Social science sites of the week

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.