13 March 2006

Forced Migration Reference Guide

I received a Carnegie-Whitney grant from the American Library Association (ALA) which I will be using to compile a guide to information resources relating to refugees and forced migration. To that end, I will be tracking down details about a variety of reference materials in both print and electronic formats. Here are some examples of the type of resources I'm referring to:

Bibliographies/Literature Reviews:
- Psychosocial Concepts in Humanitarian Work with Children: A Review of the Concepts and Related Literature (National Academies Press, 2003)
- Selected Bibliography on the Global Crisis of Internal Displacement (Brookings, 2001)

Dictionaries/Glossaries:
- Glossary of Humanitarian Terms in relation to the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (OCHA, 2003)
- Historical Dictionary of Refugee and Disaster Relief Organizations, 2nd Ed. (Scarecrow Press, 2000)

Directories:
- Directory of NGOs Working on Refugee Issues in Africa

Encyclopedias:
- Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World (Springer, 2004)
- Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present (ABC-CLIO, 2005)

Literature/Document Collections:
- Forced Migration Digital Library (FMO)
- The Refugee Council Archive at UEL

...among many others.

Why are these so important? They distill large amounts of information, define and explain important concepts, and/or help to locate and identify materials of interest. They are, therefore, invaluable for gaining entree to a field of knowledge, for learning what's available where, for facilitating access to information, and for contributing to the research process.

Posted in Publications.

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