History of the Social Science Library:
The creation of the SSL was motivated by frequent requests received by the Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) from under- resourced libraries seeking copies of the six books in our series, Frontier Issues in Economic Thought. (These books are described, and may be found in full in the SSL, via the Special Collections link on the menu bar.) With a grant from the Ford Foundation to provide materials to libraries in the developing world on CD-ROM, the SSL editors decided to supplement the Frontiers materials with articles and book chapters that fell into the same general category as those we had selected for the Frontiers project: that is, excellent writings that demonstrate how knowledge and understanding developed in the social sciences can contribute to sustainable development and human well-being.
The work of creating the SSL took nearly seven years. The process involved selection of approximately 9,300 articles and book chapters according to the criteria listed below, organization of the selections in a hierarchical system covering seven disciplines, and corresponding with copyright holders for permission to include their works in the SSL.
The initial SSL was distributed via CD-ROM and USB drives to universities in 136 designated recipient countries. The material distributed to these universities included full-text access to about one-third of the 9,300 articles. Similarly, the current online SSL includes full-text access where possible, and otherwise abstracts and information on where materials can be accessed online.
Selection criteria for the Social Science Library:
The articles in the Social Science Library have been drawn mostly from the published work of exemplary academic social scientists. The researchers at the Global Development And Environment Institute who selected materials for the collection used the following criteria:
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To provide excellent examples of theoretical and applied social science research
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To provide a focus on the concepts of human well-being and sustainability
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While our sustainable development/well-being emphasis gives us certain obvious biases (e.g., toward poverty reduction, against racial, class or gender discrimination, etc.) we try to represent a range of views on each issue.
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To emphasize topics that will be of interest to those working to balance the need for economic growth with the need for environmental and social sustainability.
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To include works covering theory, policy applications, and empirical analysis.
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To strike a regional balance with applied selections from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the former Soviet Union/East-Central Europe.
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Founders
The Social Science Library is a project of the Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University, in conjunction with the UN Decade for Education in Sustainable Development. The following are the individuals who are responsible for the creation of the SSL.
Neva Goodwin, Distinguished Fellow Economics in Context Initiative (ECI)
Jonathan Harris, Senior Research Fellow Economics in Context Initiative (ECI)
Brian Roach, Senior Research Fellow Economics in Context Initiative (ECI)
All of the following members of the SSL Editorial and Production Staff were employed by GDAE for the tasks indicated, unless otherwise noted:
