Spring 2014 GSC Newsletter

Core ULS Strengths for Global Studies Students, Faculty and the Community

By Daniel Pennell and Clare Connors


With over six million total items held, the ULS has become the 24th largest academic research library collection in North America and the 16th largest among the public universities of the American Association of Universities. The University Center for International Studies (UCIS) centers and programs, including its three U.S. Department of Education National Resource Centers (NRC, of which GSC is one), are supported with nationally-ranked collections and a combined total of 48 professional staff – one of the largest staffs of international librarians, bibliographers, catalogers and paraprofessionals in the world. With Pitt’s specialized and foreign-language collections, and statistical compendia and reference works in both print and electronic formats, GSC’s students and faculty can enhance their research with access to materials relevant to all world regions.

Resources in Specialized Libraries

Specialized library holdings provide resources for GSC students and researchers in the four focal themes. The GSPIA/Economics collection maintains critical holdings related to all four of GSC’s themes; the Information Science collection holds special resources for researchers studying the process of globalization of society as well as global security; the Katz Business School Library contains collections on topics related to the global economy; the Langley Health Sciences Library provides over 55,000 items pertaining to global health; while the Barco Law Library’s collection includes materials related to the global society, economy and security foci.

Online and Digital Resources, and Open Access

Open Access: ULS’s D-Scribe creates and manages electronic publishing services including 32-open access, peer-reviewed e-journals, in partnership with Pitt faculty, academic units and programs on campus, along with other institutions and scholars worldwide. Among the most notable global studies-related titles in D-Scribe are Central Asian Journal of Global Health, CINEJ Cinema Journal, International Journal of Telerehabilitation, and Journal of World-Historical Information.

ULS provides access to 100,000 electronic subscriptions, as well as over 500 electronic databases including those critical for Global Studies such as Index Catalog, UN Documents/Publications, Country Watch, Econ Lit, Global Education Database, Military and Government Collection, Agricultural Online Access, PAIS International, World Development Indicators, World News Connection and many others. All electronic resources can be accessed on or off campus.

LibGuides: Of particular note are the LibGuides that contain research aids, subject guides and other collated reference materials for Global Studies research. The LibGuides have regional, topical and country foci. Global Studies related LibGuides are available at http://pitt.libguides.com/cat.php?cid=24453 or the GSC Website through the “Library” tab. The newest LibGuide is focused on African Studies and African Country Resources @ Pitt and is available at http://pitt.libguides.com/africa. As Lois Kepes, ULS Liaison Librarian and LibGuide author explains, “This guide provides selected high quality resources on the global, political, economic, social and cultural aspects of the continent of Africa and its countries. It features individual country pages for all African countries as well as sources searchable by topic or country.”

Community to Global Access

Through inter-library loan, students and faculty may borrow books, articles, microfilm, dissertation and other materials. Pitt is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, the North East Research Libraries Consortium, the Pennsylvania Academic Library Association and the Oakland Library Consortium in Pittsburgh. Through these groups, Pitt students and faculty have access to vast resources at other institutions. In addition, anyone from outside Pitt may obtain a special borrower’s card to access ULS’s global studies materials.

Pitt has been a leader in global document delivery systems. For example, scholars with an interest in Asia may also access Chinese and Korean academic journals through the Pitt-developed East Asian Gateway Service, an online system that allows scholars at Pitt and elsewhere to retrieve the contents of research articles and other documents from Chinese and Korean partner libraries. The system handles more than 2,000 requests per year. The Consortium for Education and Resources on Islamic Studies (CERIS – based at the GSC) allows students and faculty at all its 32 member institutions to access materials on the Middle East and the Islamic world.

GSC, UCIS and ULS Collection Partnership

All of the UCIS centers and programs are supported with extraordinary ULS collections, in part resulting from a partnership between the UCIS units and the ULS. The partnership consists of (in the case of the NRCs) providing funding for related collection development from their Title VI grants; as well as ULS bibliographers using these and other resources to acquire electronic and hard copy materials of special merit related to Global Studies and the other UCIS centers and programs. The partnership has been crucial to GSC and has led to growing collections in environmental policy, bioterrorism, global health and the Islamic world.

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