Today our topic is International Organizations and there are a lot of them. I listed several on the Web Resources page for the class. Please select one (We'll try to do this in class on Monday, Jan. 22 in order to maximize the variety) and then explore the site in detail. Be prepared to come and tell us at least three important pieces of information we can find at the site.

Most of our time (between 10 and 11 am) on the 29th will be spent at Davis Library receiving an orientation to the international resources (primarily reference and government documents) in Davis. Mike Van Fossen, the International and State Documents Librarian, will be speaking to us. In addition to sharing his knowledge and pointing out to us some potentially useful resources for the class, I hope he will also speak about his career in this area as one possible professional opportunity for those with international and library interests.

In addition, to begin our explorational reading for the class, I'd like each of you to select one of the books on the reserve list for the class. Spend some time with the book and be prepared to comment on it on the class of February 5. Many of these books are edited collections of articles or chapters written by several different authors. If this is the class with the book you have selected, you may wish to select two or three of the items to report on rather than the book as a whole. The reading that you do for this in-class activity will, of course, count as part of your reading commentary if you so choose. The intent is to use the collective energy of the class to get a flavor of several of the books on the reserve list. If there is a book on the longer reading list that is not on reserve that you are particularly interested in, you may choose that in place of a reserve book.

In addition to these activities, please examine the maps and commentary in your textbook, The State of the World Atlas, in Part One: People. This will continue our discussion on population and also deal with life expectancy, nutrition, quality of life, inequality of purchasing power, and age.

We will also try to linke people with issues for the Issue Paper Assignment.

Revised 1/22/2001
If you have questions, please contact Evelyn Daniel