ASTU 401

This guide provides an introduction to finding information about Sustainable Development Goals, individual countries and related activities.

Ideas

• Campaign documents, websites, media coverage of campaign, media coverage of representatives, etc.

Look on the free web - by the name of the political party, newspapers, politicians, etc.  A number of public libraries subscribe to PressReader, which includes international newspapers.

• Continent or area-wide organizations, e.g. The 5th Africa Water Week conference was convened by the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC)

You will know the names of these organizations from your reading or web searching.

• Intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations.

Bills to Laws

• In many countries, websites list bills before the government and when they have been voted into laws, add them to compendium of existing laws/statutes, also available in full text online. For example, Federal Republic of Nigeria, National Assembly.

The Wikipedia entry for a country typically has a correct link to government websites.
 

Academic, and other analysis of policy

• PAIS International and PAIS Archive: an index to public affairs information in journals, books and government documents
• EE Energy and Environment Publishing: comprehensive, daily coverage of environmental and energy politics and policy
• Article indexes listed in the Research Guides in the box on the left.

Google

• Limit your search results to a particular country by adding the country code by the country code, e.g. water policy site:.bw 
• Limit your search to an agency or governmental website by adding the domain name, e.g. water policy site:.un.org
• More limits at Google Advanced Search.
• For an exact match on a phrase, add "quotation marks".

Google Scholar

• Mostly journal articles, reports. Very few books.
• Use  Advanced Search for more precise searching.  scholar.google.com -> Three bars (top left) ->Advanced Search
• Best feature: cited by.  Find one article and see all the articles that cite it.

From off-campus, connect to Google Scholar through the Library for seamless access to full text licensed by UBC Library.

• ​library.ubc.ca -> Indexes and databases tab -> Google Scholar -> Connect

       or change Google Scholar settings to include UBCeLinks.

• scholar.google.com -> three bars (top left) -> Settings ->Library Links -> Enter  University of British Columbia Library -> Save
  Recommended for your home computer or laptop.  The setting persists until you change it, so there's no need to reset each time you log on.

   

To find if UBC Library owns a copy of a book, article or streaming video,

• enter the title of the book, article or video into the search box on the library homepage at www.library.ubc.ca. For a more precise search, enter the title "in quotation marks".

OR

• install the EZproxy Bookmarklet, available for most browsers.  When you find licensed content on the web, e.g. a journal requesting payment to view an article, click on the Bookmarklet. The page will reload with the UBC EZproxy prefix.  Enter your CWL, and if UBC Library has licensed the article/book/etc., you'll have free access.

If UBC Library doesn't provide access to an article, it may be available as a post-print in a digital archive. A new bookmarklet, http://unpaywall.org/, searches archives to find legally available versions of published articles (normally the final, peer-reviewed version, in Word format).  No copyright agreements are being violated: the articles are in digital repositories with the publishers' agreement. (Available in Firefox and Chrome only)  

Sociology Liaison Librarian

Sheryl Adam
sheryl.adam@ubc.ca

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