Social Studies 98

Handbooks and Companions

Handbooks are typically edited volumes, with chapters written by recognized experts. They synthesize current "consensus" thinking around a particular topic or present the most widely accepted perspectives. They usually contain an extensive bibliography which you can mine as well.

Examples:

• Routledge Handbook of Race and Ethnicity in Asia (2021)

PRO TIP:: HOLLIS is also a good place to search for these tools. One strategy is just to combine a broad keyword search with this format type (e.g., corruption AND democra* AND handbook). Other terms to try (for rough equivalents of the handbook) are companion, guide and reader.

Research Encyclopedias: Examples

• Oxford Research Encyclopedias
  • Asian History
  • International Studies
• Cambridge Histories Online
  • Caste Society, and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age
  •  

Literature reviews help you easily understand—and contextualize—the principal contributions that have been made in your field. They not only track trends over time in the scholarly discussions of a topic, but also synthesize and connect related work. They cite the trailblazers and sometimes the outliers, and they even root out errors of fact or concept. Typically, they include a final section that identifies remaining questions or future directions research might take.

We recommend, as a first stop: 

Annual Reviews

Since 1932, this important series has offered authoritative syntheses of the primary research literature in 46 academic fields, including political science, sociology, and anthropology.

The advanced search screen  offers excellent search tips, including ways select certain AR titles or limit to particular disciplines and narrow by date. 

   OTHER STRATEGIES FOR LOCATING LIT REVIEWS:

• in subject databases, like those on this guide, you can limit your search results by looking under  the "document type" or "methodology" filters. 
• In dissertations, they commonly appear as a preliminary chapter. Try ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.
• If you are searching a history database (like Historical Abstracts), the rough equivalent of the lit review is the historiography.  You can uncover existing ones by adding historiograph* to a keyword search or by using filters pre- or post-search to target this scholarly form. 

PRO TIP: UPDATING A LIT REVIEW  

If you find a review that seems on point, but rather dated (10 years or so), try searching for it (or one of the authorities it cites) in Google Scholar.  Then follow the “cited by” links. You  may discover something more recent there.

CAORC Digital Library for International Research

The Council on American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) consists of twenty-three member sites, including ones in South and Southeast Asia. In the host countries where they operate, these centers are the primary vehicle through which American scholars carry out research vital to our understanding of and interaction with other cultures.

Their research materials are made searchable in the Digital Library for International Research--essentially a shared catalog for CAORC affiliates.

Some items will be unique; others might duplicate materials you'll discover in HOLLIS or a subject database. Still, it might be worth a try, given that the parameters of this resource are specially targeted to regions you've chosen to study for term projects.

http://www.dlir.org/

Yearbook of the United Nations

This is the authoritative reference work on the activities and concerns of the entire Organization.

Each of the sixty-eight volumes of the Yearbook, dating back to the 1946–47 edition, includes the texts of all major General Assembly, Security Council and Economic and Social Council resolutions and decisions, and places them in a narrative context of UN consideration, deliberation and action.

The latest published edition is Vol. 68 (2014), which appeared in 2019. 

However, you can also see pre-press (drafted versions) of the Yearbook for 2015-2017.

UN Digital Library (1975-present)

The central repository for UN documents and publications, including things like voting records, speeches, reports of special rapporteurs, etc. f

The Dag Hammerskold Library of the U.N. in Geneva maintains some research guides that will help you work with this information (and search it effectively).  See, for example, this page of resources: https://research.un.org/en/digitallibrary/trainingwebcast

HEIN Online United Nations Law Collection

IGO Custom Search Engine 

Searches web content of intergovernmental agencies. including World Bank, IMF, Relief Web, an many more.

NGO Custom Search Engine 

Searches web content of non-governmental organizations for perspectives from civil society, like Freedom House, Amnesty International, HRW, and more.

Think Tank Search

A customized Google Search from the Harvard Kennedy School for policy perspectives.

Searching Non-Roman Scripts in HOLLIS

SOME WAYS TO FIND THEM in HOLLIS

• Sometimes, adding the word sources to a keyword string will retrieve published collections of primary source materials.  Other words that you can try include document* (for documents and documentary); reader; anthology; casebook. 

• Using the right side limits, adjust the DATE PARAMETERS of your search results. Items that were published on the subject during the period you specify will qualify as primary sources. 

• Using the right side limits, examine the  FORM/GENRE categories. Items that have been tagged with words like "interviews," "autobiography," "memoir," "speeches," "photographs," "correspondence" (and so on) might help you target various kinds of primary sources.