Monday 27 June 2011

Africa Bibliography: FREE ACCESS to all users until Thursday 30th June.

In celebration of the launch of the Africa Bibliography as a fully-searchable online database, Cambridge Journals are delighted to offer free online access until the end of June. The annual Africa Bibliography, long considered the leading bibliographic guide to all works in African studies, has been fully digitised by the team behind the esteemed Cambridge Journals Online platform in consultation with Africanist librarians.

The online Africa Bibliography features full bibliographic records comprising books, journal articles and chapters: each entry is classified and searchable by region, country and subject. It offers a variety of advanced search functionality including quick search, advanced Boolean, faceted search and browse options. The inclusion of full-text linking through CrossRef and Google Scholar will enable users to access a source immediately simply by clicking on an entry in the Bibliography. In addition this crucial research tool offers multiple search export formats compatible with a variety of citation management software tools. This advanced functionality and the wealth of bibliographic data have been combined to create a rich and interactive resource for all scholars in the field.

To experience this functionality for yourself, free until June 30th, simply visit http://africabibliography.cambridge.org/

Friday 24 June 2011

Call fpr papers: Researching the Other, Transfers of Self: Ego-Histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia

Researching the Other, Transfers of Self. Ego-Histoire, Europe and Indigenous Australia

International Conference
8-9 December 2011
University Paris XIII

This conference seeks to bring together the ‘ego-histoires’ of Indigenous scholars working on Australian and European studies as well as those of settler and European scholars engaged in the field of Australian Indigenous Studies. ‘Ego-histoire’, a term introduced by French historian Pierre Nora in the 1987 collection Essais d’ego Histoire, draws on studies of personal memory and its relationship to public history. In recent years there has been a growth of interest in life story research within a wide range of academic disciplines and contexts (eg the Auto/Biography network of the British Sociological Association; oral history, historical anthropology). This work in turn reflects the concerns of critical historiography since the 1980s that emphasizes the ambiguous relationship between the past and the writing of history and draws on some of the productive exchanges between the fields of history, literary studies and anthropology in the 1990s and 2000s.

Nora claimed ego-histoire as a ‘new genre, for a new age of historical consciousness’. Major figures such as Georges Duby, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Mona Ozouf, Maurice Agulhon and Annie Kriegel are among the twenty or more prominent French scholars to engage in book length projects in this area. The works of key thinkers including Bourdieu and Lacan draw in different ways from this approach. The 2001 collection ‘European Ego-histoires: Historiography and the Self, 1970-2000’, edited by Luisa Passerini and Alexander Geppert (special issue of Historien: A Review of the Past and other Stories) established ego-histoire as a ‘new’ European tradition.

Ego-histoire differs from conventional autobiography in that different life histories are printed and read side by side forming a series analogous to the serial data featured in many Annales school monographs for example. Whereas autobiography highlights the unique and personal, the essays from Nora’s ego-histoire collection invite comparisons and stress the relationship between the personal and collective identity. Works in the area of ego-histoire demonstrate the close connection between individual and national identity and the inextricable intertwining of both objective and subjective evidence, understood to be of different but equal value. At its best the collective exploration of life history can recognise and value experiences that have been silenced or help come to terms with difficult individual and national aspects of the past.

In Australia there is something of a tradition of Indigenous Australians telling about their lives to convey history. This has resulted in a double-sided effect: on the one hand, these life histories provide valuable Indigenous perspectives on Australian history; on the other hand, they expose Indigenous lives to an extent that is hardly comparable to that of non-Indigenous scholars. Yet the life experiences and social background of non-Indigenous scholars in Australia exert an important influence on scholarship—what has driven them to practice Indigenous Studies and how do they relate their ‘selves’ to their studies?

Moreover, the pressure on Indigenous scholars to tell about their lives has led to the paradox of them being thought to write only about ‘Indigenous’ issues. Indigenous perceptions on European history have thereby often been neglected—what motivates Indigenous intellectuals to write about Europe and how do they relate their ‘selves’ to such studies? Finally, there are some European scholars who, with considerable geographical distance, have been working on Australian Indigenous Studies—what is their incentive to research in Indigenous Studies and how do they relate their ‘selves’ to their studies?

Increasingly Australian Indigenous Studies are practised beyond Australian shores, particularly so in Europe. The focus on writing the self and other provides a methodologically innovative tool to understand the mechanisms and different power-relations in scholarship and throws light on the motivations of researchers to engage in Australian Indigenous Studies both in Europe and in Australia.

This conference provides researchers with an opportunity to present their reflections on their selves in relation to their studies in a supportive and respectful environment and involves three major areas: non-Indigenous Australian and European researchers of Indigenous Studies as well as Indigenous researchers of Australian and European Studies.

Please submit abstract of approximately 200-250 words and a short bio line by 1 August 2011 to either of the conference organisers:

Vanessa Castejon: castejon.vanessa@wanadoo.fr

Anna Cole: annacole.uk@gmail.com

Oliver Haag: oliver.haag@transcultural-studies.org

Karen Hughes: Karen.Hughes@monash.edu
 
This conference is supported by University Paris XIII, the CRIDAF and the Austrian Centre for Transcultural Studies

Wednesday 22 June 2011

Writing for African Studies Journals

In today's post we wanted to point to an interesting blog post following on from the recent 4th European Conference on African Studies on the 16th of June 2011 in Uppsala, which focuses in writing for journals in the area of African Studies.

The blog entry summaries a presentation made at a side event at the conference and makes some useful general points about publishing as well as highlighting journals in the area and the kind of material they tend to publish - this latter part will be of especial interest for people new to publishing or new to publishing in African Studies journals.

We thought this provided a useful summary and are happy to bring it to your attention.

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Open Data - a New Zealand site of interest

Opengovt.org.nz is an open, independent catalogue of Government and Local Body datasets.
 
Open Data is an attempt to collate the many different datasets available through New Zealand Government Departments and Local Bodies. The work stems from discussions at the Perspectives on Open Data: Workshop on the Re-use of Government-held Non-personal Data which was held during Webstock 2009. The aims of the site are to:
  • List all of the datasets available to members of the public.
  • Provide a place for people to comment on the datasets (what’s good about them, bad, uses they have.)
  • Make it easy for people to find the information they are after and who they need to contact.
  • Provide a voice for the data using community, both professional and casual
While a recent initiative the site already has some interesting data sets available, and holds promise for much more top be avail;able in the future - examples of datasets currently made available include:
  • The NZ Police list of designated terrorist individuals and organisations
  • The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Limited's National Climate Database
  • The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited's data on Earthquake Hypocentres, and their Geological Maps
  • Landcare Research New Zelaand's National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank
  • Fire Incident summary date from the NZ Fire Service Commission
  • Hydro lake level data from the Electricity Commission
  • Treasury data including the Fiscal Time Series - Historical Fiscal Indicators 1972-2008; the Monthly Economic Indicators; and the New Zealand Debt Management Office Data
  • Census data and Energy Use 2002-2005 Report tables from Statistics New Zealand
  • The National Broadband Map
  • New Zealand Book Covers (sadly only licensed for use within New Zealand)
  • Data Tables for Coal, Electricity, Gas and for Oil
  • The Annual Residential and Commercial Electricity Price Survey
  • Authoritative Streets and Names (ASP)
  • The New Zealand Gazetteer of Official Geographic Names
  • New Zealand Map Grid (NZMG) Non Geo-referenced Orthophotos
  • New Zealand Place Names Database (Archived), and
  • Scanned Marine Charts

Monday 20 June 2011

Institute of Commonwealth Studies podcasts

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies has been recording and making available as podcasts a number of seminars, conferences and lectures.

These are available at http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/events/videos-and-podcasts.html

Currently available podcasts include:

  • The 2009 conference "Reconstructing Rwanda: 15 Years After Genocide. A Tribute to Alison Des Forges"
  • Presentations from the conference "Recovering Stolen Generations, Land, and Culture: Indigenous Rights & Transitional Justice"
  • Dr Shirin Ebadi (2003 Nobel Peace Prize Winner) speaking on "The Human Rights Situation in Iran"
  • Institute Director Philip Murphy on "The House of Windsor and the Modern Commonwealth"
  • The Rt Hon Tony Benn's lecture "Serving the Next Generation - The Commonwealth in the 21st Century: The Movement for Colonial Freedom"
  • The Rt Hon Peter Hain speaking to "Mandela: the man and his legacy", and
  • The Rt Hon Lord Howell of Guildford, Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, giving the Inaugural Peter Lyon Lecture: "The Commonwealth - A Global Network for the 21st Century"







 

 

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Jubilee Time Capsule

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies Librarian recenlty met with staff from the Royal Commonwealth Society's Jubilee Time Capsule project.

With 2012 marking the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II also marking 60 years as Head of the Commonwealth, the project aims to build a unique time capsule of this time – and want to hear your story!

The project asks that you pick a day from the last 60 years and tell them what happened in your family, community or country. You could interview someone, write a poem, do a drawing, take a photograph or make a film. There are 21,915 days in the last 60 years (from 6th February 1952 until 5th February 2012) and they need stories for each of them!

The Time Capsule is open to people of any age but special prizes will be given to those under 25.

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library is currently assessing what material to contribute from our own collections, including potentially from the history of the Institute itself, as well as from some of the Commonwealth non-government organisations whose records and archives we hold. Some of the material from our photographic and political pamphlet collections may also be included.


Have a look and think about contributing to the Jubilee Time Capsule website

Saturday 11 June 2011

Wellcome Library - African posters on health

The Wellcome Library has acquired a substantial number (over a thousand) posters published in thirty African countries to promote health and wellbeing. Dating from 1993 to 2010, they were collected in the latter year from the following countries:


Burkina Faso; Benin; Cameroon; Congo (from 1997); Djibouti; Egypt; Ethiopia; Gambia; Ghana; Guinea Bissau; Ivory Coast; Kenya; Liberia; Madagascar; Malawi; Mali; Mauritius; Morocco; Mozambique; Nigeria; Rwanda; Senegal; South Africa; Sudan; Tanzania; Tunisia; Uganda; Zaire (up to 1997); Zambia; Zimbabwe.

The best represented countries are Ethiopia (286), Kenya (219), Nigeria (130) and Tanzania (120). Some of the subjects represented:

Contraception and reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, "backyard abortion", breast feeding, weighing babies, child health centres, vitamins, vaccination, African traditional medicine, protection against communicable diseases including: polio, malaria, AIDS, schistosomiasis, food poisoning, nematode infections, tuberculosis, bird flu, and rodent-borne diseases; and against toxic pesticides and diarrhoea, as well as smoking, spitting, female genital mutilation, tattooing, general health education, environmental pollution, men's and women's roles in preserving health, the health of orphans, the health of camels, appeals to Islamic and Christian values and images, individual responsibility, child abuse, and activism.

The Wellcome Library has started cataloguing the collection with brief, first-draft catalogue records. Individual items will become available in the Library as they are catalogued, but in the meantime anyone wants to see works from a particular country may see them in the Wellcome Library by ordering them from the online catalogue.

The Wellcome's blog post about the collection can be seen here

Friday 10 June 2011

Anglo-American Conference 2011: Health and History

Anglo-American Conference 2011: Health and History



29th June - 1st July 2011

Venue: Brunei Gallery, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG

The Anglo-American Conference 2011: Health and History hosted by the Institute of Historical Research, will feature papers and panels across all periods and areas of the history of medicine.
 
Of interest to researchers in Commonwealth Studies will be panels, including:
 

Healing and religion in African colonial history

•Chair: Kathleen Vongsathorn (Oxford)

•Myriam Mertens (Ghent/Exeter) Medicinal ‘irrationality’ and the social tensions of health care provision in the Belgian Congo during the interwar period

•Nina Studer (Zurich/Oxford) Protective device or a sign of degeneration? The role of Islam in the writings of French colonial psychiatrists

•Kathleen Vongsathorn (Oxford) In the image of Britain: Lake Bunyonyi leprosy settlement as a model community, Uganda, 1931-1951

•Georgina Endfield (Nottingham) ‘No place for a woman’: health, medicine and women's work among missionary wives and female missionaries in British colonial Africa


Military medical bodies: patients, power and practice in the British empire

•Chair: Julie Anderson (Kent)

•Ana Carden-Coyne (Manchester) Men in pain: sociality, brutality and resistance in military hospitals, 1914-1918

•Wendy D. Churchill (New Brunswick) The right to care: military men and British imperial medicine, 1780-1820

•Michael Brown (Roehampton) From Social Darwinism to physical culture: the problem of the medico-military body in the age of new imperialism



Fighting fit: exploring military medicine

•Chair: Ana Carden-Coyne (Manchester)

•Peter Starling (Army Medical Services Museum) Medical education and good wine: the formation of the army medical school and medical education in the British army in the later 19th century

•Mark Harrison (Oxford) Great expectations: the South African War and the reform of British military medicine

•Emma Reilly (Strathclyde) ‘They passed me A1 fit, can you believe it?’: The British Army body and the military medical exam, 1939-1945

•Kathleen Meghan Fitzpatrick (King’s College London) Weathering the storm: Commonwealth combat psychiatry in Korea (1950-1951)



Missionary bodies and medical spaces

•Chair: Peter Webster

•Emily Manktelow (Exeter) Missionary bodies, domestic spaces

•Esmé Cleall (Liverpool) ‘More bad news’: narratives of sickness in missionary writing, c. 1840-1890

•Rosemary Fitzgerald (SOAS) Purdah patients at home and in hospital: transforming female missionary medicine in north India, 1890–1914

 
Public health, colonial space

•Chair: Zirwat Chowdhary (IHR)

•Nicole Bourbonnais (Pittsburgh) ‘Where public opinion is in a mood’: British colonial policy and birth control in the West Indies, 1930-1970

•Shane Minkin (Swarthmore) Foreign hospital, local institution: public health and belonging in late nineteenth century Alexandria, Egypt

•Erica Wald (London School of Economics) Professional societies and the competition for medical authority in India, 1789-1854

as well as individual papers, in other panels

Further information on the conference, the programme and registration available at: http://www.history.ac.uk/aac2011

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Vacation hours start 13 June

Vacation opening hours start as of Monday 13th June and are:

Monday - Friday 09.00 - 18.00
and
Saturday 09.45 - 17.30

these vacation hours will contune through until the start of the new academic year

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Commonwealth Studies Archives - currently being moved

The Archive collection of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies is currently being moved (today). Please ensure that requests to use archive collections are made at least one day in advance to ensure we can fetch these for you in this periods of moves. Any enquiries and requests should be directed to shl.specialcollections@london.ac.uk

Maps

A reminder that both the Senate House Library and Commonwealth Studies library contain maps of Commonwealth (and other) countries. While collections are not as extensive as British Libray holdings we nevertheless have a good collection of maps which are listed on our catalogue (though not all are catalogued) and encourage readers to ask us about our holdings.
Map enquiries should be directed using the library enquiry form with details of country or area and date and kind of map or information looking for.
Copying facilities are available (copyright permitting).

Thursday 2 June 2011

Senate House Libraries moves - STAGE 2

We will shortly be moving onto Stage 2 of the Library moves, which involves the reorganisation of closed access areas in the Library Tower and Basement areas. While this is largely invisible to our library users, it does affect items that users request through the ‘Stack Fetching Service’. It may mean that specific items in the collections being moved are unavailable for short periods while they are in transit, normally no longer than 1 – 2 days. This will have a limited impact on Commonwealth Studies collections but at times these will be impacted by moves going on around them, limiting staff access to collections.

These moves begin on June 6th and will continue until the end of month. A schedule of these moves will be posted on the library website at the beginning of June. This will enable you to see which collections are scheduled to move on particular days.

Please refer to the library enquiry desk if you require further information or advice. Alternatively you can contact us via the following page: http://www.shl.lon.ac.uk/library/contacts

New Web catalogue launched

We've just made our new catalogue, Encore, live for our readers to search Senate House Libraries collections. We hope you will find the new catalogue clearer and easier to use than the previous one.

Encore is different from the old catalogue, so to help you get started read our page of tips explaining some of the less-obvious (and more powerful) features in the new catalogue. Over the coming months we'll be improving Encore to search over a wider range of resources and better integrate with our other online services.

If you have comments or questions please contact us, or ask at the Enquiries Desk on the 4th Floor