Social Science sites of the week

Here are this week’s recommended social science sites of the week

National Academies Press – offer free eBooks
From the beginning of June 2011 the USA’s National Academies Press has been offering free pdf downloads of its titles. The National Academies Press (NAP) was created by the National Academies to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. The website currently offers free access to over 400 titles from 1996 onwards. Many taken from cutting edge investigative research committees. Topics include health, environment, social sciences, social welfare computing, conflict and security.

Anthropology of this Century
Interesting new peer reviewed open access journal
Publisher and editor is Professor Charles Stafford of the LSE, other contributors include such leading names as Maurice Bloch and Sherry Ortner. The journal will specialise in publishing reviews of recent anthropology works (including books and films)
Other useful sources for finding out about new online anthropology initiatives include
antropologi.info which has feeds from major blogs.

Digital Humanities Observatory (DHO) Ireland
has just launched
DHO: Discovery – A Gateway to Irish Cultural ArtefactsIt offers free access to images of materials from collections at Chester Beatty Library, Irish Traditional Music Archive, National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG), Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), Royal Irish Academy (RIA), St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra (SPCD), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University College Dublin (UCD) and University College Cork (UCC). Items include: images of art, music and voice recordings, letters, maps, and drawings
Materials of interest to social scientists include links to Documents on Irish foreign policy, some Irish film archives and historic political prints and caricatures.

Beacon for Freedom of Expression
Is an international bibliographical database about censorship and freedom of expression. Based on the initiative begun in 1995 by the Norwegian Forum for Freedom of Expression (NFFE) it is now supported by the national Library of Norway. It currently offers references to over 50,000 works relevant to the study of historic and contemporary censorship. These include lists of censored books and newspapers, as well as literature on censorship and freedom of expression. Currently 30 nations including the UK Spain, Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Iran, and Italy are included. Find out when the bible and Shakespeare were banned in the UK!

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)Established in 1998 by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the IDP is a leading international body monitoring conflict-induced internal displacement worldwide. Its website has a wealth of full text reports and statistics. Highlights include annual reports which trace general trends, over 50 country profiles and reports. Many have up to date maps and field reports. For instance see the section on Libya. Materials in the site generally date back to 2001 and there are links to related websites.

For those interested in this topic a key resource remains Forced Migration Online coordinated by a team based at the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford Department of International Development (ODID), Oxford. The site is soon to be redesigned see its blog for the latest information.
Key features include a digital library of full text papers, online podcasts, research guides and more.

Metrotrends
Useful website for researchers seeking statistics on individual cities and regions of the USA. Maintained by the Urban Institute it focuses primarily on socio-economic indicators. The state of local economies, offering statistics charts, scorecards and reports allowing regional comparisons.
Issues covered include unemployment, housing, crime. These are mapped with social economic class, immigrant populations. There are rankings of over 366 metro areas plus comment on the reports from Institute researchers.

23 things – a new development
Many libraries have over the last couple of years sought to increase staff knowledge of Web 2.0 by following a 23 library things programme. Even if you don’t work in a library or information service, these sites can offer useful tips on maximising use and effectiveness of Web 2.0 features (blogging, Twitter) The University of Cambridge did this recently. They have now developed a new and interesting programme, running through summer 2011,
which will focus on 23 things for professional development. Topics to be covered include document sharing, blogging, reference software. For a more general highlighted run through of other new technology that has changed libraries see
10 Technologies that Revolutionized Libraries Worldwide

Guardian Data blog New Europe series
Has launched a special new Europe series during 2011. It offers data visualizations, maps and graphs of European statistics using data from Eurostat and The Economist Pocket World in Figures 2011. This allows viewers to compare trends and topics. Main areas covered are Germany, France, Spain and Poland.

World Service archive
BBC world service archive of radio podcasts access documentaries recent topics include wiki leaks and IMF. Technical and copyright details are displayed on the website. Some items are interned to be stored for an indefinite period. A wide range of internal development and social and economic topics are covered.

Pew Internet and American life
Is a major project which provides free access to its reports and surveys of the impact of Internet, web 2.0 and associated technology on American life. Its website has now enhanced data access see the blog posting.All reports from 2003 onwards are now in csv format. To also highlights the trends page which has quick snapshots of ownership and who is online trends. For equivalent UK data see the Oxford Internet surveys