Researching Refugees

Attention!

2009-07-14T14:06:00.002-04:00

This blog is no longer being updated. For information on and resources relating to refugees and forced migration, please visit Forced Migration Current Awareness. Thanks!

Searching within a Book

2009-04-10T10:43:00.003-04:00

Here's a tip: If a book does not have a subject index, try searching for it in Google Books. If it has been indexed by Google Books, then you can search within the text of the book. The search results will point you to page numbers on which your search term appears, effectively serving as an index. I did this recently with Acquisition and Loss of Nationality, Vol. 1: Comparative Analyses, a 499- page book with no index. I had the book in hand but I wasn't inclined to read the entire text in order to locate references to "statelessness"!

Amazon.com offers a similar "search inside this book" feature; here's a link to the same book for comparative purposes.

Two UNHCR blogs

2009-04-03T12:44:00.006-04:00

UNHCR's Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES) has started a blog that focuses on "Witchcraft, Displacement and Human Rights." It shares news reports and related research studies on witchcraft allegations and their impact. The RSS feed is available here.

A second blog was started in tandem with the 2009 evaluation of UNHCR’s Age, Gender and Diversity Mainstreaming (AGDM) strategy. Called "It Begins with Me. It Begins with You. It Begins with Us. Thoughts and Actions Around Age, Gender and Diversity Mainstreaming," its purpose is described as follows: To "encourage thinking, dialogue and action around the challenges and rewards of AGDM. You’ll find the mission, methodology and the milestones of the ongoing AGDM evaluation as well as posts about films, audio, books, paintings, programs, partners, news, op-eds… anything that helps add to our greater understanding of AGDM." The RSS feed can be accessed here.

New Journal Articles: Alerts and Full-text Retrieval

2009-04-01T14:54:00.001-04:00

I've added a new journal articles feature to the sidebar of my other blog. It works like this: As I come across articles of interest, I bookmark them in Delicious and add the tag "newjournalarticles." Each time this occurs, the list of article titles in the sidebar updates accordingly. So whenever you visit the blog, be sure to check the list for any new titles of interest.

If you forget to check, you can always 1) click on the link to go to the bookmarked titles in Delicious, or 2) subscribe to the RSS feed for the listing and peruse the updates at your leisure in your own newsreader.

One thing to note is that these journal articles are not necessarily available in full-text online. To retrieve the full-text, you have several options:

- purchase the individual article
- sign up for a free online trial for the journal you are interested in (for example, Sage Journals is offering free access to all of its journals during April)
- search Worldcat.org for libraries that subscribe to a particular journal; enter your postal or zip code to determine which library is closest to you, and retrieve the text from that library
- if you are based in a developing country, you might have access to full-text journals through one of these initiatives: Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL); GDN Journal Services; HINARI Access to Research Initiative; JSTOR Developing Nations Initiative.

Finally, it's always worth searching online for keywords in the title of journal article you are seeking. Why?
- Sometimes journal publishers designate specific issues as free online samples: see, e.g., "A Heterotopian Analysis of Maritime Refugee Incidents," abstracted in IngentaConnect, but available at no cost by Wiley InterScience.
- Some articles are posted online in openly accessible journals: see, e.g., "The humanitarian consequences and actions in the Eastern Mediterranean Region over the last 60 years – a health perspective", which was indexed in PubMed.
- Some articles are available as preprints or conference papers: see, e.g, the abstract for "Resettling Refugees in Rural and Regional Australia: Learning from Recent Policy and Program Initiatives"; a report with a slightly different title but with the same authors was published earlier.

Wiki Article

2009-03-31T20:56:00.002-04:00

I presented my forced migration wiki as a case study for an article in Library Hi Tech News. See "Using a Wiki to Publish a Research Guide" for more details.

FMO Podcast

2009-03-15T16:53:00.001-04:00

A new podcast from Forced Migration Online (FMO): "Obama’s policy challenges and the future of US immigration." You can listen to it online or download it.

FMO on Delicious

2009-03-11T20:40:00.002-04:00

Forced Migration Online (FMO) has started two sets of delicious bookmarks, one for new documents added to its digital library and the other for RSC working papers. As I've mentioned before, the handy thing about delicious is that it offers RSS feeds for tags created to describe one's bookmarks. So users can subscribe to feeds for both the aforementioned bookmark lists, here and here. Very handy for keeping up-to-date on FMO content.

Social Media Consultancy

2009-03-07T11:38:00.002-05:00

UNHCR is advertising for a social media consultant, someone with "experience in the field of Social Networking and Web 2.0 interactive platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, Google Earth, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter."

The closing date for applications is 20 March.

ISCRAM 2009

2009-03-04T13:43:00.002-05:00

The 2009 meeting of the International Community on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) will be held in Göteborg, Sweden, 10-13 May 2009. While the window for submitting CFPs for the general programme is closed, several other opportunities for contribution are still available, including:

- a PhD colloquium (deadline 10 March)
- a student poster session (deadline 10 March)
- a pre-conference workshop on mobile information technology for emergency response (deadline 20 March)
- a practitioners' workshop (deadline 2 April)

Papers and presentations from the 2008 and 2007 ISCRAM proceedings are available on the conference site.

Peace Palace Library RSS Feeds

2009-03-01T20:55:00.000-05:00

The Peace Palace Library has expanded its offerings of RSS feeds:

- If you would like to be kept up to date about new additions to the library's collection, you can subscribe to keyword feeds (e.g., Refugees and displaced persons, Human trafficking, Humanitarian assistance, etc.). Any time a record for a new journal article, book chapter, report or book that includes one of your keywords is added to the catalogue, your feed will be updated.

- You can also subscribe to a journal feed to be alerted when a new issue of a journal is received by the library.

- If you prefer to be notified of new tables of contents for individual journals that you specify, you can do so from the journal TOC page.

- You can even conduct a search across journal articles and then create a custom RSS feed for those results. Choices include searching on the journal title, the article title or the author.

Finding Theses & Dissertations

2009-02-23T10:25:00.000-05:00

(I posted this on my other blog, but thought it would be good to share here as well.)

A number of projects are under way to digitize theses and dissertations and make them openly available to the wider online community and/or to establish a central access point for these important research materials. Here are some examples of both national and regional efforts:

Australasian Digital Theses Program [access]
- Provides access to both digitized theses and bibliographic information about non-digitized theses.

British Library EthOS [access]
- Aim is "[t]o offer a 'single point of access' where researchers the world over can access ALL theses produced by UK Higher Education." A list of participating institutions is provided on the site. Some full-texts are available at no charge. Free registration required.

DART-Europe E-theses Portal [access]
- Aim is to "encourage the creation, discovery and use of European e-theses." Most texts appear to be available in full at no charge.

Database of African Theses and Dissertations [access]
- Free registration required to search bibliographic database with information on theses and dissertations completed at African universities.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations [access]
- NDLTD is "an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic analogues to the traditional paper-based theses and dissertations." Access above is provided via the VTLS Visualizer, a search and discovery system. Other systems available for searching the same collection can be found here.

Theses Canada Portal/Portail de Theses Canada [access]
- Provides access to bibliographic records for theses and if available, electronic texts.

New FMO Podcast

2009-02-20T11:57:00.002-05:00

The latest podcast from the Forced Migration Online (FMO) team focuses on Kurdish forced migration in Turkey. Visitors can listen to the episode online or download it.

Other podcasts are available here.

Monitoring legal journal articles

2009-02-17T20:25:00.004-05:00

Some time ago, I posted a note on "monitoring journal-reported research" via, among other strategies, generating custom RSS feeds. One journal service that has added this feature since the time that I wrote that earlier post is Current Law Journal Content.

How it works: Conduct a search; the search results page will then display a "feed version of search" link that you can subscribe to in order to be alerted when future results occur that match your search criteria. That's it!

Google Alerts

2009-02-09T20:15:00.000-05:00

I have posted in the past on strategies for keeping up with web-based resources. One strategy I mentioned was using Google Alerts to monitor online developments for you. If you have a Google account, you can set up an alert to look for designated keywords in news articles, blog posts, web pages, videos, Google groups, or a combination of news, blogs, and web pages. Results (or matches to your search terms) can be delivered in the form of an email or an RSS feed.

I use a series of alerts to check for literature reviews and bibliographies to include in my forced migration research guide. I've found that while Google often finds resources I'm already aware of or that are already in my guide, every now and then, it will locate something a bit more obscure.

For more information, check out this FAQ.

WebCast: Humanitarian Studies Conference

2009-02-02T10:44:00.003-05:00

The first World Conference on Humanitarian Studies begins Wednesday, February 4, in Groningen, The Netherlands. Happily, those of us who cannot attend will still be able to view live broadcasts through a streaming service provided by the university. The service is only supported by Internet Explorer, though, not Firefox and other browsers. Worth trying out though.

Updating the Forced Migration Research Guide

2009-01-15T09:30:00.000-05:00

I recently made available an RSS feed to let users know what resources had been newly added to my forced migration research guide. To supplement this, I have also added a link and RSS feed to my del.icio.us bookmarks for pending resources that I plan to add to the guide when time permits! This helps me to keep track of things, and it allows readers to access relevant reference and research materials in the interim.

More Gaza Social Media Resources

2009-01-09T10:52:00.002-05:00

An addendum to yesterday's post: Intute: Social Sciences listed various sites for monitoring news and developments in Gaza, and highlighted a posting on the Mashable blog on "How to Track the Israel Gaza Conflict Using Social Media" (the comments list additional links).

Gaza Situation

2009-01-08T09:15:00.002-05:00

Here are various examples of how social media and Web 2.0 applications are being used to report on events in Gaza and to provide support to humanitarian efforts there.

Blogs:
- National Public Radio (NPR) recently reported on "Life must go on in Gaza and Sderot," a blog maintained by an Israeli (Hopeman) and a Palestinian (Peaceman) on opposite sides of the border.

Mapping:
- Aid Worker Daily reported on the OpenStreetMap Gaza Wiki project to "update routes within Gaza in an effort to provide better data sets for humanitarian groups."

RSS feed:
- You can subscribe to an RSS feed for all ReliefWeb updates on the situation in Gaza.

Tracking events:
- Change.org's Humanitarian Relief blog reported that Al-Jazeera is using Ushahidi to track attacks, casualties, and other developments on the ground.

Twitter:
- NPR also reported on the use of Twitter by Al-Jazeera and the Irsraeli government.

Podcast: Instant Guide to Refugees

2008-12-22T11:27:00.002-05:00

The Forced Migration Online Blog reported today that the BBC Radio World Service, as part of its Instant Guide series, has made a podcast available on the refugee situation. A number of experts are interviewed, including the director of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC). You can listen to the podcast via the FMO Blog, or download it from the BBC.

ReliefWeb's RSS Feeds

2008-12-12T11:40:00.002-05:00

ReliefWeb has offered RSS feeds for some time, but their list keeps growing. They've added a feed for their "Policies & Issues" library, which is very helpful for tracking research reports. And they now also offer the chance to create feeds based on search results. Follow the instructions provided on their feed page, and find out what else you can subscribe to.

23 Things: Final Post

2008-12-11T16:45:00.001-05:00

This is my 23rd and final post! I enjoyed participating in this program. It introduced me to several new tools and services, and it encouraged me to re-visit some familiar ones. I'm glad I could document my experiences on my Researching Refugees blog, since I had set it up specifically to "track web technologies that can help refugee researchers keep up to date with new information in their field." So hopefully, these posts will inspire readers to experiment themselves.

Particular accomplishments: I was able to investigate more fully the extent to which forced migration and humanitarian organizations have implemented Web 2.0 technologies on their web sites. I created a "newbooks" RSS feed in del.icio.us for my other blog. And I created a Yahoo! Pipes mashup that I hope to display in my other blog as well, once I tweak it a bit more. All in all, a very productive use of time! Thanks to SLA for offering it!

23 Things: Thoughts about Web 2.0

2008-12-11T16:30:00.001-05:00

In general, I would say that most organizations within the forced migration community still have only a limited awareness of or familiarity with Web 2.0 technologies. But adoption of these technologies is definitely happening, slowly but surely. Witness the posts that I have written for the 23 Things program. Many of them provide examples of how various forced migration and humanitarian organizations are using blogs, RSS, Flickr, YouTube, social bookmarking, etc. to get their messages across and further their reach.

What is unclear is what impact these developments have had on their fundamental missions. To what extent does Web 2.0 help raise awareness and funds, increase advocacy efforts, influence policy, and ultimately effect positive change in the lives of the people these organizations are mandated to assist and protect? It would be interesting to know whether this relationship has been investigated or not by the individual organizations who have adopted Web 2.0.

On a related note, this series of posts on humanitarian.info delves into the question of technology innovation within the humanitarian context.

23 Things: NetLibrary

2008-12-11T16:18:00.003-05:00

NetLibrary is a service that provides access to electronic content in the form of digital books, e-journals and audiobooks. I determined that my public library has a subscription to NetLibrary, and I was able to log in from home. Unfortunately, when I began exploring, I discovered that in fact, my library only has access to digital books and not the other types of content. From a refugee & forced migration standpoint, I didn't find the ebook collection terribly up-to-date. I did take a look at "Human Rights: A Reference Handbook." (Interestingly, there is another book in the same Contemporary World Issues series that focuses on refugees but it's not included in this collection.) It was the 1998 edition, but I know that there is a revised 2006 edition that's been published.

As it happens, the local library also offers a separate digital catalog of audiobooks, ebooks and video. No hits here for "refugees," though, so I browsed the various subject categories instead. An easy site to navigate and certainly useful if you want to listen to a good mystery or if you aren't able to get your hands on the latest sci fi title!

23 Things: The Fourteenth Tool = Podcasts

2008-12-10T10:20:00.000-05:00

Podcasts are a digital means of distributing audiovisual resources. Wikipedia lists some examples of the ways that podcasts are used, including "rebroadcast of traditional radio and television content, distribution of school lessons, official and unofficial audio tours of museums, conference meeting alerts and updates," among others.

Specific examples from the forced migration sphere include:

- Educational lectures; e.g., Public Lecture Series
- Event sharing; e.g., Forced Migration Online and U.S. Institute of Peace
- News and information-sharing; e.g., IRIN News and UNICEF
- Raising awareness and campaign support; e.g., Refugee Council
- Reflections from aid workers in the field; e.g., International Rescue Committee and Doctors without Borders

There are a number of audio search engines that can help you locate additional podcasts. I tried several, searching specifically on 'harrell bond lecture' to see if FMO's podcasts of the annual Barbara Harrell-Bond lecture series at the Refugee Studies Centre would be located. I was a bit disappointed with the results. The three SEs (Odeo, Mevio and podOmatic) listed on the 23 Things wiki returned zero hits. PodcastDirectory.com had a listing for it, as well as other refugee- and forced migration-related podcasts, so it delivered the best results although its structure and presentation are a bit challenging! This is definitely an area to keep testing.

23 Things: The Thirteenth Tool = Video Sharing

2008-12-10T09:20:00.000-05:00

YouTube is the principal video sharing site. It is fairly widely used by a number of forced migration organizations for promoting awareness, fundraising and advocacy purposes. Examples include:

Doctors without Borders
Forced Migration Online
InterAction
IRIN News
Italian Council for Refugees
Refugees International
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children

There is also a Forced Migration Group on YouTube.

23 Things: Online Databases

2008-12-09T12:40:00.001-05:00

This exercise involved selecting a site from the Web 2.0 Awards and experimenting with it. I selected Dabble DB, which allows you to create online databases. You can sign up to try it for free for 30 days; after that, you can choose to upgrade to a paid plan or a free Commons plan. I was curious to see how an online database application would compare to a wiki. Dabble DB is not quite as intuitive as PBWiki. However, I did manage to create some fields and enter data into them! Based on my limited time with it, Dabble DB appears to be particularly well-suited for more administrative and management processes. (One example provided of a user is Pacific Northwest College of Art Library, who uses the system for managing book orders.) Because it's less geared to document management, though, it would not have been a suitable candidate for my purposes, i.e., organizing and displaying bibliographic descriptions. For more information on using databases for NGO-specific needs, visit TechSoup's Learning Center.

23 Things: The Twelfth Tool = Online Productivity Tools

2008-12-09T12:35:00.000-05:00

There are a number of free tools available online that are designed to help boost your productivity. This site provides a Top 10 listing of some of them, and this blog "features tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently."

I played around with Google Docs and Spreadsheets. You can create text documents or spreadsheets and save them online, making them accessible from any computer. You can also invite other people to access individual documents/spreadsheets, so that they can edit or add to them directly. This is useful for project planning purposes.

With Google Docs, I particularly liked the fact that you can download your document as a PDF file.

23 Things: The Eleventh Tool = Wikis

2008-12-09T12:30:00.002-05:00

I have written previously about wikis and their use in the forced migration field. I have also used the wiki format to "publish" a research guide (see Researching Forced Migration). Wikis represent an easy way to set up a database online. Personally, I have limited technical knowledge, but using pbwiki.com, I was able to create over 450 pages of narrative text and bibliographic descriptions, and inter-link them in such a way that - hopefully - makes my research guide easy and intuitive to use. I can also regularly update the guide, as well as quickly make corrections to URLs and other bibliographic details.

I did add a page to SLA's Wiki Sandbox, to see what other applications are like.

23 Things: The Tenth Tool = Book/Library Catalogs

2008-12-08T09:15:00.002-05:00

The purpose of this exercise was to try out LibraryThing, an online service that is designed to let members easily catalog their personal book collections. Small libraries can also use it to catalog their collections. I cataloged five items: Two were books whose bibliographic details were automatically retrieved through Amazon (you can also choose to have them retrieved through the Library of Congress); two were grey literature titles, so I entered the bibliographic details manually; and one was a chapter in a book, so I entered its details manually too. While LibraryThing's main template is book-oriented, you can still enter other types of documents, like book chapters and journal articles. For these, the only consideration is that the onus is on you to enter the details consistently, since the system will display them as entered.

Clicking on "Your Library" displays all the items you've entered alphabetically by title. There are several different display options available. And all your entries are searchable, or you can browse by tags.

This would certainly be a useful tool for small information centers who lack an online catalog. It just requires time to enter the bibliographic details.

23 Things: The Ninth Tool = Custom Search

2008-12-05T14:33:00.002-05:00

There are a number of tools available that allow you to build your own customized search engine. I posted about this earlier. I also built my own search engine using Google's Custom Search. It just searches refugee and forced migration blogs. You can also check out Humanitarian Drive (searches humanitarian web sites) and Forced Migration Search (searches refugee and forced migration web sites).

23 Things: Examples of Humanitarian Map Mashups

2008-12-04T19:57:00.004-05:00

AlertNet Interactive Map [access]
- Mapping tool that combines Microsoft's Virtual Earth with country-specific headlines. Recognized by Windows Live for its innovative use of their services.

UNHCR and Google Earth [info]
- "... new mapping programme takes you on a virtual reality tour with the UN refugee agency of some of the world's major displacement crises and the humanitarian efforts aimed at helping the victims." You need to download Google Earth to be able to view these files.

Ushaidi (original version) [access]
- A map-based tool for reporting post-election violence and displacement in Kenya. Won a TED award for

World is Witness [access]
- A U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum initiative that "together data, photographs, video, and eyewitness testimony in Google Earth to help inform citizens, governments, and institutions about current and potential genocides and related crimes against humanity, and to respond." Move around on the map for the Demo. Republic of Congo and read reports of violence.

23 Things: The Eighth Tool = Mashups

2008-12-04T13:56:00.003-05:00

I noticed that the Free Movement blog uses Yahoo! Pipes to create news and research feeds that are displayed on the site. Since one of the 23 Things units focuses on mashups, I decided to experiment with Yahoo! Pipes as my challenge. I found a guide with (somewhat dated) step-by-step instructions. I elected to use RSS feeds from six different forced migration research institutes for the exercise. Here is the result (you can also see my avatar!). The process is pretty straightforward, although this is probably less true if you want to play around with other types of sources besides RSS feeds.

23 Things: The Seventh Tool = Online Avatars

2008-12-03T13:25:00.000-05:00

Avatars are online images you create of yourself. I used Yahoo! Avatars to come up with mine. Very easy, lots of choice in terms of hair/eye/skin color, appearance, apparel, background, and so forth.

I didn't end up taking the Second Life plunge! However, I did come across an interesting story about Camp Darfur, an awareness-raising campaign to stop the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Apparently, a virtual version of Camp Darfur was set up in Second Life in the spring of 2006. (See photos.) But soon thereafter, the entire camp was destroyed by online vandals. Fortunately, some virtual good samaritans called the Green Lanterns decided to take on the task of guarding the re-built camp from future attacks. (Read a story about it, and view a re-telling of the events in comic form.)

A number of other virtual opportunities exist to experience humanitarian challenges, such as famine, disasters, and flight from conflict. This blog post catalogues 10 of them. Still others are provided by the IFRC and UNHCR.

23 Things: New Books RSS Feed

2008-12-02T10:02:00.003-05:00

One service I offer on my other blog, Forced Migration Current Awareness, is announcements about "New Books" on refugees, forced migration, internal displacement, and the humanitarian sector. In the past I have created custom RSS feeds using the Amazon Feed Generator. Basically, this allows you to enter keywords, generate a feed, then receive updates when new books with those matching keywords are added to Amazon's database. For various reasons, though, this has not been an optimal solution.

After being introduced to del.icio.us through SLA's 23 Things program, I thought of a way to supplement my new books service. Basically, whenever I come across notices of new book titles, I bookmark those pages in del.icio.us and tag them as "newbooks." del.icio.us automatically generates RSS feeds for all tags, so I've subscribed to the newbooks feed, and when updates appear in my Google newsreader, I "share" them so that they appear in my "New Books" feature in the sidebar of my blog. This ensures that anything missed in my Amazon feed can still be picked up and highlighted.

23 Things: Forced Migration RSS

2008-12-02T09:40:00.001-05:00

In blog posts past, I've highlighted many of the different RSS feeds that are now available from forced migration and humanitarian web sites. I thought it might be useful to provide an index of sorts to those previous listings here:

Organizations

Thematic

23 Things: The Sixth Tool = RSS

2008-12-01T09:45:00.000-05:00

I introduced RSS when I first set up this blog, so rather than re-invent the wheel, I think I'll just re-post my original introduction! Here it is, with only minimal updating:

Once upon a time, researchers who wanted to keep up with frequently updated information on the web (news, publication titles, research developments, etc.) had to remember to regularly visit bookmarked sites of interest or register for e-mail alerts or newsletters (if these were available). Today, an XML file format called RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") simplifies this process dramatically by delivering "headlines" to you directly so that you can peruse news and information in one central location. Content is distributed via RSS in the form of a feed that must be read by an application called a newsreader or news aggregator (more about this below).

Increasingly, content providers all across the web are beginning to offer RSS feeds of one kind or another. To determine whether or not a web site has RSS feeds, just look for a reference to "site feed," "syndicated content," or an orange icon that either says RSS or XML on it or that looks like this: . Also, if you use Internet Explorer v.7 or Mozilla's Firefox as your browser, this icon appears in a toolbar at the top of the browser. It is normally gray, but if you visit a site that offers RSS, it will turn orange, indicating that a feed is available. (NB: I use IE7 and to be honest, the icon is not 100% effective; but it's worth keeping an eye on.)

So who in the forced migration information community offers RSS feeds? Here are a few examples:
- News services such as IRIN
- Blogs such as RI's WorldBridge
- Information hubs like ReliefWeb

As noted above, you need to have a newsreader or aggregator to be able to view RSS content delivered via a feed. You can choose between a client-side reader (i.e., an application you download onto your computer) or a web-based reader. Some are free and some require payment. This site offers a fairly complete listing of the various options. Bloglines is one of the more popular free web-based readers. Often, newsreaders are made available through personalized portal providers like My Yahoo! or Google.

To begin reading RSS content, simply copy and paste the URL for the RSS feed into the reader program you choose. I experimented briefly with Bloglines, but I found that at times certain feeds were not updating even though new headlines were available. In addition, I could not always re-display feeds after I had read them (although this was probably a temporary glitch). I decided to try Google Reader instead, and so far, so good! It's very easy to use. Both Bloglines and Google Reader allow you to create folders, which is important if you want to be able to keep your feeds organized.

23 Things: The Fifth Tool = Image Search

2008-11-30T10:16:00.004-05:00

The next 23 Things assignment is to discuss a technology-related topic of our choice. Following on from yesterday's post, I thought I'd look at options for retrieving other relevant images online. A number of forced migration sites offer photo collections that are not available through Flickr. Here are a few examples:

AlertNet Pictures [access]
Forced Migration Online Photos [access]
IRIN News Photos [access]
UNRWA Photo Archive [access]

If specialized photo collections do not yield relevant images, the other option is to search across the web using an image search engine. This article provides a useful review of 13 different services. As it notes, size is not necessarily equivalent to quality! While some search engines clearly maintain the biggest indexes of images (like Google, Yahoo...), other services like Exalead and Picsearch offer more enhanced search features. Before launching a search, however, users should review the various strategies described in this article, to improve their chances of conducting successful searches.

Once a relevant image has been found, then questions should be asked regarding the image's copyright status: Is it copyrighted? Is it public domain? Is its use regulated by some type of license? You may have noticed the appearance of Creative Commons licenses associated with photo collections and other online content. This system allows creators to establish a set of conditions for how their work can be used. Read this section of the Creative Commons FAQ to learn about how you can use works licensed under their system.

For a tutorial that covers all of the above, and a bit more, check out the Intute/TASI "Internet for Image Searching" guide.

23 Things: Displacement Photos

2008-11-29T09:00:00.001-05:00

Following on from my post on Flickr, I wanted to add that a Group Pool exists called "Portraits of Displacement." It is described as a place "where you can post portraits of people who have been displaced (either internally within their own country or refugees who had to flee their country into a third country) from their homes due to war, natural disaster or else." Only members of the pool can post photos to it. This is an easy way to collaboratively build a collection of relevant photographs.

23 Things: The Fourth Tool = Photo-sharing

2008-11-28T09:17:00.004-05:00

The focus of this post is on web-based photo-sharing tools, specifically Flickr. This service lets you upload photos, organize them into thematic sets, and even group them into larger collections. See, for example, IFRC's set on "refugees and internally displaced persons." You can view photos individually or as a slideshow. Another example of a collection is UNHCR's Pictorial History.

You can locate relevant photos either by browsing tags assigned to each or geographically through Flickr's map application. If you visit Minority Rights Group's tag cloud (or grouping of tags), you can select "iraqiminorityrefugees" to view photos that have been tagged accordingly. IFRC lets you choose country-specific photo sets to view by selecting from a map of the world.

And if you want to monitor new additions to someone's general photostream or to a specific collection or set, you can subscribe to an RSS feed or bookmark a page in del.icio.us. Just scroll to the bottom of the page displaying the particular photos you are interested in and choose from the options provided.

Other photo-sharing options are available including Picasa, Shutterfly, and many more.

23 Things: Blog Search Engines

2008-11-28T09:15:00.003-05:00

Following on from my post on blog directories, here is a useful overview of four different blog search engines. It looks at the main features of Google Blog Search, Technorati, Blog Pulse, and Bloglines.

Brookings Institution RSS Feeds

2008-11-24T20:36:00.002-05:00

The Brookings Institution is now offering an extensive list of RSS feeds to subscribe to. You can choose from the following: general feeds (including one for new books and journals), topical feeds (including "Darfur," "displacement in Iraq," "human rights," "internal displacement,""natural disasters," "migration," etc.), experts, programs, centers, projects (e.g., Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement), and series (like working papers and policy briefs).

You can also undertake a search of the Brookings site, and then create a custom RSS feed for that search.

23 Things: The Third Tool = Blog Directories/More on Tagging

2008-11-21T13:14:00.003-05:00

In my previous post on social bookmarking, I mentioned "tagging." This refers to the process of adding descriptive terms to online content, like a bookmark you save in del.icio.us, a photo you upload, or a post you contribute to a blog. When everyday language is used in tagging, it is referred to as a "folksonomy."

I use tags to describe posts in both of my blogs. In Forced Migration Current Awareness, I select tag terms from the International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology. So these tags are the same as controlled subject terms used in library catalogs and many research databases. However, in this blog, Researching Refugees, the focus of the posts is on web technologies and therefore not adequately covered in the refugee thesaurus. So I employ folksonomy instead, i.e., everyday language that is better able to describe current concepts (like "blogs," "RSS," "social bookmarking," etc.).

Tags are a useful way to browse or search for relevant content. For example, you might want to see which of my blog posts relate to the "safety of humanitarian personnel." You can also use a blog search engine like Technorati to search tags across blogs; these are the results retrieved when I searched for posts tagged "refugees."

Not everyone uses tags to describe their blog posts, though. So if you want to find out which blogs have posted on forced migration issues or if you want to locate blogs whose main focus is forced migration, you can search Technorati more generally. Google Blog Search is another way to find relevant posts and/or blogs.

23 Things: The Second Tool = Social Bookmarks

2008-11-20T16:24:00.002-05:00

The second tool discussed in the 23 Things program was del.icio.us. This service allows you to bookmark web sites/pages so that you have access to them from any computer. (As opposed to when you bookmark sites using Internet Explorer or another browser, you only have access to them from that individual computer.) del.icio.us is referred to as a social bookmarking site because you can also share your bookmarks with everyone or a selected audience. Moreover, you can search everyone's bookmarks and discover new resources. Finally, you can tag (i.e., provide a descriptive term for) the sites that you bookmark, and you can explore other people's bookmarks via their tags.

I can imagine using a bookmark tool like del.icio.us for very specific projects, like gathering bookmarks to respond to a particular reference query or when surveying what's available on a certain topic. See, for example, the list of bookmarks for forced migration-related working papers that I set up.

EADI's approach is to use del.icio.us for current awareness purposes. It bookmarks new publications and projects, adds a note indicating the publication date, publisher, and author, and tags each for inclusion with a series of topical categories. Plus users can subscribe to RSS feeds (these will be addressed in a later post) by topical category to be notified of new bookmarks. See EADI's migration and peace/conflict bookmarks.

Other forced migration/humanitarian sites have created more general lists, for resources they find useful or of interest. Examples include Paul Dudman's bookmarks (for the Refugee Archives at UEL) and Paul Currion's bookmarks (see his humanitarian.info blog).

Some organizations have jumped on the social bookmarking bandwagon simply by making it easier for visitors to create bookmarks for pages on their web sites. For instance, ICRC includes social bookmarking links on all news, article, information and other resource-specific pages.

Social bookmarking tools that are more geared to research and academics are on offer from CiteULike and Connotea. These services allow you to bookmark journal articles and scholarly papers. They extract the bibliographic details for citation purposes; all you have to do is add tags. And you can share your library of articles as well as check out other people's saved articles. So the next time you happen to be perusing an article abstract from Development in Practice, it will be easier to interpret the various bookmark symbols at the bottom of the page!

23 Things: The First Tool = Blogs

2008-11-17T09:29:00.004-05:00

I have signed up to participate in the 23 Things program developed by the Special Libraries Association (SLA). This is a self-paced program designed to teach information professionals about the various Web 2.0 tools that exist and how we can use them in our work. I will use this blog to report on my progress and to promote the application of these tools in a forced migration context. And hopefully, in the process, some readers of this blog will discover something new and innovative that they can use themselves!

I created this blog over a year ago and in one of my first posts, I described what a blog is and its utility. You can read that post here. Over time, quite a few more blogs have been established in the forced migration and humanitarian sectors. Here are some examples:

AidBlogs [access]
- Aggregation of posts from humanitarian aid workers' blogs.

Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog [access]
- My first blog! A current awareness service highlighting web research and information relating to refugees, IDPs and forced migration.

Forced Migration Online: Blog [access]
- Reports on new additions and developments relating to the Forced Migration Online web site.

Freedom of Movement [access]
- Commentary on immigration and asylum law by a UK barrister.

Poliblog [access]
- The British Refugee Council's blog.

RefBlog [access]
- Comment, analysis and current awareness from the Information Centre about Refugees and Asylum in the UK (ICAR).

Refugee Studies Current Awareness Blog [access]
- Blog established to support the MA in refugee studies program at the University of East London (UEL).

Seeking Asylum from the Mainstream [access]
- Commentary on forced migration, asylum, civic engagement and the welfare of young people, from a graduate of the Refugee Studies Centre's forced migration master's program.

World Bridge [access]
- Refugees International's blog.

Celebrating Open Access Day Belatedly

2008-11-13T21:11:00.004-05:00

So I'm only a month late! October 14th was the first Open Access Day, and I just learned about it! The aim of the day was to increase awareness and understanding of Open Access (OA) as both a principle and a movement, and of what OA proponents are hoping to accomplish.

OA literature is defined as "...digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions." (For more information, see A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access, by Peter Suber.) As I described in a previous post, two types of delivery mechanisms have been developed to facilitate greater access to research literature: open access journals and open access archives or repositories. A variety of resources have been developed to make it easier to locate both of these literature types. For example, this listing from the British Columbia Electronic Library Network compiles peer-reviewed scholarly journal collections and freely available serials. And openDOAR serves as a searchable directory of open access repositories.

In the forced migration context, it is not clear to what extent different literature types fall into the Open Access category, as defined above. What *is* clear is that many documents are openly accessible; that is, they are online and freely available. I recently conducted a survey of the reference materials included in my forced migration research guide. Of the 313 examined, 67% were available online, free of charge.

Breaking these 313 items down by type of document--journal article, publication with ISBN/ISSN, or unpublished report, I found that roughly equal numbers of each are represented: 33% journal articles, 31% published items, and 36% unpublished reports (grey literature). Of the journal articles, only 42% were freely available online, compared with 89% of reports. This would seem to be consistent with trends in other disciplines, i.e., scholarly journals tend to charge access fees, while grey literature reports are disseminated at no cost through the web sites of those who produce them. Interestingly, though, 67% of the books and other published items were also online, free of charge. This may be explained in part by the fact that a number of international organizations are involved in forced migration issues, and they tend to make most of their publications, even published ones, freely available online.

For now, it seems that forced migration researchers have ready access to a decent amount of information online. Unfortunately, there is no way to know other than to look, and keep your fingers crossed! Perhaps one outcome of the trend towards Open Access will be more reliable expectations about knowing what we can find online, free of charge, versus hoping what we might find.

Audiovisual Library of International Law

2008-11-10T08:59:00.004-05:00

The UN Office of Legal Affairs recently launched an audiovisual library of international law. The cornerstone of the library is a lecture series that covers most international law subjects. Currently, under "International Migration Law," visitors will find two lectures by Guy Goodwin-Gill, entitled respectively "International Migration Law: An Introduction" and "Forced Migration - The Evolution of International Refugee Law and Organization." Two additional lectures by Prof. Goodwin-Gill are forthcoming. Other forthcoming relevant lectures will be presented by Jan Egeland and Margareta Wahlström on disaster relief and Walter Kälin on IDPs, among others.

The library also offers an "Historic Archives" section, that includes an entry for "refugees and stateless persons." There, visitors will find an introductory note by Prof. Goodwin-Gill on the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, which includes a procedural history, links to related documents, and information on the instruments' status. Two additional introductions will be made available on the two conventions relating to statelessness and stateless persons.

Update to Open Access Post

2008-11-05T10:28:00.004-05:00

In September, I undertook a not particularly representative survey of 17 forced migration journals to determine their open access status. An additional title can be added to the "delayed open access" group -- Intervention: International Journal of Mental Health, Psychosocial Work and Counselling in Areas of Armed Conflict -- since it makes its content available in full roughly 12 months after publication.

Google Book Search Settlement Agreement

2008-10-29T09:13:00.003-04:00

The New York Times reported yesterday that Google had reached a settlement with publishers and authors over content that it displays from millions of scanned texts in its Google Book search service.

"Under the agreement, Google will now show up to 20 percent of the text at no charge to users. It will also make the entire book available online for a fee. Universities, libraries and other organizations will be able to buy subscriptions that make entire collections of those books available to their visitors."

More information about the future of Google Book search is provided on Google's settlement agreement page.

Keeping Up with Blogs through Google

2008-10-23T10:26:00.002-04:00

Google recently relaunched an upgraded version of its Blog Search. If you want to track what blogs are saying about a certain issue, conflict, or other topic, run a search, then scroll to the bottom of the results page. There, you will find options to create an email alert or subscribe to an RSS feed for those results.

Disseminating Research Findings

2008-10-22T09:11:00.003-04:00

Academics in forced migration studies often wrestle with how best to disseminate their research findings in order to make an impact on policy and practice. According to Polzer (2007),

There is virtually no explicit writing about the process of disseminating research in the social sciences, and specifically in migration and refugee studies. This stands in marked contrast to the medical and health sciences, where there is a wealth of writing on how to disseminate research findings effectively in order to have the maximum impact on practitioners. A search for the terms ‘disseminating research findings’ on a database of medical research resulted in 346 citations explicitly dealing with the processes of dissemination (see as some recent examples Crosswaite and Curtice 1994; Dowie 1996; Moffatt, et al. 2000; Shove and Simmons 1997; Sobell 1996). The same search in a social science journal database brought up less than 40 articles, most of which only mention dissemination issues in passing. As a specific example, in the flagship journals of refugee and migration studies – the Journal of
Refugee Studies and the International Migration Review – there has not been a single article specifically concerned with research dissemination since 2001 (p. 4).

What are the different methods for disseminating research? A synthesis note from the WEDC lists the following, along with their advantages and disadvantages:

working documents
research reports
academic, refereed journal
professional journal
conference, workshop, seminar
training manual
networking
Internet, email
intermediaries
popularisation/mass media
participatory techniques

Polzer's paper also presents a case study which promotes institutional visits as a dissemination method (2007, p. 2).

Recently, the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) announced in its Policy Programme for 2008-9 that it would develop "a new series of policy briefing papers on issues relating to forced migration, protection, and humanitarian response" as one of a "range of communication strategies to ensure that its research findings are disseminated effectively to policy makers and practitioners globally" (p. 2).

And the Global Development Network (GDN) just released a toolkit on "Disseminating Research Online" to promote the successful communication of academic research in an electronic environment.

In the end, a multi-pronged approach may prove most effective. As the WEDC notes, "optimum dissemination is achieved through using a wide variety of pathways, from traditional and face-to-face communication methods, to the use of ICTs... ." Polzer (2007) also argues that thinking about dissemination strategies at the beginning of a research project has value for the research process itself, above and beyond influencing policy outcomes (p. 7).

For researchers interested in trying to assess how research findings and dissemination strategies influence policy, ODI's RAPID Programme suggests using "episode studies": These "refer to a study that focuses on a clear policy change and tracks back to assess what impact research had among the variety of issues that led to the policy change." One example of this approach is presented in the case study of the Sphere Project and how it came into being.

References:

Buchanan-Smith, M. 2003. How the Sphere Project Came into Being: A Case Study of Policy-making in the Humanitarian Aid Sector and the Relative Influence of Research. ODI Working Paper 215. London: ODI. URL: http://www.odi.org.uk/RAPID/Publications/RAPID_WP_215.htm

Global Development Network. 2008. Toolkit: Disseminating Research Online. URL: http://www.gdnet.org/middle.php?oid=373

Polzer, Tara. 2007. Disseminating Research Findings in Migration Studies: methodological considerations. Migration Methods and Field Notes 6. Johannesburg: Forced Migration Studies Programme. URL: http://migration.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/notes6-tarapolzer.pdf

Refugee Studies Centre. 2008. Policy Programme 2008-9: Outline of Activities. Oxford: RSC. URL: http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/Policy%20Programme%202008%20Outline.pdf

Water, Engineering and Development Centre. n.d. Spreading the Word: Disseminating Research Findings. Leicestershire, UK: WEDC. URL: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cv/wedc/publications/snstw/snstw.pdf

Free Access to Wiley-Blackwell Medical Journals

2008-10-17T16:58:00.003-04:00

I recently added three surveys of international emergency medicine literature to my forced migration guide. They were all published in issues of Academic Emergency Medicine, a title which normally is available on a subscription basis only or through a research library. However, the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, is offering a free trial of its medical journals for the next three months (through December 2008). Sign up and you can access not only the texts of the above-mentioned literature reviews, but many other relevant journal articles as well.

Internal Displacement Conference

2008-10-16T08:58:00.002-04:00

Participants in "Ten Years of Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement" began their discussions today in Oslo. You can follow the proceedings at the conference web site, which has posted transcripts of speeches, background documents, and some videos of presentations.

Free Access to Sage Journals

2008-10-01T13:15:00.001-04:00

Sage Journals Online is offering free access to 500+ journals through the end of October 2008. Interested researchers are asked to register and create a login/password. Sage publishes a number of journal titles in the social sciences. A quick search just on "refugees" in article titles produces 389 results.

Posted in Web Sites/Tools.

Wikis and Their Use in the Forced Migration Field

2008-09-29T09:57:00.004-04:00

A wiki is defined as "a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content." Most users of the web equate the term "wiki" with Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be edited by members of the public. So, for example, you can visit the "refugee," "internally displaced person," or "forced migration" pages on Wikipedia, click on the "edit this page" tab, and add to or edit the entries.

Wikis are not yet a common feature in the forced migration community, but the examples that currently exist demonstrate the diversity of uses to which wikis can be applied. Wikis are being used in the following ways:

To facilitate access to information in a structured and organized fashion:
- The Forced Migration Guide provides access to information resources relating to refugees and forced migration that can be used for reference and research purposes.
- The Gender Training Wiki provides access to information about institutions, trainings and training materials that promote gender equality and the advancement of women.

To share information and promote collaboration within a defined community:
- MIGHEALTHNET hopes to "stimulate the development of good practices by promoting the exchange of information and expertise, both within and between countries. The project will act as a catalyst in the formation of scientific and professional communities in each country concerned with migrant and minority health. It will thus help to create a ‘critical mass’ which can bring about policy changes on the basis of evidence and experience. "
- RefugeeMap gathers together "information on refugee situations, news and policy, and volunteering opportunities around the UK."

For recommendations and feedback:
- The Refugee Archives at UEL recently launched a wiki not only to share information about its services, but also to solicit feedback about its information resources and recommendations for additions to their collection.

As web sites:
- The Feinstein International Center uses a wiki application as the underlying framework for its web site.

As classroom projects:
- The Refugee Wiki Project was set up by 10th graders to raise awareness of refugee issues and to support the work of the International Rescue Committee.

Open Access

2008-09-23T13:50:00.001-04:00

Earlier in the year, Health and Human Rights: An International Journal was re-launched as an "open access" publication, in the interest of enhancing "access to human rights knowledge in the health field." (An article included in the first issue elaborates further on the problem of access to biomedical research literature.)

What exactly is "open access," and what is its relevance to refugee and forced migration studies? Open access literature is defined as "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions" (Suber 2004). One particular target of the open access movement has been peer-reviewed research that is usually reported in scholarly journals. Subscription costs and copyright restrictions have meant that those with the most to gain are effectively excluded from accessing the knowledge disseminated in these publications. To overcome these restrictions, two types of delivery mechanisms have been developed to facilitate greater access to research literature: open access journals and open access archives or repositories.

How open are forced migration journals, under the above definition? I listed 17 periodicals in my forced migration guide that focus specifically on issues relating to forced migration and/or humanitarianism (excluding two that report on statistics). Of these, four make all of their issues available online free-of-charge (Forced Migration Review, Humanitarian Exchange, International Review of the Red Cross, and Journal of Humanitarian Assistance). Three of these titles are not peer-reviewed and are practice- rather than academic-oriented. (The exception is the International Review of the Red Cross, which is peer-reviewed. While its publication was recently outsourced to Cambridge University Press, current issues are still being posted online.)

Several journals adhere to a "delayed open access" policy. For example, issues of Refuge are made available online 12 months after first being published in print. The full-texts of back issues of Disasters, International Journal of Refugee Law, and Journal of Refugee Studies are provided through Forced Migration Online (FMO), typically with a three- to five-year lag time.

So roughly half of these (randomly selected, unrepresentative sample of!) journals and other periodicals are open access to one degree or another. Of course, there are many other journals that publish forced migration articles and that may be open access, such as Conflict and Health and Migration Letters. To locate more open access journal titles and articles, try searching the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Open access archives or repositories normally house preprints, conference papers, theses, and other research publications that are not peer-reviewed. Forced Migration Online recently received funding to develop an Open Access Repository System (OARS) and migrate its information resources to an open source platform. This would make its journals (described above) and grey literature digital library more interoperable with other open systems, including the Oxford University Research Archive. Other examples of open access repositories are listed in the Open Access Directory (OAD).

For more information about open access generally, read Peter Suber's short "A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access" (available in multiple languages) or his longer "Open Access Overview."

Forced Migration Guide

2008-09-08T12:25:00.002-04:00

For any new researchers out there, I have compiled a guide to information resources relating to refugees and forced migration. It is available as a wiki at http://forcedmigrationguide.pbwiki.com.

You can use the guide in two ways. First, read through the chapters just like you would a regular text. Part one begins with an introduction to the concept of “forced migration” that includes a review of forced migration categories, their legal or policy bases, the principal assistance organizations, and the academic perspective on forced migration definitions. The second part of the guide presents a basic framework for conducting forced migration research both in libraries and on the Internet. It introduces key search concepts and principles to consider in any research undertaking, then describes resources that can be used 1) as starting points for research, 2) to help expand research, and 3) to support research. Part three highlights key information sources in forced migration, such as scholarly journals, reports and books, and discusses strategies for finding additional research literature through databases, library catalogues, search engines, and people.

Second, access the information resources described in the guide either by:

type of source (e.g., bibliographies, periodicals, glossaries, etc.);
specific index term (e.g., climate, culture, refugee impact, etc.);
broad subject category (e.g., asylum/legal protection, mental health, etc.);
region (if applicable);
language (if applicable); OR
using the search function (for example, search on an author or a keyword that is not included as an index term or subject category).

So why a wiki? Basically, it's an easy way to set up a database online. I have no technical experience, but using pbwiki.com, I was able to create over 450 pages of narrative text and bibliographic descriptions, and inter-link them in such a way that - hopefully - makes the guide easy and intuitive to use. I can also regularly update the guide, as well as quickly make corrections to URLs and other bibliographic details.

Hope you find the guide useful!

Posted in Web Sites/Tools.

MSF Field Research Site

2008-06-23T20:08:00.002-04:00

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has made its field research available at a new site. Published research and commentary can be accessed topically (for example, "emergencies/refugees"), or by title, author or journal. A separate section houses conference abstracts. Visitors can subscribe to the RSS feed in order to keep track of new additions to the site.

Webcasts of Recent Meetings/Presentations

2008-06-23T18:10:00.005-04:00

5th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference - 2008 and Beyond: Immigration Challenges the New Administration Will Confront, 20 May 2008 [access]

Climate Change, Migration & Environmental Refugees. Professor Andy Pitman, Dr Jane McAdam and Anna Samson, speaking UNSW, 23 May 2008 [access]

Five Years Later, A Hidden Crisis: The Plight of Iraqi Refugees. George Biddle, Senior Vice President of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), speaking at Princeton University, 21 April 2008 [access]

IDP Voices

2008-06-06T11:41:00.003-04:00

A new country has been added to the IDP Voices site. Visitors can listen to 29 personal stories in English, Georgian or Russian that detail the experiences of displaced people in Georgia. Thirteen of these stories have been compiled into a book, A Heavy Burden - Internally Displaced in Georgia: Stories of People from Abkhazia and South Ossetia - which is also available on the site.

Building your own search engine

2008-05-08T15:42:00.002-04:00

Building your own search engine sounds like it would be a highly technical, and therefore difficult task. But it isn't! There are a number of tools available that allow you to customize a search engine with a few clicks of the mouse. Effectively, this means that you can select the web sites you feel are the most important for your work, and run searches just on those pages.

Here are two examples of custom-built search engines (both used Google's application):

Forced Migration Search Engine
The Humanitarian Drive

And this article describes a number of online tools that you can use to create your own engine: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue55/search-engines/

May 1: RSS Awareness Day

2008-05-01T14:40:00.003-04:00

May 1st has been designated RSS Awareness Day by Daily Blog Tips in an effort to promote RSS as an easy and convenient mechanism for keeping track of new content. The original impetus for this blog - Researching Refugees - was to alert members of the refugee and forced migration community to web technologies like RSS that can facilitate current awareness. For my part, I track over 70 different news, blog, journal, and web site feeds through Google Reader. And more are being made available all the time. RSS makes it much easier to keep up with new information - so give it a try!

Fourth IASFM Conference Podcast

2008-04-08T11:52:00.002-04:00

The theme of this fourth podcast is "The Voices of the Displaced in Forced Migration Research," chaired by Elzbieta Gozdziak, with Eftihia Voutira, Giorgia Donna, Arild Birkenes and Zachary Lomo as the panelists. The panel discussion was preceded by poetry readings by Stephanos Stephanides and Mehmet Yashin.

Previous IASFM podcasts are available on the FMO podcast page.

Third IASFM Conference Podcast

2008-03-27T15:46:00.002-04:00

The IASFM conference podcasts are being released weekly now. The theme of this third podcast is "Regions at the Crossroads: Transregional Forced Migration," chaired by Susan Forbes Martin, with Aicha Belarbi, Ahmet Icduygu, Mark Schlakman, Susan Kneebone, and Jeffrey Crisp as the panelists.

Second IASFM Conference Podcast

2008-03-21T11:48:00.004-04:00

As reported on the Forced Migration Discussion List and the Forced Migration Blog, the second podcast from the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) plenary session at the January 2008 conference is now available on Forced Migration Online (FMO).

This podcast includes the keynote address ‘Palestine refugees in the contemporary context: a view from UNRWA’ by Karen Abu Zayd, Commissioner General of UNRWA, followed by a panel discussion ‘The situation of refugees in the Middle East’ chaired by Maysa Ayoub, and including Helen Young, Patricia Fagen and Shahira Samy.

For other recordings in the series, visit the podcasts page on FMO.

FMO Podcasts: IASFM Conference

2008-03-06T09:45:00.003-05:00

Forced Migration Online (FMO) announced today that it has released the "first podcast of a series recorded at the bi-annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM)." Held in Cairo in January 2008, the "opening plenary event covered the subject of ‘Emerging patterns of irregularity and their effects among migrants and refugees in the Middle East’."

Research Databases: Sciences, Economics

2008-03-03T12:28:00.002-05:00

I have had occasion to use two online research databases recently for forced migration-related searches. The first, Scirus, describes itself as the "most comprehensive science-specific search engine on the Internet." You can use it to locate journal articles as well as web sources on a range of topics including public health and psychosocial issues. The second, IDEAS, is a repository of economics research and provides access to working papers, journal articles, and chapters in books.

Researching Migration Web Book

2008-02-18T13:04:00.000-05:00

Researching Migration: Stories from the Field (Social Science Research Council, Dec. 2007)

This Web-based book is available online as a complete PDF and by individual chapters. The abstract reads as follows: "...[F]ellows of the International Migration Program reflect upon their experience conducting research on international migration to the United States. Although their essays describe the substantive findings of their research, their main focus is on the multiple methods employed in producing those findings. The narratives of methodological practices in this publication have been selected in part because they address central themes and questions of international migration studies and will be substantively relevant to the research findings of other scholars in the field. ..."

New Technologies and Humanitarian Response

2008-02-15T12:13:00.004-05:00

Bloggers, Buzz and Sound Bites: Innovative Media Approaches to Humanitarian Response(Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, Nov. 2007)
- Summary of discussions during a seminar that focused on how humanitarian organizations and media outlets are using new technologies to raise awareness and mobilize humanitarian response.

RSS Feeds for International Organizations

2008-01-29T14:49:00.001-05:00

Here's a listing of RSS feeds available for United Nations agencies and other international/regional organizations involved in humanitarian and development work. Subscribing to one of these feeds will help you to keep up with an organization's news and activities.

(Note: If an organization is not listed, it is most likely because it does not currently offer any feeds.)

European Union [feeds]
- Available for press releases and speeches.

FAO [feed]
- Latest news.

ICRC [feed]
- Latest news.

IOM [feed]
- Latest news.

OAS [feeds]
- Available for latest news, press releases, photos, videos, webcast, and speeches.

OECD [feeds]
- Available for countries, topics and OECD Departments.

OSCE [feeds]
- Available for news and features.

UN News Centre [feeds]
- Topical and geographical.

UN Pulse Blog [access] [feed]
- Provides announcements of new UN information online.

UN.GIFT (Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking) [feed]
- Latest news.

UNFPA [feeds]
-Available for news and publications.

UNHCR [feed]
- Latest news.

UNICEF [feeds]
- Available for news and photo essays.

UNIFEM [feeds]
- Available for latest news, resources and job vacancies.

WFP [feeds]
- Available for news, press releases, photos, emergency reports, and videos.

WHO [feeds]
- Available for news, speeches and latest disease outbreaks.

World Bank [feeds]
- Available for regions and countries.

Subscribing to subject feeds in Blogger

2008-01-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

I recently received a request for assistance from someone undertaking research on the peace, security and migration implications of climate change in Africa. I post references to publications on this topic as I come across them on my other blog, Forced Migration Current Awareness, so subscribing to my site feed is one obvious way to keep track of anything relevant that might be posted in the future.

But there is a second way to monitor postings on a subject-specific basis. I include labels for each of my posts that describe the general subject focus of the various publications referenced. Readers can subscribe to a specific label to ensure that they do not overlook any titles of particular interest.

The format for label feeds is this:
http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/labelname
- Substitute the address of the blog you want to monitor, or http://fm-cab.blogspot.com
- Substitute the label name

Here are two examples:

http://fm-cab.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/climate
- The format for the feed for the label "climate"

http://fm-cab.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/country%20of%20origin%20conditions
- The format for the feed for the label "country of origin conditions"

Copy and paste these into your reader just like you would any other feed. And the next time those labels are used in my blog, the feeds will be updated accordingly.

By the way, this format will also work in any other Blogger-hosted blogs that use labels.

RSS Feeds for Policy/Research Publications

2008-01-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

Most research centres and think tanks in the forced migration community have not yet adopted RSS as a standard mechanism for distributing news and information about their publishing activities. But this is slowly starting to change. Here are five examples of organizations that do offer RSS feeds:

European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) [web site] [feed]

Feinstein International Center (FIC) [web site] [feed]

Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), Overseas Development Institute (ODI) [web site] [feed]
- Other ODI feeds are available.

Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) [web site] [publications feed]
- Other NAI feeds are available.

United States Institute of Peace (USIP) [web site] [feed]

Several information services use RSS to announce new additions to their collections. Subscribing to their feeds is a useful way to keep track of a wide variety of new policy and research publications. One caveat: There may be a delay between the time a report is received and the time information about that report is disseminated to a wider audience. Examples of these services include:

Eldis Newsfeeds [access] [conflict feed] [migration feed]

Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog [site] [feed]

Human Security Gateway [general feed] [generate a customized feed]

Keeping Up with Human Rights Developments

2007-12-10T08:58:00.000-05:00

December 10 is Human Rights Day. To stay informed about human rights developments around the world, sign up for a selection of RSS/email alerts, such as:

Amnesty International RSS feeds (offered by type of information)

Asian Human Rights Commission email lists (by information type, country or language)

Fédération Internationale des ligues des Droits de l'Homme RSS feeds (offered by type of information)

Human Rights Watch RSS feeds (offered by theme and region)

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights mailing list

Online Books/Book Search

2007-12-06T11:00:00.000-05:00

Increasingly, full-text book collections are becoming available online. Several of relevance to forced migration researchers include:

Committee on Population (CPOP), National Academies Press (NAP) [access]
- Relevant titles include "Psychosocial Concepts in Humanitarian Work with Children: A Review of the Concepts and Related Literature" and "Tools and Methods for Estimating Populations at Risk from Natural Disasters and Complex Humanitarian Crises," among others.

Digital Library, Forced Migration Online [access]
- Some examples of books in the FMO collection include: Barbara Harrell-Bond's well-known text, "Imposing aid: emergency assistance to refugees" and "Risks and reconstruction: experiences of resettlers and refugees," ed. by Michael Cernea and Christopher McDowell.

Kumarian Press [access]
- Publishes a number of titles on disasters, humanitarianism and peacebuilding. Various books can be viewed online at no cost, including issues of the World Disasters Report and Larry Minear's "The Humanitarian Enterprise: Dilemmas and Discoveries," among others.

"Social and Political Sciences," International Development Research Centre (IDRC) [access]
- Collection includes "Palesinian Refugees: Challenges of Repatriation and Development" and "The Responsibility to Protect," among others.

The IDRC notes that its books are available through Google Book Search. This is a project to scan books already in the public domain or with permission from the copyright holder. Texts are then searchable. Depending on the level of copyright permission granted, users can either view the complete text, preview a limited portion, or read a displayed "snippet."

Several books from the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement can also be previewed through Google, including Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement, The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the Internally Displaced, and Exodus Within Borders: An Introduction to the Crisis of Internal Displacement. Likewise, most titles from Berghahn Books' refugee studies series also appear to be available for limited previews.

Another book search service is provided by Amazon.com. Books from participating publishers are fully searchable; sample pages can also be viewed and further searches can be conducted within an individual book. (See, for example, Jane McAdam's Complementary Protection in International Refugee Law.)

These services enable researchers to better evaluate the relevance of books as well as verify citations and locate quoted text within book passages. You can also create public book lists in Amazon or personalized libraries in Google, both of which allow you to describe, organize and share relevant titles with colleagues.

Wish List: RSS Feeds for New Book Titles

2007-11-27T13:20:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post, I noted that Kumarian Press did not provide notification services and therefore represented a good candidate for "watching" via a web page monitoring service. As it happens, Kumarian Press now offers an RSS feed to inform users of its news and activities. (For example, I learned about the new classroom guide developed for Larry Minear's book, The Humanitarian Enterprise, from the feed.) Unfortunately, the RSS feed does not include a new book listing. Or at least, not so far.

KP is not alone. This LLRX.com article laments the fact that very few legal publishers offer RSS feeds of new titles. And my previously-posted brief listing of forced migration publishers suggests a parallel tendency to offer email updates over RSS feeds. One notable exception is Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, which offers an RSS feed for its "Refugees and Human Rights" series, as well as feeds for both forthcoming and newly available titles in various subject areas, including "human rights and humanitarian law."

In the meantime, my personal solution for keeping up with new books is to generate customized feeds for various keyword searches undertaken in Amazon.com, the online bookseller. I explain in this post how I then display the titles in the "new books" feature I make available in my other blog, Forced Migration Current Awareness.

Ten Ways to Keep Up with Humanitarian News

2007-11-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

Here are at least ten ways to keep up with humanitarian developments around the world, using RSS feeds and email alerts. In addition, both Google and Yahoo! offer options for monitoring global news.

RSS:

1. AlertNet [web site] [customize your news feed]

2. Human Security News [access] [feed]

3. IRIN News [web site] [news feed options]

4. The Other World News: Aggregated News from the Other World - The Third World [blog] [feed]

5. Pambazuka News [web site] [news feed options]

6. ReliefWeb [web site] [feed for news headlines]

7. UN News Centre [web site] [news feed options]

8. UNHCR [web site] [latest news feed]

Email:

9. IDP News Alert [access]

10. World Refugee [access]

And also...

Google News [access] [customize your news feed/other options]

Yahoo! News [access] [customize your news feed/other options]

Keeping Up with Web Resources

2007-11-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

One area I didn't cover in the RSQ article is how to find out about new web resources. There are several tools that you can use to learn about new web sites generally, in the form of newsletters and RSS feeds for subject gateways or directories. Here are some examples of each:

Awareness Watch Newsletter - http://www.awarenesswatch.com/
- Monthly listing with subject focus. RSS feed available for new issues.

DocuTicker - http://www.docuticker.com/
- Daily; this blog highlights selected resources and reports from government agencies and NGOs. RSS feed available for new postings. (Note: Because this blog generates a lot of daily postings, I opted to set up a page monitor to alert me to new additions just to the "immigration" section as an alternative to the RSS feed.)

InSITE - http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/insiteasp/default.asp
- Bi-weekly; focus is on legal resources. Both RSS feed and email alerts available.

Internet Resources Newsletter - http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html
- Monthly, with an academic bent. Subscribe to an RSS feed or email alert. (Note: The editor is also involved in a project to promote "journal current awareness." The companion blog provides updates on new developments.)

Intute: Social Sciences - http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/
- Gateway to web resources in the social sciences. Keep track of new resources added to the service by browsing the latest additions, subscribing to their RSS feed or monitoring their blog.

Scout Report - http://scout.wisc.edu/Reports/ScoutReport/Current/
- Weekly, with annotations of both academic and general interest resources. Distributed online or by email.

Alternatively, experiment with a search engine monitoring service, like Google Alerts. You can specify keywords that you wish to have monitored (e.g., >>protracted refugee situations<<, >>humanitarian AND "literature review"<<, etc.). When a match is made, you are sent an "alert" or email message with a description and link to the resource. For information on how to use this service, visit the Google Guide tutorial.

Page Monitors

2007-09-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

What can you do if an information service of interest does not offer e-mail alerts or RSS feeds? How can you keep track of updates to that service? Web page monitors represent a third current awareness alternative. These tools monitor web pages for you. When changes are detected, they notify you accordingly. They are particularly useful for monitoring content that does not change very frequently.

There are web-based monitors as well as downloadable ones. Some are free, some require a subscription. You can read more about the different products at "Current awareness tools" and "Monitoring changes to web pages." There is also a chapter on page monitors in a recently published book called Information Trapping: Real-Time Research on the Web, which is quite helpful.

Which pages might be worth monitoring? Here are a few examples:

Journal of Migration and Refugee Issues
- The publisher of this journal does not offer e-mail alerts or RSS feeds; issues are published three times per year, so the content is relatively infrequent.

Kumarian Press
- This press publishes a number of humanitarian titles, but does not provide specific notification services for its new or forthcoming titles.

These web pages would also be worth monitoring but raise technical issues for monitors that must be considered:

New Issues in Refugee Research
- Working paper series from UNHCR; all pages on the UNHCR web site include a daily updated "today's date;" this element will trigger most page monitors to notify you of a change. However, there might be some products that allow you to exclude certain details from being monitored.

RSC Working Papers
- Another working paper series, provided by the Refugee Studies Centre. Although the RSC web site is frames-based, it is still possible to identify the unique URL for monitoring purposes.

Dag Hammarskjöld Library
- The library maintains a new acquisitions page, with an entry for "humanitarian aid and relief" under "social affairs." Clicking on this link takes users to a list of the latest additions to the library catalogue. However, the URL indicated is a temporary one, created "on the fly" when the link was selected; as such, it cannot be monitored.

Research News Updates

2007-09-01T11:45:00.000-04:00

The following resources compile information gathered from various research sources and provide e-mail alerts/RSS feeds to visitors accordingly.

Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog [access]
Forced Migration Discussion List [access] (there is also an RSS feed for this list)
Frank's List: The Asylum, Immigration and Rights Gateway [access]
Human Security Research [access]
id21 [access]
Refugee Studies Discussion Forum [access]

Monitoring Research Reports

2007-09-01T11:30:00.000-04:00

Many if not most organizations within the forced migration research community have established some kind of presence online. And they often provide notification services in order to apprise visitors of their activities and publication updates. For example, the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement maintains a listserv, the Feinstein International Center offers an RSS feed, Forced Migration Online has set up a blog, and the Refugee Women's Resource Project circulates an electronic newsletter.

To find other research institutes online and their respective mechanisms for keeping the public informed, search in Forced Migration Online's directory or ReliefWeb's directory.

In addition, take advantage of the e-mail alerts and RSS feeds provided by the following report/grey literature repositories:

ecoi.net
- Country of origin information database.

Eldis
- Development information gateway, with resource guides on "Conflict and Security" and "Aid."

Human Security Gateway
- "Refugees and internally displaced people" is an option in the topic menu.

Refworld
- UNHCR's collection of country reports, policy documents, and legal information.

ReliefWeb
- Humanitarian information hub, with a "Policy and Issues" documents library.

Monitoring New Books through Amazon

2007-09-01T11:15:00.000-04:00

Amazon.com is one of the largest online booksellers. It used to offer a helpful e-mail alert service based on keywords that would notify you when new books became available. While this seems to have been discontinued, other services have filled the gap. Here are two examples:

Amazon RSS Feed Generator
- Enter a search term or terms and create your own custom RSS feed for any Amazon store item (the default is books). Copy and paste the feed into your newsreader, where book titles will update as new matches to your terms are made.

Amazon Feed Generator
- A similar service, although this one lets you use Amazon's power search syntax to build a more precise query.

Forced Migration Book Publishers

2007-09-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

The companies listed below regularly publish forced migration-related titles. Notification services that they offer are also indicated.

Berghahn Books
- Publishes the Studies in Forced Migration series edited by the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC). Sign up for their mailing list and select "refugee studies" as your area of interest to receive information about new titles.

Brookings Institution Press
- Publishes books produced by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, among others. Sign up for their weekly e-mail newsletter for book news.

Kumarian Press
- Publishes humanitarian titles including the World Disasters Report series. Their RSS feed provides news about recent developments and activities.

Lexington Books
- Publishes the Program on Migration and Refugee Studies series, advisors for which are based at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM). E-mail notification of new titles is available by broad subject category.

Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
- Publishes the Refugees and Human Rights series. Subscribe to their "human rights and humanitarian law" RSS feeds for forthcoming titles or new books.

Oxford University Press
- Publishes The State of the World's Refugees series for UNHCR as well as editions of The Refugee in International Law. New books are announced in monthly subject-based e-mail newsletters.

Routledge
- Publishes the Global Institutions series, which includes titles on UNHCR, ICRC and other humanitarian organizations. Sign up for eUpdates by subject.

Monitoring New Additions to Library Collections

2007-09-01T10:45:00.000-04:00

Libraries keep researchers informed of new additions to their collections either through accessions (or new acquisitions) lists or through "new titles" features in their library catalogues. This post lists several resources to help keep track of new books.

1. Accessions Lists (all the ones listed below can also be e-mailed to you upon request)

British Library for Development Studies (BLDS) offers BLDS Updates every 2-4 weeks; see especially the one for "conflict, disasters, refugees."
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) Documentation Centre provides new acquisitions lists.
Refugee Studies Centre Library compiles a quarterly list.
UEL Refugee Council Archive puts together a bi-monthly list.
UNHCR Library produces its Library Highlights list 3-4 times per year.

2. New Titles

ECLAS: European Commission Union Catalogue
- First, search the catalogue. With registration, users can then set up e-mail alerts for updated search results; visit the help section for more information about bibliographic alerts.

ICRC: International Committee of the Red Cross Library & Research Service
- View new additions to the catalogue by clicking on the "Nouveautés" option.

Peace Palace Library
- View new titles when you select one of the many international law topics listed. Or sign up to receive e-mail alerts for a specific topic.

Tufts University Libraries
- View new acquisitions by library, broad subject, or keyword search; RSS feeds are available for all search types.

UN Geneva Library
- Select "New books and articles by subjects" to display subject options available for review; "Humanitarian Aid and Relief" is available as a category.

Monitoring Journal-reported Research

2007-09-01T10:30:00.000-04:00

Researchers can monitor the scholarly journal literature in the databases below by taking advantage of one or more of the following notification services: requesting topic, author, citation, or search term alerts; generating custom RSS feeds; or receiving updated results from saved searches.

FindArticles (multidisciplinary)
- An article database that lets you generate a keyword-based RSS feed; you can do so by scrolling down to the search box at the bottom of the RSS site map page.

HighBeam Research (multidisciplinary)
- Another database that allows you to build a custom RSS feed based on your search terms; this page explains how.

HighWire Press (life sciences emphasis, but covers social sciences as well)
- Through the CiteTrack service, you can request e-mail alerts for keywords, authors or citations that appear in new journal articles. Alerts also can be created immediately after you conduct a search. For more information, visit the CiteTrack page.

PILOTS Database (mental health literature)
- Registration allows you to save a search, and then be notified by e-mail when new results matching your search criteria appear; more information about alerts are available here.

PubMed (medical and health sciences)
- You can generate RSS feeds after a search with no registration; steps to do so are provided here. Creating a free NCBI account allows you to save a search and then be notified by e-mail when those search results are updated.

Note: These databases provide complimentary access to bibliographic citations and abstracts for journal articles. Accessing full-text content generally requires payment (premium service), although one can often find free articles within the collections as well.

Monitoring Other Journals

2007-09-01T10:15:00.000-04:00

What if you want to monitor other journals besides those listed in the previous post? These resources can help you identify the notification services available for particular journal titles.

Multidisciplinary

Informaworld
- Browse for an individual journal title and its RSS feed; register in order to sign up for e-mail alerts.

IngentaConnect
- Browse or search to find an individual journal title and its RSS feed; request free e-mail alerts for up to five titles.

University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
- Scroll down through this listing of over 5000 journal titles and their corresponding RSS feeds.

University of Saskatchewan Library
- Browse this alphabetical listing of journals with RSS feeds.

Health/Medical Sciences

HighWire Press
- Browse or search to find an individual journal title and request an e-mail alert.

Law

Current Law Journal Content
- Browse through the list of legal journals to locate a feed.

Monitoring Forced Migration Journals

2007-09-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

Here is a listing of periodicals that regularly publish articles relating to forced migration and/or humanitarian assistance. I've indicated the notification services for each title, i.e., e-mail alerts and/or RSS feeds. You will need to register with the publisher to receive e-mail alerts; the links I've provided direct you to the appropriate page to do so.

Development in Practice
Published by Routledge
E-mail alerts through Informaworld
RSS feed for contents of current issue (RSS icon located in upper right corner)

Disasters: The Journal of Disaster Studies, Policy and Management
Published by Blackwell
E-mail alerts
RSS feed for contents of current issue (RSS icon located in left navigation menu)

European Journal of Migration and Law
Published by Brill
E-mail alerts through IngentaConnect
RSS feed for contents of current issue (note: you can't view this feed, but you can copy and paste it into your newsreader)

Forced Migration Review
Published by the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), in English, Arabic, French and Spanish
E-mail alerts

Humanitarian Exchange
Published by the Humanitarian Practice Network
E-mail alerts (receive copies of the magazine as a Network member; free registration)

International Journal of Refugee Law
Published by Oxford University Press (OUP)
E-mail alerts
RSS feeds for contents of current issue, contents of recent issues, advance access articles

International Migration
Published by Blackwell
E-mail alerts
RSS feed for contents of current issue (RSS icon located in left navigation menu)

International Migration Review
Published by Blackwell
E-mail alerts
RSS feed for contents of current issue (RSS icon located in left navigation menu)

International Review of the Red Cross
Published by Cambridge University Press (as of issue no. 861)
E-mail alerts
RSS feeds: CUP requires users to register before they can access their desired RSS feed.

Journal of Humanitarian Assistance (JHA)
Published by the Feinstein International Center (as of 2007)
E-mail alerts
RSS feed for new content

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Published by Routledge
E-mail alerts through Informaworld
RSS feed for contents of current issue (RSS icon located in upper right corner)

Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies
Published by Haworth Press
E-mail alerts
RSS feed for contents of latest issue

Journal of Refugee Studies
Published by Oxford University Press (OUP)
E-mail alerts
RSS feeds for contents of current issue, contents of recent issues, advance access articles

Refugee Survey Quarterly
Published by Oxford University Press (OUP)
E-mail alerts
RSS feeds for contents of current issue, contents of recent issues, advance access articles

E-mail Alerts

2007-09-01T09:45:00.000-04:00

Content providers have long offered e-mail alerts to notify interested users about the availability of new resources. Examples of information you might receive by e-mail include:

- tables of contents for refugee journals like OUP's Refugee Survey Quarterly
- newsletters from organizations like the Refugee Council that describe their activities and new publications
- postings to electronic discussion lists like forced-migration
- new book titles from publishers like Berghahn Books

The downside of e-mail alerts is the effort required to manage them and keep them organized.

All about RSS

2007-09-01T09:30:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, researchers who wanted to keep up with frequently updated information on the web (news, publication titles, research developments, etc.) had to remember to regularly visit bookmarked sites of interest or register for e-mail alerts or newsletters (if these were available). Today, an XML file format called RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") simplifies this process dramatically by delivering "headlines" to you directly so that you can peruse news and information in one central location. Content is distributed via RSS in the form of a feed that must be read by an application called a newsreader or news aggregator (more about this below).

Increasingly, content providers all across the web are beginning to offer RSS feeds of one kind or another. To determine whether or not a web site has RSS feeds, just look for a reference to "site feed," "syndicated content," or an orange icon that either says RSS or XML on it or that looks like this: . Also, if you use Internet Explorer v.7 or Mozilla's Firefox as your browser, this icon appears in a toolbar at the top of the browser. It is normally gray, but if you visit a site that offers RSS, it will turn orange, indicating that a feed is available. (NB: I use IE7 and to be honest, the icon is not 100% effective; but it's worth keeping an eye on.)

So who in the forced migration information community offers RSS feeds? Here are a few examples:
- News services such as IRIN
- Blogs such as RI's WorldBridge
- Information hubs like ReliefWeb

As noted above, you need to have a newsreader or aggregator to be able to view RSS content delivered via a feed. You can choose between a client-side reader (i.e., an application you download onto your computer) or a web-based reader. Some are free and some require payment. This site offers a fairly complete listing of the various options. Bloglines is one of the more popular free web-based readers. Often, newsreaders are made available through personalized portal providers like My Yahoo! or Google.

To begin reading RSS content, simply copy and paste the URL for the RSS feed into the reader program you choose. I experimented briefly with Bloglines, but I found that at times certain feeds were not updating even though new headlines were available. In addition, I could not always re-display feeds after I had read them (although this was probably a temporary glitch). I decided to try Google Reader instead, and so far, so good! Both Bloglines and Google Reader allow you to create folders, which is important if you want to be able to keep your feeds organized.

What is a blog?

2007-09-01T09:15:00.000-04:00

From my personal perspective, a blog simply represents an easy means of establishing a web presence. So it is first and foremost a web site. It also happens to have a certain structure: entries presented in reverse chronological order, monthly archives, comment function, keyword labels, etc. And because it employs a journal-style format, it has been predominantly used by individuals as a vehicle for recording personal thoughts, reporting news, providing commentary, and sharing information.

This article in the Journal of Humanitarian Assistance makes a case for using blogs to more quickly share information in humanitarian emergencies.

For more definitions, see these entries in Wikipedia and Wiktionary. Lengthier introductions are available from:

ODI, "Blogs," Knowledge and Learning Online Toolkit
RSF, Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents
Techsoup (technology resource for nonprofits), Introduction to Weblogs and Ready to Start Blogging?

Why I created this blog...

2007-09-01T09:00:00.000-04:00

A proposal for an article of mine was recently accepted by the editors of a special issue of Refugee Survey Quarterly. The theme is "Researching Refugees" and the editors called for articles to fall under one of three topical areas: Historical Overview of Refugee Studies, Methodological and Ethical Aspects of Refugee Research, and New Approaches to Refugee Research.

My article will address the following:

Refugee studies is an interdisciplinary field of study with a strong policy and practice orientation. As a result, the pool of potentially relevant research literature is diffuse and challenging to monitor. This article will review resources and strategies for keeping current with research and publication developments. The focus will be on Internet-based services that any researcher can utilize, regardless of the type of institution within which s/he is based. Resource types that will be highlighted in the article include weblogs, discussion lists, and current awareness services. Relevant tools such as RSS feeds, e-mail alerts, and news readers will also be described in practical terms.

So I will be exploring a number of web services in order to make recommendations, and I thought a blog would be a useful way to not only keep track of my experimentation but also provide an online supplement to the final article.