GEOG 436: Social & Political Geographies of South Asia

Librarian: Anne Zald
EMail: zald@u.washington.edu
Phone: 206 543 2725
Office: Map Collection, Suzzallo Library, Basement

Symbol Key

If you get stuck you can Ask a Reference Librarian for help in person, on the phone, or via live chat. Librarians can suggest additional places to look for information and show you techniques for getting more out of the databases you search.

Finding Data

• CIA World Factbook - 2005 edition. Previous years also available online.
• Country Studies / Area Handbooks - each easy to browse e-book provides description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions for 101 countries around the world.
• EIU.com country reports - Economic and political information about individual countries worldwide - see particularly the sections Country Report & County Profile.
• Europa World Online - Presents political and economic information on countries and territories as well as international organizations. Features statistical data and directories.
• One World South Asia Country Guides - "A comprehensive range of country profiles which put poverty first written by volunteers for global citizens."
• National statistical agencies - an alpha listing by country of official web sites.
• Portals to the World - Library of Congress guide to authoritative websites, browse by country name.
• United Nations Statistics Division - provides demographic & social, energy, environment, industry, national accounts, and trade data for U.N. member countries. A list of national data sources is provided.
• UN Economic & Social Commission for Asia & the Pacific Statistics Division (UNESCAP) provides links to statistical databases and publications concentrating on UNESCAP efforts in the areas of poverty statistics, national accounts, gender statistics, and environment statistics.
  • Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific HA1661.S382 (1968-2003) Latest at the Government Publications Reference Desk, earlier in GovPubs stacks.
• WDI Online - The World Development Indicators provided by the World Bank is an annual compilation of data about development, providing direct access to more than 550 development indicators, with time series for 208 countries and 18 country groups from 1960 to 2004.

Finding News

• Alt-Press Watch - full text newspaper, magazine and journal articles from alternative and independent presses.
• Ethnic Newswatch - Full text articles from newspapers and periodicals published by the ethnic and minority press in America.
• Factiva - Provides access to global news and business information, including newswires, newspapers, magazines, and trade publications; including Dow Jones and Reuters newswires, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times; sources are from 118 countries in 22 languages.
• Global Newsbank - Full-text, 1996 to present. Selected coverage from newspapers, magazines, government documents, broadcasts, and wire services.
• Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe - Newspaper articles from across the United States and around the world, with an emphasis on English-language news.
• NewsLink - current online newspapers; most won't have a searchable archive of older papers.
• One World South Asia - based in New Delhi, this network of >300 NGOs uses communications technologies for poverty alleviation and promoting sustainable development. The OneWorld international network also includes One World Radio and OneWorld TV.
• World News Connection - Full-text, 1994-present. Continues the coverage provided by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) 1975-1996 which included translations of broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements from nations around the world.

• UW Libraries Catalog
  Search for books, videos, documents, and journal subscriptions at all of the UW Libraries at once.
• Summit Catalog
  A catalog of libraries at university & college in Washington and Oregon. You'll need the barcode on your Husky card and a Libraries PIN to request items - they arrive at the library of your choice in 3-5 business days.

• World Bank Search
  Use the following search engines, searching within "Advanced Search", "Search Documents and Reports" , and "Search Projects". *Note you can very effectively search by country in each.
• United Nations Environment Program
  • UNEP Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific is in Bangkok and it has a country search at: http://www.rrcap.unep.org/country/countries.cfm
• United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
• Asian Development Bank - has a country search: http://www.adb.org/Countries/default.asp
• Development Gateway
  See the various links on the left side, to access country specific information. Development Gateway was started by the World Bank but is now independent.
• World Resources Institute
  A great web and print publisher of broadly defined world environmental and resource data and information. WRI's best known publication is the annual, World Resources (HC59. W667 latest in Suzzallo Reference). Current 2005 electronic version.
  • EarthTrends, The Environmental Information Portal
    For worldwide environmental data.
• Millenium Development Goals Database
  "A framework of 8 goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators to measure progress towards the Millennium Development goals was adopted by a consensus of experts from the United Nations Secretariat and IMF, OECD and the World Bank. (Road Map towards the Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, A/56/326 [PDF, 450KB]) Each indicator below is linked to millennium data series as well as to background series related to the target in question."

• Expanded Academic Index
  Academic and popular articles in many disciplines; about 60% of the articles are in full text. Limit to scholarly material by checking the box next to "Refereed publications".
• Research Library Complete
  Academic and popular articles in many disciplines; about 60% of the articles are in full text. Limit to scholarly material by checking the box next to "Scholarly journals".
• GeoBase
  Citations and abstracts for scholarly articles in Geography, including urban, political and economic geography.
• PAIS
  Articles and documents in the fields of public policy, political science, and international relations.
• Web of Science This database includes the Social Science Citation Index of citations and abstracts in the social science fields.

Citation/Writing Help

• Harvard System for documenting sources
• Additional Citation & Writing Guides

• Anthropology & Geography Writing Center
• Odegaard Writing & Research Center

• EndNote Imports - EndNote is software that helps you manage bibliographic citations and is available in the computer labs in Mary Gates Hall, Odegaard Library, Access+ computers provided in several campus libraries, and the computers in the Geography Collaboratory, Smith 415.

• Evaluating Credibility of Sources - from the Research 101 tutorial