Social Science Sites of the week 13th December 2019

In the news this week. – elections.

Election results- useful academic research resources for international research

Look up the result in your area using the BBC

For historic data try these recommended resources
Political Data Yearbook
Great free website based on the European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook includes election results, turnout levels and political party facts for over 30 nations most from the EU. Check dates updated.

British Election Study 
Get an understanding of long term trends in voter behaviour using this social survey of the electorate which has been conducted since 1964. Reports and datasets can be downloaded.
Constituency-Level Elections Archive
University of Michigan. Provides free access to detailed election results at the constituency level for lower house legislative elections from over 18,000 elections from 162 nations . Some raw data is accessible.
International Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
An intergovernmental organisation which supports and promotes free fair elections. Its website provides access to a number of statistical databases. They include voter turnout

Were the polls right?

NESTA had an interesting crowd sourced tracker

Democratic audit has predictions for certain regions.

International Human rights day was the 10th December - our recommended links

Annual reports.
Amnesty International
Publishes an annual human rights report, country reports and regular specialist reports on the death penalty, and women’s rights. Note that there are branches in different countries which have different web addresses and content.
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
Digital archive of all U.S. Department of State annual reports to Congress on the state of human rights in individual countries. Covers 1999 onwards
Human Rights Watch
Includes annual and country specific human rights reports

Digital libraries of documents
University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
Specialist site for researchers proving free access to over 65,000 full text documents. includes sections for treaties and specialist search engines.
Human Rights Documentation Initiative (HRDI)
Based at the University of Texas. This project provides access to documents and archived versions of key websites. They include a Rwandan Genocide Archive.

University Mental Health Charter launched.

Student Minds have just published this key document which has guidelines for good practice covering the roles of academics, support services and the curriculum. The website also details the process of writing the document.

OpenMonographs.org launched 
The Association of American Universities (AAU), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and Association of University Presses (AUPresses) have launched a new resource , aiming to provide free access to scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences. It builds on the TOME initiative and the website provides reports and information on the network of open access publishing. There are currently 28 open access titles available.


Global Roadmap of Action toward Sustainable Mobility (GRA),
Also launched

The Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) initiative launched on 23 October 2019 the tool to guide country decision-makers on “how to” achieve mobility that is efficient, accessible, safe and green. It follows the 2017 Global Mobility Report, the first-ever global assessment of the transport sector across all modes.

Layers of London add workhouses 1900 
From this great resource a map of workhouses, dispensaries and hospital in London in 1900
For detailed information on the history, aims and data about workhouses try P. Higginbottom’s masterly resource. Cross search a number of leading resources on London in London Lives website 1690-190o the main themes are crime, social policy and poverty. They include this register of workhouse pauper admissions

Guides to researching conditions in London are provided by London Metropolitan Archives and the National Archives Discovery catalogue

Cardiff Met & CILIP ILIG Decolonisation Conference November 2019 Decolonising Library collections and practices: from understanding to impact
View the presentations and associated reading lists from this CILIP conference. It covers curriculum redesign and the importance of UX research. It forms part of the entries on our new race and diversity Scoop.it page which is linking to key online resources free on the internet.

Continuing with the advent calendar for social scientists.

Fourth day: calling birds
Actually this is a bit controversial as it may be ‘colly birds’ the Library of Congress has a great discussion on its blog

The Pet Food Manufacturers Association publishes an annual survey of the Uk pet population. Find out how popular bird keeping is in comparison with dogs and cats . There are also regional breakdowns for indoor birds. They are much more popular in the North east than London!
The American Veterinary Association has corresponding figures for the USA For systematic reviews on the health and well being benefits of keeping pets try searching PubMed . Recent examples include this 2017 article on the positive impact on children and teenagers.