LibGuides: Politics & International Relations: Other Resources

Archives & Special Collections

Archives & Special Collections

Keeping up to date

JournalTOCs JournalTOCs is the biggest searchable collection of scholarly journal Tables of Contents (TOCs). It contains article details for over 19,500 journals directly collected from over 1115 publishers. JournalTOCs has taken special care to include all the highest rated journals in their fields, guaranteeing quality results. You can search it or use RSS feeds to keep up to date. The site allows you to go directly into articles where we have a subscription.
Scout Report Archives The Scout Report is published on the web every two weeks by the Internet Scout Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. You can register your details and receive the report by email, free of charge. The website catalogues and indexes quality academic resources for effective searching and browsing.

Dissertations & Theses

Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window Dissertations & Theses incorporates two databases which can be searched individually or cross searched. Dissertations & Theses: UK & Ireland covers theses accepted for higher degrees by the universities of Great Britain and Ireland. It covers the years from 1716 up to almost the present. Dissertations & Theses: A&I covers American and International theses from 1861 to the present date. Dissertations & Theses: A & I is strong on theses from the USA but poor for the rest of the world. For post 1997 theses, 24 page previews are included in both databases. For a minority of theses, links to the full text are provided.
EThOS This link opens in a new window
Search over 400,000 doctoral theses. Download instantly for your research, or order a scanned copy quickly and easily.

Media Resources

AVON : Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window
AVON: Academic Video Online provides unlimited access to more than 80,000 videos, including documentaries, interviews, field recordings, and films. All of the videos have closed captioning available, as well as running transcripts. Users can email videos, embed them into Canvas, and create clips.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB) This link opens in a new window
Box of Broadcasts (BoB) - a huge library of over 2 million TV and radio programmes and feature films that have been broadcast by BBC, ITV, Ch4, Ch5 and over 70 other channels. Create playlists to watch later or edit clips and embed in your presentations

British Pathe This link opens in a new window
Contains British Pathe's newsreel film library (3,500 hours of newsreel film) online with downloadable copies available for free at low resolution. You can search by date, range of years, keyword and type of film.

BFI Screen Online This link opens in a new window
Online encyclopaedia of British film and television. Includes hundreds of hours of film and television clips from the collections of the BFI National Archive.

BFI Player free collections This link opens in a new window
Over 11,000 archives films made available from the BFI (British Film Institute), national and regional archives.

British Library Archival Sound Recordings This link opens in a new window
Includes 80,000 selected recordings of music, spoken word and human and natural environments. Click on Oral History on the side menu to access interview recordings.

EUScreen This link opens in a new window
EUscreen offers free online access to videos, stills, texts and audio from European broadcasters and audiovisual archives. Explore selected content from early 1900s until today.

Kanopy This link opens in a new window
Kanopy is an online streaming service for films and documentaries. Content includes popular documentaries, Oscar winners and nominees, classic films, and independent films. Swansea University users can have full access to several dozen films which the Library has purchased for teaching. These films will be displayed after you login in and can be accessed from any device including computer, IOS and Android devices.

Popular culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new window
This resource contains digitizations of popular culture collections from the U.S. and U.K. between 1950 to 1975. These original archival materials are from various libraries and archives. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War. The collection includes pamphlets, letters, government files, eye witness accounts, underground magazines, visual and video materials and ephemera and memorabilia. Part II contains additional material, such as music, press kits, mail order catalogues, advertising proofs, additional photos from the Mirrorpix archives, and documents on student unrest and the Troubles in Northern Ireland from the National Archives.

TRILT
The Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching (TRILT) is the best source of UK television and radio broadcast data available on the web. It includes:
Listings for more than 560 TV and radio channels with data from 1923 onwards
Custom auto-alert emails for forthcoming programmes up to 10 days in advance
Selected records are enhanced with extra information, including credits and keywords
Highlights programmes for which a download or DVD copy may be requested from Learning on Screen by UK Education institutions holding an ERA licence
More than a million records are added to TRILT every year

Useful websites

Richard Kimber's political science resources
Richard Kimber's Political Science Resources is a collection of links to the politics and government of the UK and the USA.

PoliticsDirect
A political information and news portal with links to political websites. Particular emphasis on UK national, regional and local bodies.

WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resources This link opens in a new window
Internet directory of over 2000 annotated links to high-quality English-language sources of information and analysis in a wide range of international affairs, international relations, international studies, global studies, and global education topics.

Eldis This link opens in a new window
Eldis is an online information service providing free access to relevant, up-to-date and diverse research on international development issues. The database includes over 40,000 summaries and provides free links to full-text research and policy documents from over 8,000 publishers. Can be searched or browsed using Topics or Country Profiles.
Produced by the ELDIS Programme at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University.

CAIN This link opens in a new window
The CAIN web site contains information and source material on 'the Troubles' and politics in Northern Ireland from 1968 to the present.

European Sources Online This link opens in a new window
European Sources Online (ESO) is an online database and information service which provides access to information on the institutions and activities of the European Union, the countries, regions and other international organisations of Europe, and on issues of importance to European researchers, citizens and stakeholders

ETH Zurich Center for Security Studies: Resources
The Resources page of the Center for Security Studies website is the successor to the International Relations and Security Network (ISN). It features the publications and analyses of CSS experts, external partners and like-minded institutions in order to promote further dialogue on important international relations and security-related issues.

Parameters Online Resources
The US Army War College’s list of links to websites related to military strategy and international security. The selection has an American bias.

Evaluating websites

Finding information on the internet is easy, but finding good quality and reliable information is trickier than you think. Take a look at our tips in this section on how to get the most out of searching online. Before you use any web resource in your assignment ask yourself “Is the web page as good as information you would find in a book or academic journal?”

Webpages can be set up by anyone, therefore before referencing a site check that the information is reliable and accurate.
Check:

Who wrote the information? Do they have relevant qualifications? Have they written other material on the subject? Do they have a bias?
When was the information published? Is it current enough for your needs?
Why was the page put on the web? Is it selling or promoting something? Is it biased?

Look for the clues in the URL

.com – a commercial company
.co.uk – a commercial UK company
.edu – a US academic institution
.ac.uk – a UK academic institution
.org – a non-profit organisation
.gov or .gov.uk – a US or UK government site

Are you struggling to find what you need on Google?

Here are some tips to improve your results!

Try using Google Advanced Search
If you are looking for an exact phrase try using quotation marks "Local Government Act 2000".
Try a Google site search - just put site:ac.uk after your search terms. For example "migrant crisis" site:ac.uk. This returns results from only academic institutions in the UK.

Still not finding enough academic resources in Google?

Try using Google Scholar which only searches scholarly literature. You can link Google Scholar to Swansea University's subscriptions by following these instructions:

Click on Settings
Click on Library Links in the list on the left hand side
Search for Swansea University or, if it is listed, click in the check box next to Swansea University - iGetIt.

Advanced Google Search

Here are some useful links you may like to explore further:

Primary Source resources

Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new window
Mass Observation was a pioneering social research organisation founded in 1937 to record everyday life in Britain. This online resource contains primary material gathered by Mass Observation from 1937-1967, including diaries and questionnaires sent in by its panel of volunteers, and research gathered by paid investigators in the form of File reports and Topic collections.
Mass Observation Project 1981- 2009 This link opens in a new window
Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK. This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation in the 1980s and 1990s and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers. Topics covered are wide-ranging, from the deeply personal (sex, family) to everyday life (shopping, holidays), to global affairs.

Coalfield Web Materials: CWM Project
The CWM Project, created here at Swansea University, provides access to materials which capture aspects of the social, political and cultural life of the South Wales Coalfield during the 19th and 20th centuries. The site includes audio and video clips from interviews with miners, politicians and trade unionists and also photographs which illustrate all aspects of life in the coalfield.

Popular culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new window
This resource contains digitizations of popular culture collections from the U.S. and U.K. between 1950 to 1975. These original archival materials are from various libraries and archives. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War. The collection includes pamphlets, letters, government files, eye witness accounts, underground magazines, visual and video materials and ephemera and memorabilia. Part II contains additional material, such as music, press kits, mail order catalogues, advertising proofs, additional photos from the Mirrorpix archives, and documents on student unrest and the Troubles in Northern Ireland from the National Archives.

Accounts of the Conflict
Accounts of the Conflict is a digital archive of personal accounts of the conflict in Northern Ireland, based in Ulster University. It is designed to provide for the long-term storage of stories related to ‘the Troubles’.

Guide to Finding Theses

Try our online guide to finding Theses.

Finding theses