Collection Spotlight: College Student Voices in Access World News
by Winn W. Wasson, Social Science Librarian
Colleges and universities are places for conversations that advance knowledge and understanding of the world. Faculty teach students, and the two groups frequently collaborate on research in a wide array of disciplines. As such, the resources that academic libraries provide are primarily geared toward academic use, to be used by faculty and students in teaching and coursework and in research. However, there is more to the conversations at colleges and universities than just what goes on inside classrooms and what faculty and students are researching for publication. Students are always engaged in extracurricular discussions about campus and the world, and many of these conversations find themselves on the pages and websites of campus student newspapers.
Syracuse University students can tune into the campus conversation through The Daily Orange. However, what if someone wants to know what students are up to on other campuses or how those students are discussing major world issues or contending with campus developments similar to those that transpire at SU?
For these situations, Access World News can come in handy. This database offers access to a variety of news publications from around the world, and it also has a special module (circled on the screenshot of the homepage), where one can go directly to search over 500 student newspapers from a selection of colleges and universities. There is the ability to limit one’s results by country, state and city; by publication; by date of publication; and by language. The top results for a search for “student housing” show coverage of student housing issues on campuses as far ranging as University of Texas at Austin, California State University at Fresno, University of Virginia and Binghamton University. Just a note that the default search is to show the most recent results first, so one will need to make sure to click Best Match to get results sorted by relevance.
If you’re looking for a resource that showcases student voices about campus and world issues from a wide selection of campuses, Access World News can provide those perspectives, whether you are looking for academic purposes, extracurricular activities on campus or intercollegiate networking.
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