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Current Awareness 2023: April

Keeping you up to date with news and events in South Africa

Request a Literature Search

Need sources for your literature review? Struggling to find sources for your assignment, research proposal or thesis?

The Library can assist with a literature search, which is a systematic and comprehensive search for published, academic material on your specific subject/topic. How do you request one? Simply go to Request a literature search .

If you are experiencing problems accessing the form, please use this link

What is current awareness

Current awareness is the term used to describe staying informed by keeping up to date with the latest publications, research and news in your field.

The perspective of current awareness is the present and the forthcoming, as opposed to the retrospective. 

Current awareness ranges from looking for information on specific topics on a regular basis (and this usually involves the assistance of your Personal Librarian to help you set up a search profile matched to your research interests) to embracing a wider, more general, and cross-disciplinary view that brings an element of serendipity into your search for the latest information.

Informally, researchers remain alert in all contexts for useful information and insights that will inform their daily practice, their research, and spark off innovative and creative ideas for new avenues of research.

Website of the month

 

The United Nations Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD)

The United Nations Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD) supports the UN Member States in planning and implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through knowledge sharing, capacity development, policy advisory, research, and partnerships with a particular focus on Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and Landlocked Developing States (LLDCs).

UNOSD was established in 2011 by the United Nations and the Government of the Republic of Korea. UNOSD is supported by the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Korea, Incheon Metropolitan City, and Yonsei University.

UNOSD is part of the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).

Further reading

Database of the Month

ABI/Inform Complete 

This is the gold standard when it comes to business research databases. It was launched in the early 1970s. It contains important full-text journals and much sought-after titles from the business press as well as key trade publications, dissertations, conference proceedings, and market reports. This scholarly collection includes the most prestigious publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Dow Jones & Company and Emerald Group Publishing.

Unisa Open

The following sites on Unisa Open contains useful information for Unisa staff.

About the monthly awareness page

The year is marked with many special days, weeks, and months dedicated and devoted to raising awareness about important issues.

This monthly post, compiled by the Information Search Librarians Team, will note special dates and themes, and draw your attention to possibly interesting cross-disciplinary topical references intended to inform and to inspire ideas for research.

Selected noteworthy days in March

In the media

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Golden oldie

Moore, S. 2018. Sustainable energy transformations, power, and politics: Morocco and the Mediterranean, 1st. edn, London: Routledge. 

 

Abstract

This book analyses energy transitions and the opportunities and challenges for building sustainable energy systems to improve human capabilities while protecting the environment. Sufficient and secure energy supply is critical to human thriving and socioeconomic development. Yet energy systems are also implicated in the most pressing socio-environmental challenges of our time - climate change, air pollution, and water and land use. This book examines what is arguably the most ambitious vision for a renewable energy based system worldwide. This vision, often called Desertec, is for a regional electricity system supplying North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East with sustainable and affordable power. The behemoth plan would entail building dozens of large-scale solar and wind power plants mostly in North Africa, interconnecting the fragmented transmission infrastructure of 38 Mediterranean countries, and linking North Africa to the European Union (EU) through undersea transmission cables. Within the Mediterranean, the book focuses on Morocco, which is one of the most advanced developing countries in renewable energy scale-up, to understand its motivations for building renewable energy and the effects on sustainable development. The book therefore takes a unique multi-scalar approach to understanding the social and political aspects of energy transitions, weaving together the views of villagers living near Morocco's first solar energy zone with the perspectives of national decision-makers in Morocco with the views of European policymakers and major transnational energy companies in the Mediterranean region. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and policymakers interested in energy transitions, sustainable and renewable energy, Mediterranean politics, sustainable development and environment and sustainability more generally.

Looking for upcoming conferences?

If you are looking for forthcoming conferences, the following websites are helpful:

Archive

Should you wish to read Current Awareness guides of previous years, please visit the archive:

2014-2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022