Aliss is active on Social media- here are a selection of sites we use to keep you informed, so why not follow us today to keep up to date?
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/socialscience2.bsky.social
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/heatherdawson370/
Higher education news for libraries and librarians: the latest news on higher education, learning and information literacy via scoop.it
International development via Scoop.it
Data and Society via Scoop.it (including AI)
Health and social Policy via Scoop.it
Urban news (via canva) April 2026
Race and Diversity newsletter March / April
interesting sites for social science information professionals May 8th
Here is the latest update of new and interesting social science sites for information professionals.
Here is the latest update of new and interesting sites for social science information professionals
Local government elections and women’s political history
Just a bit of fun for May: local government elections from the @lse.library digital archive. Did you know that in England women were able to vote and stand as local government councillors before they were able to vote in general elections for Parliament?
However, the right of women to vote in certain areas was often contested. In 1900, the Fabian Society published a tract arguing in favour of women councillors. This was forward‑thinking. However, the arguments about what women were needed for make interesting reading. They include inspecting bathroom facilities in factories and housing design.
Some of the arguments now seem very outdated but were probably considered very modern in 1900. They include “men live in houses, women work in them”. Uneven floors and poor design, which would cause coppers used to wash clothes to leak, would “make no difference to a man except for spoiling his wife’s temper” but could be better designed by women who ought to be consulted.
Read the full pamphlet here:
More information on the history of women in local government:
TUC resources: General Strike
On 3 May 1926, millions of workers across the UK took part in the 1926 General Strike. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has created this resource to mark the centenary. These include background information, oral history accounts, a list of resources from the TUC archives, and a reading list.
Warwick Modern Records Centre General Strike
The Modern Records Centre at Warwick University has created a site with free access to over 550 digitised documents relating to the General Strike, including strike bulletins, radio broadcasts, and internal TUC reports. It also has an online map and a day‑to‑day timeline of events.
Cardiff’s Docklands Community Photographs (Glamorgan Archives)
This website contains a collection of photographs taken between 1900 and 1920, many by Fred Petersen of Bute Street. These are notable for images of Black and mixed‑race community members. The site also provides access to a series of pages which imaginatively reconstruct their lives.
In Our Own Words (Feminist Archive North)
This is a great oral history project which aims to capture the early days of the Women’s Aid Federation of England (WAFE), 1974–1984. There are 12 interviews carried out between 2022 and 2024. They offer insight into women’s support for survivors of domestic violence and grassroots advocacy. Details of the main archive are provided on the website.
The Love Letters exhibition at The National Archives
This fascinating blog post by a records specialist showcases a selection of the historic letters displayed in the 2026 National Archives Love Letters exhibition, along with responses from visitors.
They include same‑sex love, forbidden love, and other expressions of intimacy, including some which at various points in history were criminalised. The visitors’ responses document their emotions and experiences using visual, written, and audio methods.
The Global Misogyny News Coverage Tracker
Key report from Missing perspectives which aims to track the world wide news media’s levels and quality of coverage of misogynistic harassment and violence against women and girls.it uses a detailed methodology and content analysis which is provided on the website. This includes coverage of the level of misogyny covered and if it is contains the voice of women.
The Feminist Art Observatory at KT press.
https://www.ktpress.co.uk/feminist-art-observatory.asp
worth re exploring
This resource was created in relation to n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal and other books by KT press. It has a searchable of materials from them as well as links to lists of organisations festivals groups since the 1970s. materials are updated
Digital Society Project (DSP) data has been updated for 2026 by VDem
. it provides a comprehensive dataset on the relationship between digital technologies and democratic governance. The latest release (Dataset v8) covers the 2000–2025 period across 179 countries has indicators on online censorship, disinformation, and government control
Free download
Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe),
hosted by Indiana University,
studying the role of media and technology in society, and building tools to analyze and counter manipulation on social media.it includes social social media raw datasets as well as papers and reports
LUSTRE/GLOW Workshop 6: Government Records and AI, held on 20–21 April at The National Archives (TNA
https://lustre-network.net/2026/05/05/lustre-glow-workshop-6-report/
The workshop brought together archivists and Knowledge & Information Management professionals in government and the GLAM sector, computer scientists and AI specialists, digital humanists, and researchers to consider the possibilities current challenges and impact of AI on UK government record keeping
The project has published this paper
Jaillant, L., Kidd, M., & Zhao, L. (2026). Sifting the Digital Heap: A Scoping Study of AI for Government Archives — Access, Backlogs, and Responsible Practice. Zenodo.
Presentations and reports from the project can be viewed on the website . see more links to AI and society on our scoop it page
Best wishes
Heather Dawson
alissnet.com 
Hello,
I am I PhD student and a librarian. My interest is in accessibility services for people with disabilities in libraries.
I will be very happy to be able to read this article –
McNaught, Alistair. (2014). Accessible libraries – Pragmatic strategies. ALISS quarterly. Vol. 9 (4)
Thank you,
Einat Ben Dov.
Hi Einat!
Thanks for your message. I have passed your request on to our organisation’s secretary who will be in touch shortly.
Good luck with your research!
Best regards
Webmaster