Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO) is a new addition to the library’s collection of databases. CIAO has a specific focus on international politics and related fields, such as security studies, global finance, diplomatic practice, humanitarian law, global governance, development studies, and environmental studies. CIAO is owned and published by Columbia University Press (CUP).
What’s Included?
Researchers can use CIAO to find scholarly journal articles, working papers, policy briefs, analysis and commentary, e-books, and videos. CIAO also provides basic country data from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The content provided in CIAO is aggregated from 300 international publishing institutions, including government research organizations, independent think tanks, NGOs, universities, and scholarly journals.
There are two ways to search for information in CIAO – a standard search box and the Discover Content navigation menu.
Search
Construct a keyword search using the single search box at the top of the screen. There are no advanced search options, but you can utilize these search tips to construct a targeted keyword search:
- Boolean operators are supported, but they must be typed in all caps – AND, OR, and NOT. The default search is an implied OR, which will search for all terms independently.
- Use quotation marks to restrict your search to an exact phrase rather than searching for individual words. For example, “European Union”.
- Use the facets in the left column to refine your search results based on criteria such as topic, geography, or content type.
Discover Content
Use the Discover Content faceted browsing menu options to locate materials by:
- Topic
- Political Geography
- Content Type
- Journal
- Publishing Institution
- Author
- Publication Year
How to Access CIAO
Access CIAO from the library’s Databases A-Z page. Please note that CIAO is currently only available to on-campus users, but we are working on a solution to provide off-campus access. If you have any questions about this new resource, or would like additional help searching the database, please contact the Reference Desk.
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