New politics e-journals

Cover for the summer 2017 issue of JacobinTwo new e-journals have been purchased for our readers, which may be of particular interest to those studying politics, economics or USA Domestic policy. Both are now available on SOLO. The SSL will also receive the print version and the most recent issues will go on the current journals display shelves when they arrive.

Jacobin – described by the publisher as “a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture” and described by Noam Chomsky as “.. a bright light in dark times. Each issue brings penetrating, lively discussions and analyses of matters of real significance, from a thoughtful left perspective that is refreshing and all too rare.”

Catalyst – a sister title to Jacobin, and according to the publisher “Our focus is, as our title suggests, to develop a theory and strategy with capitalism as its target — both in the North and in the Global South.”

New eResources on North Korea

Collage of North Korean flag and polling station imagesThree new online resources have been purchased for our readers. All are now available on SOLO:

  • Polling the Nations – a compilation of full-text questions and responses from over 14,000 national, state, and local surveys conducted since 1986 by more than 1,400 polling organisations in 100 countries. It is described by Choice as “a resource beyond compare in the polling field”.
  • NK Pro – an independent news, information and data platform that concentrates uniquely on North Korea. NK Pro features daily news, high level analysis, opinions and interviews from a range of scholars, diplomats, experts and North Korean defectors.
  • NK News – an independent, privately-owned specialist information source that focuses on North Korea. The site intends to provide authoritative news, opinion & analysis, research tools, data and subject specialists.

These tools will be useful for research on politics, international relations, conflict, and quantitative data analysis in the Social Sciences.

Research Data Management and Cybersecurity

white padlock against a background of codeJohn Southall, the Research Data Librarian, was recently interviewed on data management and good research practice. Some of his comments appear in the Nature article, ‘Cybersecurity for the Travelling Scientist’ (August 2017, Vol 548, pp123-4).

The article covers the importance of Cybersecurity, especially in a research environment, and also covers key issues for researchers in the Social Sciences.

More information on the safe gathering, handling and management of reseach data can be found on the Bodleian Data Library website.

Some online service at risk 14 to 17 July

There is some essential maintenance planned for the weekend 15/16 July. Due to this a number of services provided by IT services will be running at risk. Many will still be operational though changes are not recommended at this time and critical work should be re-scheduled where possible. The at risk period will begin 1p.m. Friday 14 July and end 1p.m. Monday 17 July.

The following services will not be available from Friday afternoon to Monday morning:

  • HFS (University of Oxford backup service)
  • IT Services Blogs
  • Chorus BTS LDAP (Chorus phone book look up for non-Chorus numbers)
  • Orchard packaging (Mac Managed Platform operated by IT services)
  • Educational Media archive storage
  • NSMS ELK syslog (Network System Management Service system log)
  • Jabber
  • Mirror – (some mirrored sites will be unavailable)
  • IT Services downloads (downloads.it.ox.ac.uk)
  • Users.ox.ac.uk
  • TEI sites (OUCS-style sites)

If you see the message ‘unavailable page’ then that website has been affected and will be unavailable during the at risk period.

The following IT services will be ay risk:

  • Nexus
  • Chorus
  • NSMS Hosted VMs
  • NSMS Virtual Datacentres
  • CUD
  • WebLearn
  • Groupstore
  • Registration
  • Mailing Lists
  • Shibboleth
  • Oak LDAP
  • Kerberos
  • WebAuth
  • Podcasts
  • Mirror (some mirrored sites will be completely available)
  • CONNECT Managed Desktops
  • CONNECT Managed Application Servers
  • NSMS Managed Servers
  • Bodleian Reader Desktops
  • CONNECT Remote Desktop Service
  • Oxmail
  • smtp.ox
  • www.ox.ac.uk
  • NSMS shared web hosting
  • NSMS server management
  • OxCORT online tutorials system
  • NSMS / MSD web hosting
  • flexlm.nsms.ox.ac.uk licence server (ArcGIS, Matlab, Intel compilers, Portland compilers)
  • NSMS Request Tracker instances
  • NSMS nagios monitoring
  • status.ox.ac.uk
  • UAS web sites
  • Chorus DNS and DHCP
  • Orchard infrastructure
  • Educational Media web sites

Last chance: To renew, or not to renew : eResources

Falling clocksLAST CHANCE to let us know if we should keep Americas Barometer and World Press Trends Database. Deadline for feedback by Friday 26 May 2017.

Our subscriptions to Americas Barometer and World Press Trends Database are due for renewal in June 2017. Usage figures are not available for these e-resources, and we need to know if they are still important to you. Please send any feedback to jo.gardner@bodleian.ox.ac.uk by Friday 26 May 2017.

Americas Barometer is a survey of democratic public opinion and behaviour that covers the Americas (North, Central, South and the Caribbean). It measures democratic values and behaviours in the Americas using national probability samples of voting-age adults, 2004-2016. View t on SOLO.

World Press Trends Database is a primary source of data on the newspaper industry worldwide, comprising datasets from the 2006-2015 World Press Trends Annual Reports. It includes datasets from c.70 countries. The data is available as individual country reports, and aggregated to reveal trends on circulation and readership. View it on SOLO.

Please note that cancelling the World Press Trends Database subscription will NOT affect access to the 2009 and 2015 World Press Trends Annual Reports.

New eResource: Churchill Archive

Winston Churchill shaking hands in front of mapWinston Churchill was a dominant figure in 19th and 20th centuries, whose impact reached far outside of British politics into global economics, international conflict and even impacted on religious studies. The Bodleian Libraries have recently gained access to the Churchill Archive which will be of benefit to a range of subjects across the Social Sciences.

The Churchill Archive, now available on SOLO, includes more than 800,000 pages of original documents, produced between 1874 and 1965, ranging from Winston S. Churchill’s personal correspondence to his official exchanges with kings, presidents, politicians, and military leaders. You can search the collection by topic, by person, by place or by period.

So those doing Women’s Studies can pop straight to “Churchill and Women” whereas those who want to know about Churchill’s thoughts on the Middle East should search that section under places.

The handy “My Archive” tool allows you to create your own mini archive of useful documents and saved searches.

New media resource: Box of Broadcasts

Stylised image of filme reel

Box of Broadcasts is an on-demand TV and radio service for education. Whether you want to research current events, news from the past or learn from documentaries, Box of broadcasts has a wide range of material for you to access. It allows members of subscribing institutions to search an archive of over 2 million broadcasts, record programmes from over 65 free-to-air channels, and create their own playlists and clip compilations.  Content includes BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, ITV, Channel 4, Film4, 10 foreign language channels and more.

For reading lists, the useful playlist tool can be used to create and share a playlist, or to keep track of your own research. The clips tool, can be used to make handy clips suitable for teaching.

Box of Broadcasts is available to current members of the University of Oxford. Access the resource via SOLO and log in with your Single Sign-On.

Network Downtime

On Tuesday 7th March from 7.00-10.00, the Bodleian Wifi network will be unavailable in the SSL.

During this time readers will be able to login to the SSL PCs or  Eduroam.

Speak to a member of the Social Science Library staff for further information or if you have any other questions.

 

ArcGIS Online Demo

ESRI UK, the vendor for ArcGIS, are hosting an demonstration of the range of ArcGIS products at IT services this month.

When: 23 February 2017 13:00-15:30.

Where: IT Services, Babbage. 13 Banbury Rd

Cost: Free

Suitable for: Social Science researchers, those using geographical data, those who want to present complex geo-spatial data in easily understood maps

ArcGIS Online is an online, collaborative web mapping tool which can allow you to use, create and disseminate maps and data for use within teaching and research. With an ArcGIS Online account you can:

  • Quickly visualise and analyse data in a web GIS without having to download/install any software
  • Create interactive web maps without coding
  • Collect data in the field using Esri’s Apps
  •  Survey 123 – great for asking questions and citizen science
  • Collector for ArcGIS – take hi-res imagery or basemaps off the grid
  • Publish engaging Story Maps that highlight your research output

This interactive map of Predominent Religions is an example of ArcGIS mapping. Zoom in to see more detail.


The University of Oxford has an ArcGIS Online subscription ready to be used for teaching and research. A desktop version of the software is also available on all Social Science Library PCs.

To book for this event contact the Social Science Library.

Planned Network Downtime

Sick computerThere will be no access to the University’s Network in the Social Science Library on Monday 12th December. This is due to migrating the Bodleian Libraries to  a Network back bone.

The down time is scheduled for:

  • Monday 12 December from 09:30 until 10:45 GMT

During this time there will be no access to library PCs, quick search PCs, the Bodleian Wifi Network, the Eduroam Wifi Network and the PCAS service.

We apologise for any inconvenience.