Human Rights & Human Welfare (HRHW) Launches new blog

Remember to go vote today!

Human Rights & Human Welfare (HRHW) is pleased to announce the launch of their new interactive blog, http://www.hrhw.org/

Human Rights & Human Welfare (HRHW) is an online journal published through the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. HRHW posts content in five sections, all unique forms of literature review: Review Essays, Book Notes, the Roundtable, Topical Research Digest and Working Papers. All of the content, since inception in 2001, is archived on the website and all is available free of charge. Please visit Human Rights & Human Welfare online at www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw. To subscribe to receive HRHW‘s monthly update newsletter, click here.

New Collections

Summer is a wonderful time here in the archives.  Since there are fewer instruction sessions to teach and reference questions to answer, it means that I am able to spend more time processing archival collections, and making materials available for researchers.

Here are just a couple of new collections at the Dodd Center which pertain to human rights themes: 

A DVD-ROM of Basic Documents and Case Law from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

The DVD-ROM was compiled by the ICTR legal library in 2007 and contains 4,262 searchable PDF documents, including Case Law Decisions, Orders, Indictments, and Judgements; ICTR Basic Documents, Rules of Procedure and Statutes; UN Documents on Human Rights in Rwanda, ICTR Annual Reports, and documents regarding the operation, finances, and personnel of the ICTR.

The Poras Collection of Vietnam War Memorabilia

This collection contains materials from the American Vietnam War era, including American and Vietnamese propaganda, posters from the pro-war and anti-war movements, as well as artifacts from American soldiers who served in the war.

 

Ivory Coast Cocoa Industry Photos

The Romano Human Rights Digital Photograph Collection now contains 23 new images of from cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast.  The images are available to UConn students, faculty and staff through HuskyCT.  Please contact the curator  with your NetID to request access.

More information, as well as PDF versions of Robin Romano’s lectures on child labor, are available on the Human Rights Institute’s website.

New NGO Search Engine

A great new resource is now available for helping with internet searches.

There are currently 1026 NGO sites indexed. The project is described on the godort wiki:

 

“The NGO Search indexes local, regional and international NGOs from sources as diverse as AARP, Earth Watch Institute, International Crisis Group, OXFAM, the World Agricultural Forum. Sites were chosen based on their consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and also collated from University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, Duke University Libraries’ NGO Research Guide, and the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO).”

Searching for Human Rights Materials on the Internet

I’ve received more questions about finding human rights articles online.

For those conducting academic research (UConn Human Rights Minors, this means you!)  subcription databases, available through the library’s website, such as Gale Academic OneFile, Lexis Nexis, and CIAO, are the best places to look for human rights articles.  Another option is to browse through peer-reviewed human rights journals, such as the Journal of Human Rights, Human Rights Quarterly, etc.  You can find a listing of human rights journals and databases available through UConn’s library on the Journal Articles page of the Human Rights Subject Guide, http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/bysubject/humanrights/hrdatabases.html

For those who do not have access to the subscription resources of a university, there are some great places to look for journal articles and human rights information online.  The Key Websites page on the Human Rights Subject Guide has a listing of good places to start your online search. I’ve listed just a few examples here.  Individual NGOs often provide information and publish reports as well. 

The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library includes a wide array of human rights documents, treaties, and other information. 

The HuriSearch Portal is a search engine designed for human rights activists, students, and educators, and it searches over 4, 000 human rights websites for information. 

Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) is an international non-governmental organization that supports human rights learning and has information on a variety of human rights themes.

For a more comprehensive listing of places to look on the internet for human rights information, please check the Key Websites page on the University of Connecticut Libraries Human Rights Subject Guide .

Searching for Human Rights Archival Materials in Homer

Here are some search tricks for finding human rights materials at the Dodd Research Center!

Go to the main HOMER page, http://homerweb.lib.uconn.edu/

Click on the “Advanced Search” tab.

Then, click “Set More Limits” in the lower right corner. That will bring you to a new menu. In the Location box, scroll down and select “Dodd/Archives & Special Collections“, and then click “Set Limits.”

That will take you back to the advanced search page. From there, enter your search terms, such as “Latin America” and “human rights,” etc.

To search within the Human Rights Internet Collection, use “Human Rights Internet” as one of your search terms.

World Freedom Atlas

The World Freedom Atlas is a new geo-visualization tool designed for human rights researchers, activists, and others to provide a visual map of democracy, human rights, and good governance around the world.  The maps covers the years 1990- 2006. 

It maps datasets by Cingranelli and Richards, Freedom House, Evans and Rauch, the International Country Risk Guide, and many others, and includes topics such as Civil Liberties, Women’s Rights, Amnesty International’s Political Terror Scale, Freedom of the Press, Torture, and many other variables on governance and human and civil rights. 

It’s a fantastic resource, so definitely check it out!  http://www.freedom.indiemaps.com/

Human Rights Archival Collections at UConn

Recently I’ve been asked where archival collections relating to human rights can be located in the US. I’ve compiled collections here at UConn below, and will post collections from other repositories in a separate post. Please bear in mind that some of these collections are recent acquisitions and are not yet open for public research. Before you visit the archives to look at the materials, make sure to email or call ahead to be sure that the materials you want to look at are accessible. Materials which have not yet been organized, or which have sensitive materials, may be restricted.

Human Rights Manuscript Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut

African National Congress Collection (a small collection of memorabilia collected as part of the UConn ANC Partnership in 1999)

African National Congress Oral History Transcripts Collection (133 transcripts of oral history interviews with leading anti-apartheid activists conducted between 2000 and 2006.)

Alternative Press Collections (independent and counter-culture newspapers and publications from activist movements for social, cultural, and political change. The collection contains thousands of newspapers, serials, books, pamphlets, ephemera and artifacts documenting activist themes and organizations.)

Center for Oral History Interviews Collection (includes interviews with Holocaust survivors in the Connecticut Region conducted in 1980-1981, as well as “Witnesses To Nuremberg, An Oral History Of American Participants At The War Crimes Trials.”

Dodd (Thomas J.) Papers (include materials from the Nuremberg war crimes trial before the International Military Tribunal from 1945-46)

Ho (Fred) Papers (accounts of Asian American culture and experience in the United States)

Mikhailov (Georgi) Collection (photographs and articles regarding Mikhailov’s experiences in Soviet Labor camps in Northeast Siberia from 1980-1983)

Human Rights Internet Collection (the publications library of Human Rights Internet, a Canadian NGO which collected human rights publications from around the world, including materials which are not found in any other libraries in North America.)

Impact Visuals Photographic Collection (photographs and slides which document the anti-apartheid movement and 1994 democratic elections in South Africa)

Malka Penn Collection of Children’s Books on Human Rights (over 140 children’s books and young adult literature dealing with a variety of human rights themes including slavery, the Holocaust, war, and discrimination.)

North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) Archive (over 100 linear feet of materials including holdings on human rights, politics, and socio-economic conditions in Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, and other parts of Central America.)

Refugee Case Files of the International Rescue Committee (records of the New Jersey office of the International Rescue Committee– some materials in the collection are restricted.)

Stolen Childhoods Image Gallery (Collection of noted photographer Robin Romano’s gripping images of child labor from around the world. Access available to the UConn community through HuskyCT; contact the curator for access.)

Tambo (Oliver) Papers (microfilm copies of the papers of anti-apartheid activist, Oliver Tambo; original documents are located at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa)

Xuma (A.B.) Papers (microfilm copies of the papers of anti-apartheid activist, A.B. Xuma; original documents are located at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa)

Other Collections at the University of Connecticut

African American Studies Institute, Archives and Video Collection (contains The Stanley Lawson Collection of Denver Post Clippings on African-American Life, History, and Music from 1986-2001, as well as selected newspapers and magazines.

Asian American Studies Institute, Japanese American Internment Resource Library (contains oral histories, books, videos and other materials documenting the internment of Japanese Americans during the second world war.)

New Electronic Resources Available

Latin American Newstand Now Available!

UConn Libraries now have a great new news resource called the Latin American Newsstand, from ProQuest It provides the full-text of 41 Latin-American newspapers and newswires covering international and Latin-American regional topics. This is a joint initiative sponsored by LARRP, (Latin Americanist Research Resources Project) a CRL Project.

See the Latin American Newsstand in the ERM, and check out the title list from ProQuest.

Mintel Reports

We now have access to Mintel Reports, a great market research tool! The Mintel Reports database contains full-text market research reports covering US and Global consumer markets, with an emphasis on European and US markets. Each report analyzes market share, segmentation, and trends along with providing comprehensive demographic profiles and consumer patterns. It covers the following categories:

  • automotive
  • beauty, personal goods and toiletries
  • clothing, footwear, accessories
  • consumer lifestyles, marketing, promotion
  • drink and tobacco
  • electrical goods
  • food and foodservice
  • health and wellbeing
  • holidays and travel
  • household/house and home
  • industrial
  • leisure time
  • lifestages
  • media, books, stationery
  • miscellaneous
  • personal finances
  • retail
  • technology/telecoms

Upon the first login to Mintel, you will be required to register with your email address and select your own password. Once you have registered, Mintel creates a user profile where you can save and later retrieve your searches. All reports are keyword searchable and one can download or print individual sections or entire reports. It also provides an option to export tabular information within reports directly to Excel spreadsheets.