some good summaries of newspaper reaction to this.
UK polling report has summaries of IPSO Mori Gallup polls of public opinion trends over several years. Ipsos also has polls relating to Scotland. UCL constitution unit had a major role in monitoring devolution in Scotland. Read its reports from 2006-9. Search the website for details of other recent interest in Scottish politics.
The Institute of Governance University of Edinburgh also has materials. Free online are working papers. Also worth browsing is the Political Studies Association Conference proceedings. Find conference papers from 1994 onwards. Quite a few cover Scottish politics.

Child Poverty Action group.
Launch 2011 poverty map of child deprivation in the Uk. Compiled by Donald Hirsch and JacquelineBeckhelling of the Centre for Research in Social Policy, Loughborough
University, for the Campaign to End Child Poverty. Find out about conditions in your area.The 44 page report has maps, tables and indicators for specific regions of the uk.
Also useful is the more general Poverty indicators website This is maintained by Gary Palmer and has general indicators for poverty taken from well-established sources. Another site which has a wealth of materials is the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It publishes an annual report monitoring poverty and social exclusion in the Uk which you can download for free .Browse the income and poverty publications section for more useful examples

WHO Global Health Library
Worth revisiting as it provides free access to a number of regional health journal indexes. Cross search a number of leading regional indexes. These are excellent for tracing health reports from the developing world.
African Index medicus
LILACS – Latin America includes material from the PAHO
Index Medicus for South-East Asia Region (IMSEAR)
Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM)
These are a good supplement to the western index PubMed which gives free access to references from Medline.

London Screen Archives
Virtual library hosted by a network of regional film archives and the British Film Institute. Search the catalogue by keyword for information. Not all entries are online. To restrict to those with audio visual content check the records with video only box from the main search screen. There are good examples of clips covering the Second world war. Good examples are also on a YouTube channel. Entries give copyright and access information.

India real time
Useful readable blog with contributions from staff at the Wall Street journal and Dow Jones newswire reporters. As you would expect a heavy emphasis upon the economy, industry and financial markets. However also coverage of social trends including the Bollywood entertainment industry.

2012twit
A project of Adam and Zach Green. It aims to provide real time coverage of the USA 2012 elections from Twitter. Look at trending topics and recent tweets.
They also have an interesting blog with coverage of twitter tools and metrics Currently it is covering controversy over the campaign to promote a minor candidate by retweeting. See the entries for Donate Tweets for Buddy Roemer on New Year's Eve

Military archives.Ie
Preserves information relating to the history of the Irish Defence Forces and the Department of Defence. It is developing its free online library. see the maps collection for examples. Coming soon is the Bureau of Military History collection. This was established in January 1947 by Oscar Traynor TD, Minister for Defence The objective of the Bureau was 'to assemble and co-ordinate material to form the basis for the compilation of the history of the movement for Independence from the formation of the Irish Volunteers on 25th November 1913, to the 11th July 1921.'

NBER to offer free access to its historic archive of working papers
National Bureau of Economic Research is a private, non-profit, nonpartisan research organization. Its working papers cover a range of economic topics. Series include trade, employment, economic policy. Older papers (3 year rolling wall) can now be downloaded from the SSRN website see the press release
series are located on the main SSRN website

Worldshapin.
The site which won the award for a competition for the best visualization of UNDP Human development data. See the press release for more details
created by Carlo Zapponi and Vasundhara Parakh it uses 6 indicators from the HDR (interdependence of Health, Carbon footprint, Workplace equality, Living standard, Population and Education) presenting them in a form of a graph. Create a shape for individual countries to show the interplay of factors.
And then compare them with other nations.
Remember that UNDP has an official open data site which includes a variety of other indicators.

Monmouthpedia
is the first Wikipedia project to cover a whole town - specifically, the Welsh town of Monmouth. It has official council backing. See more in this article from Head star it aims to create an online encyclopaedia of facts and features, using mapping facilities and QR Codes.

Equality research january 2012

2012-01-11T11:33:00.003Z

Stonewall Top 100 Employers 2011: The latest ranking for the most gay-friendly employers in the UK

Education research 6-13th january 2012

2012-01-11T11:28:00.003Z

Military Academies: Tackling disadvantage, improving ethos and changing outcome
respublica
Shut down or restart - computing in schools. Royal Society report.

All speed ahead with High Speed rail?

2012-01-10T08:21:00.007Z

Today the government is expected to give the go ahead to a high speed rail project.
Find out more on UK government railway and transport policy from these recommended websites.
The Official Department for Transport website has a section with official documents, press releases and papers. Also take a look at the HS2 company website which the government set up to consider the case. and the Transport select committee of parliament which conducted an investigation.
For some discussion of technical issues see Greengauge 21 and the website of the Institute of Civil Engineers. The latter can be searched to retrieve papers and event recordings.
For the industry perspective see the Network rail Website A search reveals a number of key documents
The Association of Train Operating Companies also has relevant materials.
Other reviews of the business case have been conducted by the RAC Foundation.For a different perspective see the stop HS2 campaign website HS 2 action alliance (business and economic case materials)
Greenpeace materials on rail transport
Campaign for the Protection of Rural England
Finally a good place for tracing recent academic research is the Rail Research Uk Association established in 2010 by a partnership of Uk universities and the rail industry. Also useful here is the Institute for Transport Studies University of Leeds which has some online working papers as does the Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford.
LSE staff and students may like to try to locate further articles on transport policy
SCOPUS and Web of Science

Government publications 9-13th January 2012

2012-01-10T08:19:00.014Z

Department of Health: Poly Implant Prostheses breast implants - Interim report of the expert group

Welsh Affairs Committee - Seventh Report
Representation of consumer interests in Wales HC 1558
volume 2

NHS future forum 2nd Interim report.

Migration Advisory Committee report on the impact of migration.

Treasury - Twenty-Fifth Report
Private Finance Initiative: Government, OBR and NAO Responses to the Seventeenth Report from the Committee
HC 1725

Department for Transport: High speed rail - Investing in Britain's future - Decisions and next steps see the options on the right of the page for other documents

Creating a sporting habit for life - A new youth sport strategy

Attitudes to age in Britain 2010-11. Department for Work and Pensions
research

Review of social enterprise in rural England - Report

Transport Committee - Twelfth Report
Cost of motor insurance: follow up HC 1451

Public Accounts Committee - Sixty-Second Report
Means Testing HC 1627

Treasury - Twenty-Sixth Report
Financial Conduct Authority HC 1574

Media research 6-13th January 2012

2012-01-09T08:34:00.004Z

Filkin report- Ethical issues arising from the relationship between the police and media.

Latest issue of First Monday Journal- articles include.Internet and interest articulation in China: A theoretical re-examination
Yu-Wen Chen
Teenagers and social network sites: Do off-line inequalities predict their online social networks?
June Ahn

Environment reports 6-13th January 2012

2012-01-09T08:24:00.005Z

Green and growth campaign reports from EEF

Pay as you go: managing traffic impacts in a world-class City Green party Commisisoned report on traffic in London.

Radical changes in home heating needed to meet carbon targets, Royal Academy of Engineerign report - ALl heated up.

Social policy reports 6-13th january 2012

2012-01-09T08:19:00.002Z

Vicious cycle- Barnardos report on familes and debt.

How to cut government spending lessons from Canada. Centre for Policy Studies.

Economics reports 6-13th january 2012

2012-01-09T08:15:00.011Z

Visa Europe Uk expenditure index.

Lloyds annual business in Britain report.

Employee empowerment towards greater workplace empowerment - Centreforum report.

London Employment monitor - Morgan Mckinley

Youth Unemployment and Immigration from the A8 CountriesMigration Watch report

British Chambers of Commerce summary of Quarterly Survey.

The Skills Dilemma: Skills under-utilisation and low-wage work- Work Foundation report.

Minimal impact of migration on education and public services – new NIESR report

Halifax latest house price index.

RICS Housing Market Survey

BRC-NIELSEN SHOP PRICE INDEX DECEMBER 2011

LSL Property Services/Acadametrics E&W House Price Index

Social science sites of the week.

2012-01-05T15:13:00.014Z

Egypt Elections Watch
Has been launched by Jadaliyya in association with Ahram Online, the Center of Contemporary Arab Studies (Georgetown University) and the Middle East Studies Program (George Mason University). This has excellent introductions to election laws, profiles of parties and key figures along with maps, legislation and links to key news feeds and facebook sites.(many in Arabic).It is a good complement to the Egypt Votes site which aims to encourage quality reporting by young Egyptian journalists. It is jointly financed by the Department of Foreign Affairs, International Trade Canada and the German Federal Foreign Office. Some of the site is in Arabic, but there is also a on the left hand side which has interesting current comment.
For further suggestions for news covering the Egyptian elections see our recent blog posting. There is also another posting on more general news and analysis sites covering the Arab Spring.

Google launches specialist US elections and politics pages
Useful for tracking progress in the 2012 presidential race!
Includes the 2012 political calendar from pbs YouTube politics videos. It has news stories, results and graphs by candidate and issue. For a handy calendar of forthcoming events see the National Association of Secretaries of State, website which has a 2012 Presidential Primary/Caucus Calendar and presidential primaries guides.

Stream Congress
A tool from watchdog, the Sunlight foundation that combines in one web based application Tweets, YouTube videos and floor updates from members of Congress, making them into a single customized news feed. Instructions given on the website. Note usage requires Google Chrome to be installed.

Also relaunched by the same group Capitol words.
Get data on the most used words in the US Congress. Compare terms on graphs or see the most frequently used recent terms. It is possible to compare words or phrases by state or party. For instance see this page of statistics on mentions of Obama . Find out who mentioned it the most, mentions over time.

New Year resolutions.
Choose.myplate.Gov
The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, an organization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched a site to aid your New Year resolutions. In addition to advice on healthy eating and exercise, it also has a supertracker to develop a personalised health and fitness plan. For more on resolutions. The American Psychological Association has some good tips. They also have links to some apps to speed you on.

Arab League–Syria

The official website has details on its English language version about its involvement in Syria. See the option on the left of the screen. This has news, protocols and information about its observer mission.
Further details about the situation can be found on the United Nations website see its winds of change in the Middle East news section for the latest press releases, speeches and statements.
The Syrian observatory for Human rights.is offering daily updates on the situation some comment is translated into English.

South Asia Research Documentation Services 3 (SARDS3)
An electronic database containing bibliographic references to South Asia research articles maintained by the Universities of Bonn, Halle, Munich. Covers the period 1797-2000.
Particularly useful for tracing European language articles. A good supplement to Bibliography of Asian Studies-South Asia Index Provided by the Digital South Asia Library. This resource offers free access to a limited version. Full access is for subscribers only.

OpenStreetMap
Challenger to Google maps which allows Wikipedia style contributions. It is being developed as a result of Google starting to charge heavy users of Google maps. See this article on its background from mit

Documentos Digitalizados del Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional Guatemala
The University of Texas at Austin is now providing free access to a historical archive of the documents of Guatemala’s National Police. These comprise more than a million pages. Covering the period 1870-1990s. The great site will be of great value to historians, researchers of human rights and those investigating Latin American history. Material is being added to the site as it is scanned. It is worth consulting the guidance on searching which states that 'Results from a keyword search will show: on the left of the screen, chronological or alphabetical lists to narrow the search results; on the right of the screen, the location of search results within the hierarchical structure of the archive. This hierarchy reflects the administrative organization of the National Police, and preserves the original order of the archive. The number of documents in each category is shown in parentheses next to the date, letter, or department. Click on dates, letters, or department names to explore search results further'.

The Corner shop project
Fascinating social history archive preserving the history of English corner shops which was created by a team including Sandwell Community History & Archives Service. The original project involved community theatre however the preserve website has other useful features for economic and social historians. See archive photos. Some teaching resources on the demise of the corner shop and the history of shopping which have been devised for schools. Many materials relate to the Midlands.
Those interested in this topic may wish to consult the fascinating virtual Woolworths museum created by enthusiast Paul Robert Seaton. This has many subsections with oral histories from employees, historic photo and advertising.

Health reports 2nd-6th January 2012

2012-01-05T10:34:00.001Z

Integrated care for patients and populations: Improving outcomes by working together A report to the Department of Health and the NHS Future Forum. Kings Fund. Nuffield Trust.

Education reports 2nd-6th January 2012

2012-01-05T10:24:00.002Z

Government funding for university teaching and research to fall to lowest proportion in over a century, University and College Union.

Is our social care system failing?

2012-01-03T11:49:00.006Z

Today the Telegraph printed an open letter from a number of leading Uk charities which urged the government to make social care reform a priority.
Get free access to full text papers and abstracts of materials on social care from the SCIE database Social Care online
The British Library also has a digest of recent articles in its Welfare reform on the web service.the latest issue has abstracts from newspaper articles and quality academic journal titles.
Other useful starting points where you can find free materials are the Joseph Rowntree website which provides free access to its many research reports.
Official documents on social care policy can be found on the Department of Health website.
The Kings Fund website has analysis and articles.
LSE staff and students might also like to try these databases.
Ageinfo - to trace materials on care for the elderly. It covers material indexed by the centre for Policy on Ageing
Scopus - find materials on a full range of social science subjects. Try our social policy subject guide to get advice on rearching topics and the full list of social policy databases.

Social Policy reports 2nd-6th January 2012

2012-01-03T11:48:00.009Z

Open letter in the telegraph UK Care system failing.

Rising Energy Costs: The impact on low-income families
save the Children Fund report.

The Impact of Austerity Measures on Households with Children Family and Parenting Institute.

Commission on Assisted Dying- final report can be downloaded from the Demos website.

Princes Trust Youth Index 2012.
find out about lives today.

Economics reports 2nd-6th January 2012

2012-01-03T11:43:00.004Z

Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA)Workplace pensions: challenging times pensions trends report.

The Atomic Clock: How the Coalition is gambling with Britain’s energy policy
Centre for policy studies.

UK Policy resolutions for 2012 - Centre for Policy Studies.

Bank of England - Credit Conditions Survey

British Council's multi-million pound credit card spending revealed Taxpayers Alliance.

Media reports 2nd-6th January 2012

2011-12-23T12:57:00.009Z

Culture on the go
CIBER Research, shows how access to information is changing as people search for, read and use information on the move. A growing proportion of web browsing happens on smartphones like the new Mac iPhone 4S and tablets like the iPad, and no longer on PCs and laptops in homes and offices. This shift will have a radical impact on the design and functionality of websites

Texting, Social Networking Popular Worldwide Pew Internet report on trends.

Nielsen’s Tops of 2011: Digital - Top US web brands.
Most watched TV programmes in the USA.
Most effective advertising USA.

Learning freedom and the web by Anya Kamenetz and the participants of the 2010 Mozilla Festival. Download the free ebook.

The Dynamics of Protest Recruitment through an Online Network. Sandra González-Bailón,1 Javier Borge-Holthoefer,2 Alejandro Rivero2 & Yamir Moreno2, 3
AffiliationsContributionsCorresponding author Journal name:
Scientific Reports Volume: 1,Article number:197. The recent wave of mobilizations in the Arab world and across Western countries has generated much discussion on how digital media is connected to the diffusion of protests. We examine that connection using data from the surge of mobilizations that took place in Spain in May 2011.

Converging communications channels: Preferences and behaviours of Australian communications users. Australian Communications and Media Authority

Government reports 2nd-6th January 2012

2011-12-23T12:36:00.012Z

2009-10 Citizenship Survey - Community spirit topic report
2009-10 Citizenship Survey - Community action topic report
2009-10 Citizenship Survey - Race, religion and equalities topic report
Delivering results - National minimum wage compliance annual report.

Department for Education: Young people's education and labour market choices aged 16-17 to 18-19

Department for Education: Class size and education in England evidence report

Flood risk and insurance - A roadmap to 2013 and beyond DEFRA.

Energy and Climate Change - Ninth Report
Solar Power Feed-in Tariffs volume 2

Home Office: Children entering detention held solely under Immigration Act powers, by age and place of initial detention - November 2011

Home Office: Monthly asylum statistics - October 2011

International Development Committee - Twelfth Report Working Effectively in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States: DRC and Rwanda
additional evidence

Foreign Affairs Committee - Tenth Report
Piracy off the coast of Somalia

Social science sites of the week

2011-12-20T11:16:00.013Z

Christmas Images
The Museum of London has put online some of its collection of tinsel decorated theatrical prints. Tinsel foil was often used to highlight characters actors playing certain roles. Find out more from their blog posting. Online collections from the V& A museum include Christmas cards. Their renowned national art library also has a Christmas card study guide which links to a bibliography of suggested readings.
The Geffreye museum advent calendar has images from its collections of historic furniture and home furnishings.

World Giving Index 2011 Launched.
The charities Aid Foundation has just launched its annual report on trends in charity giving worldwide. The full text of the report and a map showing them graphically can be downloaded from the website. The CAF also publish a UK giving index and the excellent Charity Trends website where users can search for data

Your Paintings.
Your Paintings is a joint initiative between the BBC, the Public Catalogue Foundation (a registered charity) and participating collections and museums from across the UK. It aims to provide free access to a searchable database of images of over 20,000 paintings, drawings and sketches held in charitable trusts for the UK public. Currently records are available for over 100,000 items with more being added. Search by artist, topic or location.
Individual entries give details about location of the painting (not all are on public view) size, artist, copyright status.
There is also a public project to involve the public and art experts in tagging the paintings to make them more searchable. See some Christmas examples.

Locating London’s Past
Fabulous new JISC Funded project created by a partnership between partnership between the University of Hertfordshire, the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and the Sheffield. Map data about the social, economic and political conditions of Londoners during the 16-18th century onto a GIS compliant version of John Rocque's 1746 map of London. The type of data available includes
Hearth tax for 1666, Mortality and Plague in 1665, old Bailey crime records and population records.
For those interested in London History.
Connected Histories: Sources for Building British History, 1500-1900 website was launched in 2011 and offers a federated search of 15 major databases of primary source economic, social and political history texts and images. These include historic pamphlets, parliamentary papers and convict transportation registers database. Note that access to the full text of some of the resources requires a subscription. For further information on the creation of the site see a recent presentation by Dr Jane Winters Head of Publications & IHR Digital, Institute of Historical Research
One of the interesting features of the site which she explains is the connected section. Here users have tagged and indexed related terms from across the different databases, revealing new previously unexplored connections. For example see the references to Gin. The British History online digital library also provides free access to a multitude of core primary and secondary resources for economic, political and social historians.
Researchers of London history might like to see the survey of London historic maps, records of wills and other histories.

Metabiblioteca-bib
Project developed by the Programa de Sistemas e Información Y Documentación, Bibliotecología y Archivística de la Universidad de La Salle, Colombia which seeks to increase information and access to open access repositories in Latin American. These can be useful for tracing examples of recent research outputs (articles, conference reports, and other publications) produced in these regions. As well as key Spanish language publications. They also include some eBooks and historic digitized texts. Browse by author, subject or search by keyword.

Resource guide on gender equality in the world of work
One of an excellent series of guides produced by the ILO Library in Geneva. It provides guidance and direct links to key documents statistics and websites relating to all aspects of gender, employment and work worldwide. Topics covered include: gender wage gap, gender mainstreaming, gender and education.
Other useful subject guides from the ILO library can also be found on the website. Topics covered include disability, child labour microfinance and the informal economy.
The ILO also has a number of other excellent free sites for those interested ion work related issues. These include.
The ILO Global Job Crisis Observatory Which is good starting point for weekly updates on the impact of the worldwide financial crisis upon employment. Also worth exploring are the links from the website which lead to economic crisis themed pages from other international organisations and charities.

Labordoc the combined library catalogue from a network of 28 ILO libraries around the world has also been revamped. It provides links to the full text of many ILO documents back to 1919, plus a digital archive of conference proceedings. Other features include: indexing of ILO journal articles and working papers. There are also a number of pre-defined thematic searches that can be browsed by users.

LSE London Launches new briefing paper series.
A series of 5 briefing papers written by academic staff of the London School of Economics which was funded by the HEIF4- to provide guidance to practitioners and policy makers on recent economic and political trends in London. They comprise: The economic recession: why London escaped lightly Ian Gordon; Poverty and Inequality in London: anticipating the effects of tax and benefit reforms Ruth Lupton; Inner and outer London: a tale of two cities? Alan Mace; Private renting: learning the lessons from other countries kath Scanlon; The case for public investment in affordable housing in London Christine Whitehead.

Google Zeitgeist 2011
Look at this to see major search trends. Who were the most famous celebrities/ events. You can also look for statistics on trends in searching in particular regions of the world. There are some archives and an explanation of the methodology on the main Google website

eSocial Sciences
Social sciences portal produced by south Asian scholars to promote research from India and the South Asian continent. Free registration required to access some aspects. Include links to events, working papers, and a good starting point for finding materials.
Other useful sites relating to India include:
Vidyanidhi, E-scholarship portal and Digital library which is aiming to develop a Online Archive/repository of doctoral theses and dissertations submitted to Indian Universities.

What were the most popular things in 2011?

2011-12-20T09:10:00.006Z

This week sees the launch of a few most popular 2011 lists. To end the year here are a selection!
What did people search for in 2011. See the Google Zeitgeist list. This has trends for search terms and trends for regions.Use the archives to compare with some past years from 2001 onwards.
The Oxford English Dictionary chose 'squeezed middle ' as the word of the year.
The YouTube most watched video of the year was a talking dog!
Time listed the most infleuntial people of the year. The Person of the year was the protester and just for a bit of fun - 10 most famous authors mentioned on the Simpsons!
Why not use some lse library resources to find out about top trends.
ORBIS can be used by LSE staff and students to locate top performing companies worldwide.

Global Market Information database to get facts and figures on the latest consumer trends

Social Policy reports 19-21st December 2011

2011-12-19T10:01:00.006Z

Making the case for universal child care - Institute for Public policy research.

Young people blame poverty for the riots and call for more government support
Children's Society survey.

Homelessness a silent killer- Shelter research

Media reports 19-21st December 2011

2011-12-19T09:32:00.002Z

Nielsen’s State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report (Q3 2011)free registration required. get statistics on mobile phone users in USA.

Mobile Passes Print in Time-Spent Among US Adults summary of emarketer report.

Economics research 19-21st December 2011

2011-12-19T09:26:00.008Z

Bank of England quarterly bulletin.

Bank of England/GfK NOP Inflation Attitudes Surveylatest quarterly survey of public attitudes to inflation

AA Petrol price report.

Bank of England capital Assurance statistics.

Council of Mortgage Lenders latest housing market forecasts

Gofk latest consumer confidence index.

Nearly 300,000 people set to spend their second successive Christmas on the dole TUC research

Education reports 19-21 December 2011

2011-12-19T09:19:00.002Z

Reducing bureaucracy in further education in England
National Audit Office HC: 1590, 2010-2012

Health reports 19-21st December 2011

2011-12-19T09:16:00.003Z

The 21st century gingerbread house: How companies are marketing junk food to children online Children’s Food Campaign - 2011

National Audit of dementia services 2011 - Royal College of Psychiatrists

Government reports 19-21st December 2011

2011-12-19T09:05:00.014Z

Department for Education: Monitoring and evaluation of family intervention services and projects between February 2007 and March 2011

Department for Education: Income and expenditure in local authority maintained schools - 2010-11
DWP: Lone Parent Obligations - Work, childcare and the Jobseeker's Allowance regime
Home Office: Operation of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent legislation - Arrests, outcomes and stop and searches - Quarterly update to June 2011 - Great Britain
Statistical digest of the English Uplands 2011
Farm accounts in England 2010-11
Transport statistics Great Britain 2011
Department for Transport: Quarterly bus statistics - Quarter three 2011
Taxi and private hire vehicle statistics 2011
Services for people with neurological conditions
National Audit office report HC 1586

Reducing bureaucracy in further education in England
National Audit Office report HC: 1590

Police Complaints statistics 2010/2011 Independent Police Complaints board.

Transport Committee - Eleventh Report Thameslink rolling stock procurement

Policing Large Scale Disorder: Lessons from the disturbances of August 2011 Home Affairs Select Committee.

Joint Committee on the Draft Financial Services Bill

City strategy - Final evaluation The city strategy initiative was designed at a time of national economic growth to combat enduring pockets of entrenched worklessness and poverty in urban areas by empowering local institutions to come together in partnerships to develop locally sensitive solutions. This publication reviews and assesses the policy.

Public Accounts Committee - Sixtieth Report
Achievement of foundation trust status by NHS hospital trusts

Public Accounts Committee - Sixty-First Report
HM Revenue & Customs 2010-11 Accounts: tax disputes

Public Accounts Committee - Fifty-Eighth Report HM Revenue & Customs: PAYE, tax credit debt and cost reduction

Bus Market Inquiry report - Competition commission.

The rules of engagement: A review of the August 2011 disorders HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Department for Education: Review of the National Curriculum in England - What can we learn from the English, mathematics and science curricula of high-performing jurisdictions?

Department for Education: Review of the National Curriculum in England - Report on subject breadth in international jurisdictions

Department for Education: The framework for the National Curriculum - A report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum review

Ministry of Justice: Post-legislative scrutiny of the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Communities and Local Government Committee - Eighth Report
The National Planning Policy Framework

Implementing the Government ICT Strategy: six-month review of progress
National Audit Office report.

Social science sites of the week.

2011-12-14T14:56:00.012Z

The failure of the Royal Bank of Scotland: Financial Services Authority Board Report
The full text of the long awaited report about the Royal Bank of Scotland collapse.
It includes future lessons for global bank management and supervision.
Other useful banking relating websites include:

Bank of England
Its Bank stats have some basic statistics on overall financial balance sheets of Uk banks. Annual reports of the Royal Bank of Scotland can also be viewed on its website.
Bank for International Settlements
International organisation which promotes international monetary and financial cooperation between central banks. Its website has a Central Bank Hub with free access to useful directories of national authorities, speeches from bank governors and research reports. The statistics section provides free access to some international and national banking statistics. These include cross-border lending and borrowing of internationally active banks, securities, derivatives, and external debt and property prices. The latest BIS Quarterly Review for December 2011 shows how concerns about sovereign risk in the euro area affected financial markets.

Online streaming of occupy protests makes online businesses viable.
This week the New York Times reported that the quantity of online streaming channels was making a number of start-ups specialising in streaming video content financially profitable. See examples on Live stream.
On the theme of the occupy movement researchers organised a hackathon in December Details of this give links to projects involved in data mining the protests.

Case studies of use of data
The ESDS has created a website which has case studies of use of data by UK researchers. Examples include:
Creating a community profile of health data Comparing housing problems across Europe

Myhealth London
Latest example of websites/social media being used to enhance transparency for the British population. The Greater London Authority and NHS London have just launched a site which gives information on GPs. In addition to searchable maps and health advice; patients can also access screening rates and patient satisfaction scores. The site also has examples of NHS health apps, twitter feeds being used to communicate health promotion messages.

i-map project: Innovation in the Market Assurance of New Programmes
The latest results from this project which was financed by HEFCE's Leadership, Governance and Management fund and led by the University for the Creative Arts, in partnership with Leeds University, University of the West of England and UCAS. It investigated what factors made new academic courses popular and viable. The website has basic information on the aims of the project. It also has data analysis on new programmes introduced in Uk HE colleges and universities. It also has papers from a conference which took place in November this includes surveys of policy and practice, case studies of factors which made new courses in Higher education Institutions work (e.g. in increasing student take up).

What are the social impacts of climate change in the Uk
Useful webpages created by the Joseph Rowntree foundation. Focuses on the impact on local communities with a strong emphasis on the effect upon disadvantaged communities. It includes twitter, blog postings and links to full text reports topics covered include data on who emits the most CO2 in the Uk.

National Library of Israel Digital Library
A redesigned website and enhanced online content from the National library of website. Much content in Hebrew but also substantial interest for |English language readers.

Sub-sections include digital books over 400 versions.
Historic newspapers includes Jewish language newspapers from around the world. Mainly 19th and early 20th century.
Maps contains nearly 1,500 ancient maps of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel Photos over 6,500 photographs.
National sound archive recordings
YouTube channel of cultural events at the library
Those interested in Israel might also like to try the free Rambi resource Index of articles on Jewish studies which is based on the holdings of the Rambi thousands of periodicals and from collections of articles - in Hebrew, Yiddish, and European languages- mainly from the holdings of the Jewish National and University Library. Abstracts from 2001 onwards.

Anti-Communism Films of the Early 1960s.
Useful new online collection from Pepperdine University Libraries. It comprises 4 films which the university sponsored in the 1960s. The series was called Crisis for Americans. And each film ‘sought to expose the threat of Soviet-based communism to capitalism and free societies around the globe ‘In addition to the full films the website also has associated archival materials including advertisements, lecturers and associated publicity materials. These add insight into the nature and concerns about communism in the post McCarthy period of the USA. Copyright and technical information is displayed on the website.

WikiBhasha
Microsoft Research India have developed a tool called , this aims to encourage more Multilanguage content on the Internet.The aim is for users use WikiBhasha to adapt English-language Wikipedia articles for local languages see the project page for more details on the project which is also involved in enhancing machine translation skills.

The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) has released the latest data on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a devinfo book
This makes it easier for users to select indicators and areas to create their own graphs.
Of course the official MDG website has definitions of the goals and further maps
Progress reports can also be read online there

L’Histoire par l'image
Is a portal created by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication with input from museums and archives. It provides free access to historic paintings, photographs, prints, engravings covering French history from 1789-1939, items can be consulted from a chronology or by theme. The politics section includes materials relating to the French revolution, republics, wars, nationalism and international relations. Many of the images have associated text (in French) which include interpretations and analysis setting the object in context plus a bibliography to guide further reading.

Health reports 12-15th December 2011

2011-12-14T10:12:00.003Z

Brain Waves 4: Neuroscience and the law Royal Society Publication.

Improving health and health care in London - Who will take the lead? Kings Fund.

Social policy research 12-15th December 2011

2011-12-14T10:04:00.005Z

New research released by Shelter highlights the areas of England where people are most at risk of losing their home.

Social exclusion among shift workers and older peopleESRC funded study.

Chinese migrants: Their experiences in their own words Wai Yin Chinese Women’s Society and Research Institute for Health and Social Change

Involving older people in service commissioning: more power to their elbow? Joseph Rowntree research

Media and communication reports 12-15th December 2011

2011-12-12T15:25:00.006Z

latest issue of free ejournal First Monday online.
articles include: Cascades and the political blogosphere

Sexting: a typology Crimes Against Children Research Center (University of New Hampshire)This bulletin presents a typology of sexting episodes based on a review of over 550 cases obtained from a national survey of law enforcement agencies (USA)

Being Online Is Still Not Enough- Reviews and Recommendations for State Election Websites Pew center on the States.

Twitter and the riots: how the news spread report from JISC published in the Guardian newspaper

Education reports 12-16th December 2011

2011-12-12T14:23:00.001Z

Next Generation UK British Council.
This report explores the opportunities and challenges, motivations and barriers of UK undergraduates regarding international engagement. The research conducted by YouGov incorporates a literature review, four focus groups and a 1,000 person survey of UK undergraduates at UK universities. It was completed in April and May 2011

Too big to fail?

2011-12-12T12:57:00.010Z

Today the Financial Services Authority published its report into the failure of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The full text can be downloaded from its website
Other useful sites for finding information on Banks include:
Bank of England its bank stats have some basic statistics on overall financial balance sheets of Uk banks
Bank for International SettlementsInternational organisation which promotes international monetary and financial cooperation between central banks. The latest BIS Quarterly Review for December 2011 shows how concerns about sovereign risk in the euro area affected financial markets.
other free sources of papers include Economists Online
which has working papers and some full text articles from top economists in Europe. The Management and Business Portal (from the British Library) also allows you to search for relevant materials. Free registration allows some to be downloaded. University library members should check other holdings against their own local catalogues.
LSE staff and students also have access to the following related DVDs. Inside Job ;
Enron : smartest guys in the room
and the Corporation Other books on the global banking crisis can be located by searching the library catalogue.
Useful starting points for journal articles on banking and financial regulation.
Include World Banking Abstracts
Econlit
ISI web of Science
Business Source Complete
and International Bibliography of the Social sciences.

Economics research 12-15th December 2011

2011-12-12T11:30:00.007Z

The Chartered Insurance Institute report 'Financial Capability: State of the Nation'

Jobless cleaners, caterers and machine operators amongst those most at risk of long-term unemployment TUC.

The Workforce Survey Medium/Large businessesDecember 2011 British Chambers of Commerce.

Short Changed - Protecting people with dementia from financial abuse
Alzheimers Society

The law of opposites: Illusory profits in the financial sectorAdam Smith Institute

Renewable energy: Vision or mirage?Adam Smith Institute

Government reports 12-15th December 2011

2011-12-12T11:22:00.010Z

The failure of the Royal Bank of Scotland: Financial Services Authority Board Report

The independent review of charging for household water and sewerage services - Walker review

Competition and innovation in the water markets - Cave review

Human Rights Joint Committee - Twenty-First Report
Legislative Scrutiny: Welfare Reform Bill HL Paper 233/HC 1704

The Portas Review - An independent review into the future of our high streets

New benefit rates for 2012-13

House Price Index.October 2011

Home Office: Without fear or favour - A review of police relationships. This review examines all Home Office police forces, police authorities, British Transport Police and the National Policing Improvement Agency. Benchmarking was conducted across public, private and third sector organisations, with regional, national and international practices reviewed to compare and identify opportunities to learn lessons and adopt good practice.

Business growth, access to finance and performance outcomes in the recession

Public Administration Committee - 902-I Seventeenth Report
The Big Society HC 902-ii
volume II

Electoral Commission voter registration statistics.

Plugging the Energy GapGreater London Authority Committee report.

Park Life: The legacy of London's Olympic venuesGreater London Authority
report.

Department for Education: Outcomes for children looked after as at 31 March 2011

Ofsted: Infomation communication technology in schools 2008-11

Health 5-9th December 20111

2011-12-09T17:24:00.000Z

Induced Abortion and Mental Health: A systematic review of the evidence Royal college of physicians

Social science sites of the week

2011-12-08T20:08:00.011Z

Russia Votes
Last week Russia held parliamentary elections. A good starting point for academic information is the Russia Votes website. This site is maintained by the Centre for the Study of Public Policy University of Aberdeen, which specialises in studies of post soviet regions.
It has explanations of the electoral process, presidential election results 1996-2008For the Duma explanations of the system, plus some useful voting behaviour studies of the electorate from 1933-2011.

Other good starting points are the Central Election Commission official website which has an English language section with legislation, regulations and some results.
The Itar-Tass Russian News Agency also has news and commentary about political events. However do note this is a state funded agency which will impact on the stance of the news presented.
Further basic information on Russian elections and the electoral system can also be found on the IFES website election guide and the OSCE which has conducted observation of past elections. A number of think tanks and human rights bodies have had concerns about the elections. NDI has reported on the harassment of civil rights organisation GOLOS. It also has other papers and reports.
Human Rights Watch has also commented on harassment. Chatham House has podcasts and comment on the predicted results on its website.
In terms of other russian resources.
COCOREES Searchable catalogue of East European and Slavonic book and journal holdings in major Uk Libraries.

REENIC: Russian and East European Network Information Center
Maintained by the University of Texas. Extensive regional and subject directories of academic resources with helpful comment on content.
REESWEB: Russian and East European Studies Server
Maintained by the University of Pittsburgh. Interdisciplinary. Search by keyword or browse to find websites (organisations, journals indexes etc.) Annotations on content provided.

Stalin Digital Archive
Available in beta version (until June 2012). This means service seems to have some disruption as documents are loaded. Currently, the SDA contains approximately 3% of the total documents eventually expected to be included. Registration required.
the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) and Yale University Press, the Stalin Digital Archive (SDA) aim to provide access to primary source materials from Stalin's personal papers. Highlights include: foreign policy with Germany before World War II; communications during the Great Purges; relations with Western intellectuals and leaders; and private notations on many Soviet leaders.
Opis 1: documents written by Stalin from 1889-1952;
Opis 2: documents written by Stalin from 1911-1944;
Opis 3: over 300 books from Stalin's personal library with his marginal notes;
Opis 4: Stalin's biographical materials;
Opis 11: Stalin's correspondence as well as 188 maps with Stalin's hand-written markings. This Opis covers a period from 1917 to 1952.

The Annals of Communism series contains 25 volumes of scholarly commentary, annotation, and interpretation of documents from state and party archives selected by teams of Western and Russian editors. These volumes span the history of Soviet and international communism.

British Social Attitudes survey released
Major social attitudes study released on the net by National Centre for Social Research. Conducted annually since 1983. This year’s report covers the following themes: Political engagement, Devolution, Private education, School choice, Higher education, Environment, Transport, Housing, NHS, Childhood, Child poverty, Religion full text online . Earlier results (summaries) from 2009 can also be viewed.

We gov project
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. It aims to develop a toolset that will allow the European Parliament and politicians in Europe to take full advantage of a wide range of social networking sites (including Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, see presentations from the first workshop results of first evaluation

Mercer Quality of Living Index.
Where is the best city to live? Consult this ranking of quality of life and personal safety for the top 50 cities worldwide, summaries available free of charge online.

70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
See the US National Archives document from Roosevelt on the day of infamy speech Draft speeches. Msnbc photo blog has visual images from above in 1941 and 2011 Reuters video (via YouTube ) has interviews with some survivors. Nara also has some digitised photographs of the salvage operations

eResearch Australasia 2011 Conference papers
eResearch Australasia 2011 was held 6-11 November at the Sebel & Citigate Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia.
The papers can now be downloaded as a pdf document Topics covered include open access repositories and research in Australia, data, research infrastructure, escience. It covers both the physical and social sciences.

Business research team from Manchester Business School of John Rylands Library University of Manchester have just launched a new guide to citing references using the Harvard System
Intended for students it is clear written with sections on commonly requested categories including intext citations, making reference lists for e-resoruces. The library website has other useful general guides as well as guides for researchers and guides to the school’s business databases. Another site with many excellent citing and referencing guides is the Purdue online writing lab (OWL) which has sections for APA and MLA.

Novapolity.com:new voices in the Politics of Today
A new website featuring articles on American politics by students and recent graduates of political science, government. Subjects range from backroom deals on Capitol Hill to the inner workings of the White House and commentary on Obama's policy.website has details on how to submit articles.

Political Insights Yahoo labs
Has developed a new tool which examines the proportion of times a search query resulted in a click-through on a political blog of a particular leaning. It used 155 blogs covering May 2010-January 2011. Look at the results and the methodology on the website.

Media reports 5-9th December 2011

2011-12-07T10:19:00.006Z

NMcite publish research on social media and bank transfer day - ann online campaign to get consumers to transfer to smaller banks.
Student Consensus on RateMyProfessors.com useful article from April Bleske-Rechek and Amber Fritsch
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire published in Practical Assessment and Evaluation vol 16, no.18 argues that Taken alongside other investigations of RateMyProfessors.com and the
broad literature on student evaluations of teaching, our findings suggest that students who use RateMyProfessors.com are likely providing each other with useful information about quality of instruction.

Facebook Blog - 40 most shared stories on Facebook in 2011

The internet as a diversion and destination report from Pew Internet and American Life project on the use of the Internet as a diversion.

Why the world needs better science journalism - useful articles with links to key projects from PBS Mediashift.

What 's your opinion?

2011-12-07T09:52:00.006Z

Published this week the 28th British Social Attitudes survey A major social by National Centre for Social research. Conducted annually since 1983. This year’s report covers the following themes: Political engagement, Devolution, Private education, School choice, Higher education, Environment, Transport, Housing, NHS, Childhood, Child poverty, Religion full text online
Earlier results (summaries) from 2009 can also be viewed
LSE staff and students can also read print and e-versions of them.
Looking for other surveys? Try Eurobarometer - what do citizens from EU nations think on a range of topics.

WorldPublicOpinion.org network is a consortium of research centers studying public opinion on international issues. Topics covered include attitudes towards the USA.
The Survey Question bank has a searchable database of questions used in major British social surveys there are also methods fact sheets.

LSE staff and students might also like to try the database from the Roper Center which covers mainly North America.

Social policy reports 5-9th December 2011

2011-12-07T09:43:00.003Z

28th British Social attitudes report issued

Who will be left holding the baby?
Grandparents Plus Charity warns of ‘care gap’ crisis as grandmothers providing childcare required to stay in work longer. the report Doing it all?, compares British Social Attitudes Survey Data in 1998 and 2009

Economics reports 5-9th December 2011

2011-12-06T10:07:00.006Z

Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders releases new car sales figures.
The Endgame for the Eurozone? Centre for Policy Studies factsheet

British Retail Consortium shop inflation index.
Retail sales monitor

Rightmove latest house price index.

Visa Europe UK consumer expenditure

Government reports 5th-9th December 2011

2011-12-05T18:04:00.012Z

London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games quarterly economic report - December 2011

Department of Health: Payment by results quality and outcomes indicators

Public Accounts Committee - Fifty-Seventh Report
Oversight of user choice and provider competition in care markets

Preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games: Progress report December 2011National Audit Odffice report HC: 1596

Political and Constitutional Reform Committee - Eleventh Report
Rules of Royal Succession HC 615

The Audit Commission and Local Government Association have jointly launched - Work in progress: Meeting local needs with lower workforce costs (external link). Aimed at councils as employers, our joint report shows how local authorities across England are reducing their workforce costs, with some finding creative solutions

Winter resilience in transport - An assessment of the case for additional investment

Strength and opportunity 2011 - The landscape of the medical technology, medical biotechnology, industrial biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors in the UK

Investing in UK health and life sciences- Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Unlocking growth in cities

Innovation and research strategy for growth- Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

In-work support for lone parents - Using the UK employment retention and advancement demonstration to examine cross-office variation in effectiveness

white paper - Water for Life

Department of Education: Education and training statistics for the United Kingdom 2011

Creative industries economic estimates - December 2011

Local area statistics on adult participation in sport and active recreation - Active People survey five report - December 2011

Public Accounts Committee - Fifty-Ninth Report The cost-effective delivery of an armoured vehicle capability

Social science sites of the week.

2011-12-02T09:31:00.012Z

This week the British Library announced the launch of The British Newspaper archive. This service offers online access to hundreds of historic titles published in regional cities of the UK from approximately 1700-1940. It offers a wealth of resources for social, economic and political historians, including access to original illustrations, advertisements and text. To view the full text of titles available go to the advanced search form and consult the drop down list of newspapers. It is designed for individual historians and requires a subscription for full text viewing. Some iconic dates (such as Waterloo) are offered free of charge. However, note that many UK HE institutions do already have free access to an equivalent called the British library 19th Century newspapers. See this JISC collections notice
Those looking for historic news online might also like to try these free websites from other parts of the world.
Chronicling America. Maintained by the Library of Congress. Search hundreds of full text newspapers from 1860-1922 and get information about American newspapers published since 1690!
Papers Past Maintained by the National Library of New Zealand. Access hundreds of national and regional titles from 1839-1945.
Many historic European titles can also be traced via the Europeana catalogue. The Library Delicious account. also has a growing collection of links to newspaper digitisation projects which you might like to explore.

NHS Pension Scheme Calculator Agenda for Change
Official department of health resource. Created for NHS staff. Designed to enable them to calculate impact of proposed pension changes
A separate section on the website provides more in-depth help on NHS pay and conditions. And the NHS employer’s website has a NHS pension scheme fact section. For a different perspective see the UNISON NHS campaign site regarding public sector pensions. BMA
TUC pensions Justice Blog includes coverage of 30th November day of action.

International criminal Court live stream of case against former Ivory Coast leader.See the press release of details Also on going case against Libyan Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi The website also has information on the structure and operation of the court.
Another good starting point for searching for human rights information is the Hurisearch engine which rapidly cross searches over 5,000 human rights websites. Including NGOs, governments and international organisations.
Books for understanding is a free initiative of the Association of American University Presses it provides access to reading lists of US published books covering current affairs topics. it includes lists of key works. A much smaller list of recommended 40 titles on human rights is also offered on this blog from accredited colleges. UK locations can be checked on COPAC

Occupy wall street peoples library
Interesting perspective on the social campaign. See what the campaigners occupying Wall Street are reading. Includes news, book lists, twitter news and photographs. on this theme there is also a flickr library of photos of occupy libraries set up in different sites around the world and a library thing site

The Riots Communities and Victims Panel - Interim report
Following the riots that occurred in towns and cities across England between 6 and 10 August 2011, the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Official Opposition established the Riots Communities and Victims Panel. Other useful sites on this topic include London Recovers Site established by The Recovery Co-ordination Group membership. Includes 33 London councils, Greater London Authority, Metropolitan Police Service, London Fire Brigade, London Development Agency. Cabinet Office: The August riots in England - Understanding the involvement of young people which examines motivations and who was involved. The riots of summer 2011: Seminar organized by the Campaign for Social Science
the Guardian newspaper section is also a good starting point for monitoring recent releases.

Department of State released Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XV, Soviet Union, June 1972–August 1974Useful for historians of the cold war. Includes declassified document s exchanges between Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon. Topics include SALT talks,.

Other volumes in the series are also available. Time period covered 1940s-early 1970s.
Another good source of information on US declassified materials is the National Security Archive George Washington University. Which has many online electronic briefings books.

DocsTeach
Primary resource materials for use in the classroom. An excellent new site created by NARA to encourage teaching with documents.See this video tutorial. In addition to thousands of documents arranged chronologically and in themes from 1750s – post war period, the site also has ready-made tools and classroom activities for educators. These are designed for K12 teachers in relation to US national History standards. However they have a wider applicability in terms of highlighting key issues for others and offering suggestions of good teaching programmes. For encouraging history students to use primary sources. There are 7 interactive tools for creating learning programmes.
finding a sequence, (Order a set of primary sources to demonstrate a sequence or the simultaneous nature of historical events within a time period) focusing on details (showcase a specific document) making connections (Arrange a set of documents to show the progression of historical events and help students understand relationships among events) Mapping history (plotting events on maps) seeing the big picture (Pair documents concerning a historical event, concept, or figure with descriptions, questions, or other documents to impress upon students that the whole is derived of smaller parts) weighing the evidence (get students to consider wand weigh evidence for and against a theme. Interpreting data – introduce students to use of statistical data by historians.
Another good site for this is the Smithsonian Source for teaching American history In the Uk the National Archives has some on line lesson plans there are also some online games.

Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library
Based at Dickinson State University. Provides free access to a national collection about the life and career of the former American president. It has a timeline of key events. The digital library has diaries, letters, cartoons. Key issues are the presidency, also a bibliography of biographies key readings.

Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2011
The influential annual report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the New Policy Institute. Uses 50 indicators to consider levels of poverty in the UK. This year it also considers the impact of coalition policies. Topics covered include: child poverty, poverty in old age, the unemployed and poverty, housing, fuel poverty and household debt. Graphs monitor change in circumstances over the last 10 years.
On this theme also useful is the poverty website. This is maintained by Guy Palmer. It provides free access to major UK indicators and reports
You can also search the UK Office for National Statistics for suitable datasets. Other useful organisations include Institute for Fiscal Studies which has discussions and analysis of poverty and well-being. The Child Poverty Tool Kit developed by the campaign Against Child Poverty and The Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion has online tools to build anti-poverty strategies and analyse poverty at a local area. The main CPAG site also has recent data and reports the Poverty Alliance have news and reports relating to Scotland.

Hidden Journeys explore the world from the air
Interesting site created in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Explore 16 major airline flight paths from the air looking down at the landscape. They include satellite images at 10,000 m. 2,000m and street level photos. Also available are facts and images of the landscape and geographical features.
They include London to Delhi, New York to Los Angeles.

Environment new reports 28th November-2nd December 2011

2011-12-02T09:22:00.005Z

Carbon Impacts of high-speed railway line High Speed 2 (HS2 commissioned from Greengauge 21 by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). This report sets out the interim findings,

Education reports 28 November-2nd December 2011

2011-12-01T15:07:00.004Z

Driving economic growth New report from Universities UK highlights the critical role UK universities will continue to play in reviving and sustaining economic growth across the country.

The Woolf Inquiry: An inquiry into the LSE's links with Libya and lessons to be learned final report published.

Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011 annual survey of trends published by Sloan Consortium

Social policy reports 28th November - 2nd December 2011

2011-11-30T09:52:00.005Z

Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2011 Joseph Rowntree Report.

Charm Offensive: Cultivating Civility in 21st Century Britain Young Foundation.

Grow Your Own: How local authorities can support social enterprise Young Foundation.

A Better Life - what older people with high support needs value Joseph Rowntree

White working-class neighbourhoods: Common themes and policy suggestions Joseph Rowntree research.

White working-class views of neighbourhood, cohesion and change

Climate change, justice and vulnerability Joseph Rowntree research.

Economics reports 28 November-2nd December 2011

2011-11-29T11:54:00.006Z

Credit where it's dueHow to revive bank landing to British Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Work Foundation.

Nationwide House Price Index

Bankstats- November Bank of England.

Financial Stability Report, December 2011 Bank of England.

Autumn statement analysis - Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Recessions and downturns: past and present

2011-11-29T09:42:00.004Z

Today George Osborne will be delivering the Autumn Statement.
The Parliament website has details about it and a live feed.
See comment on the Guardian newspaper.Other Uk nationals also have similar pages. Look at the latest OECD Economic outlook for discussion of the performance of major economies worldwide.
But how does this compare with the 1929 crash?
Look for statistical data from the 1920s/1930s in the League of Nations statistical yearbook from this period.
EH Net from the Economic History Association has encyclopedia style entries and links to useful resources coverign the 1929 crash.It also has lists of recomended reading.
Economists online provides free access to summaries (and in many cases) full text papers covering stock market crashes past and present.
LSE staff and students might also like to look at these economic history resources.
Financial Times Historic Archive 1888-2007
Economist Historical Archive 1843-2007
Historic Annual Accounts - find company annual reports from US major companies from the 1930s online.

Media reports 28th November-2nd December 2011

2011-11-29T09:22:00.002Z

Anatomy of Facebook - degrees of separateion between friends. New research posted on Facebook blog.

Government reports 28th November-2nd December 2011

2011-11-29T08:59:00.015Z

Office for Budget Responsibility: Economic and fiscal outlook - November 2011.
Autumn Forecast Statement by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne
the Riots Communities and Victims Panel - Interim report.

Cabinet Office: Cyber Security Strategy

Department for Education: Firms' engagement with the apprenticeship programme
Department for Education: A profile of pupil absence in England

Department for Education: The evaluation of the impact of changes to A levels and GCSEs - Second interim report

Department for Education: The impact of short breaks on families with a disabled child over time - The second report from the quantitative study

NHS Pension Scheme Calculator: Agenda for Change- This calculator is for Agenda for Change staff, including special classes and mental health officers. It can be used to get an illustrative estimate of how the proposed reforms might affect a pension.

Department of Transport: Avon longitudinal study of parents and children - Exposure to injury risk in the road environment and reported road traffic injuries in 16-year-olds

Carrier Strike: Supplementary ReportThe NAO has today issued a supplementary report on the Carrier Strike project, having been given access to briefing papers held by the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office.

Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Whole of Government Accounts 2009-10
National Audit Office.

Local authority housing statistics England 2010-11 - Housing strategy statistical appendix and business plan statistical appendix

Department for Education: Characteristics of children in need in England 2010-11 - Final

Local Authority Borrowing and Investments 2010-11

Broadband delivery programme - Superfast pilots - Lessons learnt report

Audit Commission: Joining up health and social care - Improving value for money across the interface

The introduction of Jobcentre Plus - An evaluation of labour market impacts

Civil Procedure Rule Committee Annual Report 2011

The Care Quality Commission: Regulating the quality and safety of health and adult social care

Core skills at HM Revenue & Customs

Social science sites of the week

2011-11-25T09:43:00.014Z

Bahrain Human Rights Reforms.
This week a commission reported into future human rights reforms in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The BBC report has a direct link to an English language version of the full text.
The Congressional reports service also recently published a report on Bahrain, security and US foreign policy which can be downloaded in October 2011. More official information on Bahrain can also be located on the official egovernment portal
remember this is maintained by the government itself!

High Pay Commission published its final report, Cheques with Balances: Why tackling high pay is in the national interest.
The High Pay Commission is an independent inquiry into top pay in the private sector. It was established in 2010 by Compass with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. The website has the full text of the report plus some interesting discussion papers which include surveys of high earners. Some of these ask do you deserve what you earn? A key feature is the focus on the gap between high and low earners in the UK.

Other good starting points for news and statistics on this topic include:
A section in the Guardian Business pages. The TUC has a number of reports; surveys on workers pay. For a different perspective see the Institute of Directors website. The British Library Business and Management portal can be searched free of charge for references to recent books and articles. Some can be accessed in full text (register first).
Economists online has references to working papers, and other research outputs from Europe’s leading economists. See what they have to say on the issue. Again many materials are free in full text.

Independent Commission for Aid Impact published first reports.
This body is impartial it is headed by a commissioner who reports to parliament. It focuses on UK government departments. The first reports are: ICAI's Approach to Value for Money and Aid Effectiveness; DFID's Approach to Anti-Corruption; DFID's Climate Change Programme in Bangladesh; and DFID's Support for the Health Programme in Zimbabwe.
Other useful discussion is on the house of Parliament select committee. For International Development The British Library of Development Studies library catalogue can also be used to trace references to aid. These include books and references to journal articles as can the Eldis Gateway

The Princess Royal Trust for Carers (The Trust) has launched a new Facebook app, Who Cares?.
Interesting user of social media by a charity NGO The aim of this is to get the public thinking about who would care for them if they got serious chronic illnesses and the impact of caring/ ill health on social life. The story, played out via Facebook messages, shows how easy it is for carers to become isolated as they lose touch with friends.

Médecins Sans Frontières MSF (Doctors without Borders) has launched Urban Survivors
A multimedia project in collaboration with the NOOR photo agency and Darjeeling Productions.It is a web documentary which takes the visitor on a virtual journey through five slums where MSF is actively running projects:Dhaka, Bangladesh, Karachi, Pakistan, Johannesburg, South Africa, Port au Prince, Haiti, Nairobi, Kenya
It enables viewers to hear from the residents about their daily lives by watching video films and then learn about MSF aid efforts.

Politicker USA
Good directory of twitter feeds from politicians, parties and USA presidential candidates. Follow them all in one place.
Other good directories. Tweetminister find UK MPs Tweetcongress (USA).

Miss America Protests, 1968 and 1969 Duke University Digital Library collection provides free access to materials, relating to feminists protests again the Miss America beauty show in 1968/1969. See photographs, leaflets, private papers from organisers and eye witness accounts of this key event In US gender history. See pictures and YouTube accounts of the 1970 Miss World protests

Center for Marketing Research, at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Has just released its annual review of social media by Forbes 500 companies. The center is a leading institution in the conducting of surveys on use of web 2.0 by leading American companies. Some of its publications and research studies can be downloaded from the website
The latest study compares usage of blogs, twitter and Facebook from 2008-2011. It includes comparison by industry, sector. Details on methodology provided on the website.

2012 project
Project launched by the Center for American Women and Politics Rutgers University. Aims to increase female participation in increase the number of women in Congress and state legislatures in the 2012 elections. The website has details about the campaign. It also has useful facts and figures about women and political representation/ participation in the USA. This includes statistics on black and ethnic minority women. The site also has research papers from previous elections. Topics covered include women and political leadership, gender and voting behaviour and the impact of women on policy making.

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
Database on Arbitrary Detention
Created with the assistance of Freedom Now, a non-governmental human rights organization. Provides free access to document issued by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The official mandate for this is Resolution 1991/42 of the former Commission on Human Rights (approved by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in decision 1991/243 of 31 May 1991) established, initially for three years, a working group of five independent experts. The experts are mandated to investigate cases of deprivation of liberty imposed arbitrarily or otherwise inconsistently with the international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the relevant international legal instruments accepted by the States concerned. Documents include case notes, human rights instruments. Topics include detention of immigrants. Detention at Guantanamo Bay

Non-English language fiction. Combined regions database.
This union catalogue is useful for listing collections of foreign language literature in many UK libraries (mainly public libraries) it currently libraries across England and Scotland. The East of England, East Midlands, London, North West, Scotland, South West, Yorkshire and Humberside regions. Wales Ireland is excluded. It is maintained by The Combined Regions (TCR). A subscription organisation whose members are regional or national library organisations. It describes collections rather than individual titles. But can be used to identify large collections. Information also provided on interlibrary loan policies.

Media research 21-25th November 2011

2011-11-24T09:54:00.007Z

Digital By Default? Online Public Services and Digital Inclusion in Wales. Bevan Foundation
A fair go for all in the digital era: towards a digital inclusion roadmap
The Summit was sponsored by Huawei, Community Sector Banking, and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) and held in Parliament House earlier this year
The NMC Horizon Report: 2011 Museum Edition examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in education and interpretation within the museum environment.

The 2011 Fortune 500 and Social Media Adoption Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth compiled since 2008 an annual list of the amont and how companies on the Forbes 500 use social media such as Twitter and facebook.

Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for TeachersCarolyn Wilson, Alton Grizzle, Ramon Tuazon, Kwame Akyempong, and Chi-Kim Cheung
Just released by UNESCO. Provides school teachers with a core curriculum for media literacy lessons. divided into modules which include: Knowledge of the media for social participation, evaluation of the media and core teacher competencies.

Why Americans use social media. New report from Pew Internet and American Life Project

Education research 21-25th November 2011

2011-11-24T09:25:00.002Z

Learning curve: Schooling and skills for future jobscentre for Cities reports.considers unemployment and qualifications.

Are you squeezed in the middle?

2011-11-23T10:00:00.009Z

This week Oxford Dictionaries named 'squeezed in the middle" as the word of 2011

Some good free dictionary sites are:
Cambridge Dictionaries Online Specialises in dictionaries for learners of English. Site includes pronunciation guide.

Merriam-Webster Website includes some free access to an English language, medical and visual dictionary plus a thesaurus

YourDictionary.com Directory of links to 1,000s of dictionaries available online.

LSE staff and students also have free access to these recommended resources.
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) world famous scholarly dictionary. Excellent for checking word origins.
Oxford reference online - get free access to over 175 dictionaries. They include foreign language dictionaries, subject dictionaries for business and management and more.

Social policy reports 21-25th November 2011

2011-11-23T09:55:00.002Z

Cities for Growth: Solutions to our planning problems Policy Exchange

Economics research 21-25th November 2011

2011-11-23T09:46:00.008Z

Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee minutes.

The state of the economy IPPR report

10 ways to promote growth IPPR report

Highly-skilled staff earn more in the private sector TUC

Smarter Spending to boost
the economy campaign For Better Transport.

The 50p tax -good intentions, bad outcomes. The impact of high rate marginal tax on
Government revenues in a world with no borders. CEBR

Taxpayer funding of trade unions 2011 Taxpayer Alliance.

Government reports 21-25th November 2011

2011-11-22T12:54:00.011Z

Close to home: An inquiry into older people and human rights in home care
Equality and Human Rights Commission
Laying the Foundations: A Housing Strategy for England
Independent Commission for Aid Impact publishes first 4 reports on UK aid effectiveness

The Annual Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills 2010-11

Ofsted: Data on schools causing concern - Summer term 2011

Ministry of Defence: The Major Projects Report 2011

Department for Transport: A fresh start for the strategic road network - Report of Alan Cook's independent review

Department for Education: Tackling child sexual exploitation action plan

Department for Education: Not in education, employment, or training statistics - Quarterly brief - Quarter three 2011

Department of Health: The operating framework for the NHS in England 2012-13

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Financial Management Report 2011
National Audit Office report.

Social science sites of the week.

2011-11-18T08:15:00.008Z

This week the Leveson Inquiry opened.
This was set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. Specifically Lord Justice Leveson will examine the relationship of the press with the public, police and politicians. Get the full facts from the official website which includes transcripts of hearings and evidence.
A number of news sites have ongoing coverage. These include the BBC
Telegraph
Guardian.
Other key organisations relating to UK press are Media Standards Trust which campaigned for a full inquiry via its hacked off campaign
Press Complaints Commission
National Union of Journalists.
Finally don’t forget the and UK Parliament Culture, Media and Sport select Committee
Recent phone hacking evidence from James Murdoch. Scroll down the list of publications (especially oral evidence to find many more transcripts of hearings)

Birmingham civic dashboard
Interesting example of a community e-government project. The Birmingham Civic Dashboard was created by local digital agency Mudlark on behalf of Digital Birmingham, a partnership body promoting digital projects. It displays all requests to Birmingham city Council’s customer relations management centre onto an interactive map of the city. This enables users to view information about requests for data by times, location. It doesn’t satisfy the need for open information on how claims were progressed. Look at the comments field for public feedback on the usefulness or otherwise of the system! guardian Background articles can be found on the NESTA site

London Recovers
Site established by The Recovery Co-ordination Group membership. Includes 33 London councils, Greater London Authority, Metropolitan Police Service, London Fire Brigade, London Development Agency. Aims to provide access to information on steps made by authorities to recover and rebuild in the wake of the London 2011 riots. It has news, links to official reports, advice for businesses on financial support,examples of civic / community rebuilding and regeneration projects. Information can be accessed by borough.

Open Access Africa 2011
A BioMed Central and Computer Aid International event, was hosted at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, during Open Access Week 2011.Access the presentations and posters online from the Biomed website Includes Google perspective on open access developments in Africa
Discussion on why open access benefits researchers in Africa.
Case Studies of open access initiatives in developing countries in Africa.

Europeana Collections 1914-1918
Latest special project provides free access to a wealth of materials covering the First World War from Europe’s national library collections. Material will be added continuously until 2014. It will include primary source images, manuscripts, personal diaries and memorabilia. Partners include the British Library, libraries in Germany, France and Italy. They will showcase personal, civilian and military experiences. Currently available are a small collection of materials.

The IMP Archive: launched (Business and marketing)
Provides free access to all conference papers from 1984-1999. The IMP Group was originally formed in the mid-1970s, as a research project on “Industrial Marketing and Purchasing”, by a group of researchers representing five European countries and universities. Its annual conference is the world’s largest relating to marketing, purchasing and technological development in a business-to-business context. Search the database by keyword or browse. Site supplements other online resources on the IMP website such as research papers and dissertations

E-Map Explorer Norfolk County Council.
Award winning local history site enables users to compare aerial and photographic maps of Norfolk. Includes tithe and enclosure maps. Aerial photography from 1946 and 1988. The site has the possibility to zoom in on specific localities. Information about scales, sources and copyright is displayed on the website.

Papers of the War Department 1784-1800
A project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the Humanities. It provides free online access to primary source documents of the American war department. Responsibilities of this office included: the War Department was responsible Indian affairs, veteran affairs, naval affairs (until 1798), as well as militia and army matters. It is therefore a rich source of information on Early American government, founding of the nation. Search or browse the site.

Geospatial Platform
New official site from the United States government. Provides free access to a wealth of geospatial data produced by US federal government agencies. It also links to apps relating to geospatial data.
Users can view maps and build their own. Topics include land coverage, geographical features, weather and some social and economic indicators.

Open Secrets: Org2012 presidential race resources.
Already available from the Center for Responsive Politics site open.secrets.org.
Data for the US 2012 presidential elections.
Includes fund raising summaries. enabling candidate comparisons, fundraising in particular regions. Over time by different candidates. Charts and graphs of trends are provided.

Coming soon Spanish elections
Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas
Major conductor of public opinion polls amongst the Spanish public. Its website has information about its work and access to recent findings. Consult the databank for the latest barometers. These include recent voting intentions. Some information is offered in English. You can also access other social and economic polls online.
See some more links on our election blog.

Health reports 21-25th November 2011

2011-11-18T08:03:00.008Z

Cities, well-being and health - report by LSE Health compares cities worldwide.

Royal College of Nursing report on job cuts. Despite Government assurances that frontline health care services are being protected, the RCN’s Frontline First campaign continues to identify more and more posts across the UK that have been lost or are at risk. This update from November 2011 contains the latest figures and outlines the RCN’s chief concerns

State of Maternity Services ReportRoyal College of Midwives.

NICE's updated guidelines on caesarean section

Media reports 14-18th November 2011

2011-11-16T13:38:00.008Z

Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Book Industry Study Group’s (BISG) Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey summary of findings on where ebooks are bought and levels of satisfaction.

Preliminary result from ebrary’s Global Student E-book Survey, use flatlines.

Mobile Matters: The Youth Advocates Project- Australian Communications Consumer Action Network- Youth and family debt related to mobile phone use has been a long recognised problem in Australia. The Youth Advocates program aims to empower young people to understand their rights and responsibilities as consumers, while fostering peer-research and self-advocacy skills.

The Twitter revolution? Social media, representation and crisis in Iran and Libya
Australian Political Studies Association.

Case Study: How Online Ad Campaign Success Varies by Site Type Neilsen research

Leveson Inquiry into media standards opens

2011-11-16T10:49:00.006Z

This week the Leveson Inquiry opened. This was set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. Specifically Lord Justice Leveson will examine the relationship of the press with the public, police and politicians. Get the full facts from the official website which includes transcripts of hearings and evidence.
A number of news sites have ongoing coverage. These include the BBC
Telegraph
Guardian.
Other key organisations relating to Uk press are Media Standards Trust Press Complaints Commission
National Union of Journalists. and UK Parliament Culture, Media and Sport select Committee
LSE staff and students might also like to try these databases for finding articles on journalism/ media ethics.
Communication and Media complete
scopus
ISI web of science

Economics reports 14-18th November 2011

2011-11-15T09:59:00.007Z

Private sector jobs growth continues but serious risks remain - CBI/HARVEY NASH survey

AA Criticism of fuel duty - will hit porrest drivers.

The Contribution of Advertising to the UK Economy
A Creative Industries report (Conducted on behalf of Credos)
Work Foundation.

Delivering growth while reducing deficits: lessons from the 1930s- centreforum
Bank of England Quarterly
Inflation report.

Nationwide Consumer Confidence Index

How to spend it: Resource wealth and the distribution of resource rents Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and
Globalisation in the Gulf States

Social Policy reports 14-18th November 2011

2011-11-15T09:56:00.003Z

levelling the Playing Field- Barnardos report- This short report highlights Barnardo's work to support vulnerable 16 and 17-year-olds into education, employment and training. The report makes four key recommendations about making social mobility a reality for these young people.

Legal aid in welfare: the tool we can’t afford to lose SCOPE report impact on cuts in legal aid on disabled persons.

Pluvial (rain-related) flooding in urban areas: the invisible hazard Joseph Rowntree research

Rethinking disability policy Joseph Rowntree

Government reports 14-18th November 2011

2011-11-15T09:54:00.007Z

Environmental Audit Committee - Ninth Report
Air quality: A follow up report HC 1024 volume 2

Public Accounts Committee - Fifty-Fifth Report Formula Funding of Local Public Services HC1502

Treasury - Twenty-Third Report
The future of cheques: Government and Payments Council Responses to the Eighteenth Report from the Committee HC1645

Ministry of Defence: The Major Projects Report 2011
National Audit Office.

Understanding the worklessness dynamics and characteristics of deprived areas- Department for Work and Pensions

Ministry of Justice: The strengths and skills of the judiciary in the magistrates' courts

Tough times Councils’ responses to a challenging financial climate Audit Commisison report.

Home Office: Perceptions of crime, engagement with the police, authorities dealing with anti-social behaviour and community payback - Findings from the 2010-11 British Crime Survey - Supplementary volume one to Crime in England and Wales 2010-11

DWP: An evaluation of the statement of fitness for work - Qualitative research with general practitioners

House Building - September quarter 2011 - England statistics

Count of gypsy and traveller caravans - July 2011 statistics.

Social science sites of the week.

2011-11-09T16:43:00.015Z

This week 11th November marks Armistice Day. To commemorate the occasion The Imperial war Museum are launching the Faces of the First World War collection on Flickr. This will have 100 previously unpublished photos of First World War soldiers. Looking at the loss of life marks poignantly the horror of war and its longlasting anguish. These will form part of a larger bond of sacrifice collection. The Imperial War Museum will be loading photos everyday until the 100th anniversary of the 1914-1918 conflict in August 2014. Users are encouraged to tag the records with details of the soldiers service records and life stories.

the National Archives has released online a searchable database of First World War Nursing Service records
Access to the full images requires payment.

Other WW1 records held at the Archives include:
Medal Index cards. and Army War Diaries which provide daily accounts of troop movements, casualties and life of battalions (payment required for full access). The site also has a research guide which lists key files (available at the archives) An educational section with access to some free documents and schools learning materials. There are also some podcasts which highlight personal experiences.
If you are looking for more accounts of World war One- another good starting point is the Imperial War Museum website which has a special exhibition on the Battle of the Somme. Use the Collections online database to search for images, online materials and reference to archives held at the museum.

The First World War Poetry Digital archive has podcasts and texts of readings this is supplemented by a Great War archive of thousands of multimedia materials contributed by the public these were collected as a result of an appeal in 2008. They include photographs, audio, film giving a range of personal perspectives.
The Long Tail – Is another great starting point for help on finding and researching British military involvement in 1914-1918 war.

For a different perspective try
the free website by the Peace Pledge Union which has a history and study guide to conscientious objection.

Digital Curation Centre publishes guide to citing datasets
Download the 12 page guide which will help researchers. Topics covered include elements of data citation, challenges involved in citing and linking to datasets associated with research.

#Occupy Archive
A special project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University which is documenting and saving the digital evidence and stories from the Occupy protests worldwide that began in September 2011 in Lower Manhattan. This includes archives of websites, personal accounts, photographs and texts. It is possible to browse by place. It includes materials from occupied movements across the World. With the emphasis upon North America. See examples from Occupy London a good supplement to the Internet archive site Occupy Wall Street section

Countries at the Crossroads 2011
Access the full text of this report from Freedom House. It analyses democratic governance in 35 nations it regards as being at a crossroads in the road to full democracy. These include a number of nations affected by the Arab spring including Algeria, Syria and Egypt. Topics covered include civil liberties, corruption, civil liberties and the rule of law.

Other similar useful sites include Amnesty international reports SADA from the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace – This site formerly called the Arab reform bulletin has blogs, articles and news discussing Arab reform. These include bilingual contributions in English/ Arabic.

The Peace Institute – Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies
is a non-profit research institution developing interdisciplinary research activities in various fields of the social and human sciences (sociology, anthropology, political science, philosophy, economies, law etc.) Growing numbers of research reports are available online which is based in Slovenia.Main topics include gender, human rights, media, and cultural policy. The Mediawatch section provides free access to a number of eBooks in English.
Topics covered in Media ownership, perceptions and coverage in Slovenia and other post socialist regions.

SOCIONICAL
is an Information and Communication Technologies Project funded under European Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), aiming to develop Complexity Science based modelling, prediction and simulation methods to develop systems, including some practical applications such as APPs that can be used in disasters in communication. See some case studies on the website Launched this week for the occasion of the Lord Mayor of London show was an app developed by the London School of Economics and University of Passau in Germany. Read some more on the LSE press release about its aims. Try it out on the ITunes website. It includes maps relating g to travel, crowd congestion and lists of events, plus tourist information on the route.

Global Open Access Portal launched by UNESCO
A valuable site which has received funding from the governments of Governments of Colombia, Denmark, Norway, and the United States Department of State. Find out about the state of open access in 148 nations worldwide. Includes snapshots of key repositories and projects as well as a news section. Browse by country and key organizations or open aces son subject themes. The latter includes a listing of key social science initiatives
Open access stories
Site created by Knowledge Exchange to highlight the benefits to individuals and/or institutions of providing free open access via the web to research outputs such as journal articles and papers. Partners include: Denmark’s Electronic Research Library (DEFF)German Research Foundation (DFG),Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the United Kingdom, SURF foundation in the Netherlands. However examples are available from other European and some none EU nations.The case studies include benefits in terms of economic impact, collaboration, encouraging new researchers.

EROMM Search
European Register for Microfilm and Digital Masters,
Provides information about printed and material that have been reformatted to microform or digital forms. It has just launched a searchable catalogue which across searches the register of microfilm description with other free digital versions on the web (many in open access via the Internet archive) the versions include books maps journals, manuscripts and images. Members of the EROMM consortium comprise 14 libraries across Europe including the British Library. Many of the microfilm records are based on their own holdings. It is possible to search the catalogue by keyword or author to trace the existence of microfilms of specific works (note in some cases requests (payment required) can be made) in others direct links are made to free online versions. Records relate to individual titles of books and articles.

The Egypt Electionnaire
is a project by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and MICT (Media in Cooperation and Transition) it aims to encourage discussions about democracy by the Egyptian electorate in advance of the 2011 parliamentary elections. Users to the site which is hosted in English and or Arabic answer 29 questions to match their views with the policy/ programmes of the main parties. Other voter information sites include Egypt votes

Canadian Feature Film Index database Now available online
This research tool provides information on over 4,300 Canadian feature films produced from 1913 to 2009. Selected entries include images of movie posters holdings of Library and Archives Canada. Future updates are planned.
Other useful Canadian film libraries are HotDocs Documentary Library. This site is supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage. It provides free access to a large growing collection of documentary films from Canadian film makers. These include materials from NFB. Materials can be searched or browsed by topic. There are also playlists for films by young film makers and a section designed for school and college use. A wide range of topics relating to social, political, economic and world events are covered. They include an emphasis on the history, culture and society of Canada, the anthropology of Canadian ethnic groups and Canadian perspectives on world events. National Film Board of Canada online films A free website where you can watch films produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It is possible to view over 500 documentaries online.

Health reports 7-11th November 2011

2011-11-09T10:05:00.003Z

We've been Listening, Have you been Learning? Patients Association report which details sixteen accounts of poor hospital care heard by its Helpline in the last year.

Education reports 14-18th November 2011

2011-11-08T11:51:00.005Z

What Do graduates do?- latest edition providing data on Uk graduate destinations in 2011

Business, Innovation and Skills Committee - Twelfth Report
Government reform of Higher Education HC 885 volume 2

Media and communication reports 14-18th November 2011

2011-11-08T10:50:00.010Z

Global language Monitor 2011 - top words of 2011 include Arab Spring.

First Monday
Volume 16, number 11 - 7 November 2011Why parents help their children lie to Facebook about age: Unintended consequences of the 'Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act'
by danah boyd, Eszter Hargittai, Jason Schultz, and John Palfrey
Tightening the Net: Intellectual property micro-regimes and peer-to-peer practice in higher education networks by Steven J. Jackson and Alok Vimawala

eDemocracy and Citizen Engagement: The Delvinia Report on Internet Voting in the Town of Markham refers to Canadian experience of impact on voter turnout.

The New Face of Digital PopulismDemos report - Populist parties and movements are now a force to be reckoned with in many Western European countries. These groups are known for their opposition to immigration, their ‘anti-establishment’ views and their concern for protecting national culture. Their rise in popularity has gone hand-in-hand with the advent of social media, and they are adept at using new technology to amplify their message, recruit and organise

Italian Prime Minister uses social media to refute resignation cliams. Examples of facebook page being used to discuss political policy

Generation App: 62% of Mobile Users 25-34 own Smartphones Latest Neilsen statistics.on American mobile phone users.

The Wikimedia Foundation has commissioned a new small-scale study to examine the quality and accuracy of Wikipedia articles. This study, currently being undertaken by Epic, a UK-based e-learning company, and Oxford University. see the project summary on Wikipedia

Half of adult cell phone owners have apps on their phones Latest report on the USA from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

News on the go: how mobile devices are changing the world's information ecosystem Center for International Media Assistance

Gatekeeping, gatewatching, real-time feedback: new challenges for journalism Conference paper
Axel Bruns