This new MCTC Library database offers global perspectives on issues of international importance and current world events and topics in the news related to these issues. It includes a variety of international periodicals and news sources that provide information seekers with a framework to better understand 21st-century issues and events while highlighting global connections and the interdependence of all nations.
Global Issues in Context focuses on broad issues, such as war, genocide, terrorism, human rights, poverty, famine, globalization, and global warming, as well as more specific events and topics in the news that are related to these broader issues, such as genocide in Darfur and changing weather patterns across the globe. It also includes profiles and news about nations.
Try the database out and let me know what you think of it. Is it easy to use? What do you think of the Overviews? What do you think of the organization and the content? Notice that the world news articles are very recent, and that the results of a search done in the main search box at the top of the screen are different from the results that you get when you use the search box in the World News part of the page. What intrigues you or pleases you or annoys you about this database? How might you use it with your classes? What questions do you have about it?
Use this link to try it out, or go to the library home page and find it in the complete list of databases and in the Politics/Government category.
Posts
As databases go, I think this one seems pretty good. Some of the search functions don't seem to be all that intuitive - for example, in Advanced Search, there is a category for "Document number" - Which, I now gather, is for a specific number for a specific document - whereas I thought it may be another limiter, eg limiting the number of documents you want returned in your search. But maybe that's just me!
ReplyDeleteI think it would be very useful for research around current issues and world events, as it would offer a different perspective that US media. However, something I did notice was that there was a predominance of US articles in the brief searches I made - and most others were "western", eg New Zealand, UK, Canada, etc. It may be the subject matter of my searches (alternative energy, deforestation, Iraq War) - Roxanne
Roxanne, did you run the same search in just the World News search box? I passed your comment on to our collection development librarian, and she was wondering if you obtained the same result if you tried your search using the World News box.
ReplyDelete