“more diverse representation can be achieved through the inclusion of a wider variety of sources, expanding what is deemed as ‘academic’”

Co-creation

One way the University of Hull Education Strategy, 2020-2025 aims to build strong communities of learning is through curriculum co-creation with students and partners: this includes reading lists and the sources included in them.

Catherine Bovill (2020) states that “students and staff can critique knowledge together using shared expertise and perspectives. This co-creation approach recognises that knowledge is contingent and messy, and it accepts that students can play a role in knowledge co-creation. Students are making sense of what they are learning collaboratively with their teacher and peers.”

Can you involve your students in co-creating a dynamic reading list that includes diverse and democratic knowledge and voices? How could you use those sources in your teaching, and help students develop effective knowledge management practices?

Open access (OA) and OER

For information about the open-access materials available via Library Search, visit the Library's Open Collections page.

Search includes some OA sources and you can add more by selecting the 'Add results beyond Hull library's collection' box at the top left of the screen. This may greatly increase the results list, so think about refining your search terms and/or use other filters.

Library Search cannot find OERs and you can explore individual sites, some of which are in the Open Education Resources (OERs) for teaching section of the Library's Copyright guide.

Databases covering research outputs from the Global South

University of Leeds hosts a crowd-sourced list of databases that is divided into sections starting with multi-disciplinary databases, then subject areas.

To suggest additions to this list, please contact the Library via the appropriate portal.

Archives

Finding the histories of women, people from ethnic minorities, and LGBTQ+ people can be difficult.

Hull University Archives’ Diversity in Archives SkillsGuide provides advice on searching for records of diverse voices held at Hull History Centre. The principles can be applied to all archives and special collections.

TV, film, and radio

The Library’s TV, film, and radio sources can be found by title in the Databases A-Z , and at the dedicated Films, TV, and radio page. Options include:

• the film and documentary streaming service, Kanopy, which includes the Race and class collection.
• the online TV and recording service, Box of Broadcasts, or BoB, where you can choose and record broadcast programmes from over 75 free-to-air channels. Use in conjunction with TRILT (Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching) with listings for over 560 TV and radio channels.
• for global media, including National Public Radio (USA) programs, videos from NYTimes.com and other news media, regular updates to 2,300 global newspapers, radio and TV broadcasts and transcripts visit Gale Research Complete.

Newspapers

The Library’s current and past newspapers can be found by title via the Databases A-Z and at the dedicated News and news archive page. 

For current newspapers, visit Lexis+ (on the Lexis+ homepage, select Newspapers, not News), and OneFile News in Gale Research Complete.

Newspaper archives include The Guardian and Observer; The Times Digital Archive; The Daily Mail Historical Archive; and British Library Newspapers. Date coverage varies and is included in the Database A-Z entries.

Newspaper archives include The Guardian and Observer; The Times Digital Archive; The Daily Mail Historical Archive; and British Library Newspapers. Date coverage varies and is included in the Database A-Z entries. British Newspaper Archives is not available to higher education, but can be accessed on site at the Hull History Centre or Hull Libraries.

Blogs and podcasts

Blogs, podcasts, and other social media are used by researchers to disseminate their findings, and build networks.

These media can be particularly important for researchers in the Global South with limited access to traditional academic publishing, which makes them useful when seeking under-represented people, and non-Western ways of creating knowledge.

For more about using social media in study and research, see the Digital Student SkillsGuide which has links to information about the Digital Teacher and Digital Researcher courses.

TED talks, YouTube, etc.

As with social media, both Ted talks and YouTube can provide access to minoritised and marginalised people and their experiences.

Grey literature

Grey literature is material that has not been commercially published, such as technical and government reports, internal business documents, statistics, and social media outputs. For an overview of grey literature and how to search for it, see the What is grey literature? guide by the University of Leeds Library.

See the Library's grey literature page to access: Overton Index and Lens.org.