The Sustainable Development Goals are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere. The 17 Goals were adopted by all UN Member States in 2015, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which set out a 15-year plan to achieve the Goals.

New publications about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are coming out on a regular basis. This section of the library guide focuses on research in progress and the latest updates.

Transitioning to Sustainability

Beginning in 2020, a series of open access books are being published on each of the SDGs. (Not all titles are yet published, but estimated publishing dates are listed for future books.) 

Researching Authors in this Series

One research technique that I often utilize in research is to identify what other material a scholar has written on the same or related topic. Scholars often will write multiple articles or books on a theme. Tracing the research of a scholar can reveal many valuable sources.

Here's a methodology...

From the Transitioning to Sustainability book series site, we can determine that a title on Transitioning to Clean Water and Sanitation is available for download. 

Step 1: Let's find out what we can learn about the editor of this volume: Gueladio Cisse. From the author page on the publisher's site, we learn a bit about Cisse. Since he's editing the book, it's likely that he's an authority on the topic. We also find a link to a professional page, which may or may not be relevant in revealing more publications. 

Step 2: Now that we've identified the book's primary author, we can turn to Google Scholar to determine other research that he might have written. If you enter his name in the search box, then you will find the list of his publications that Google Scholar has indexed.  At this point, you should review the list to see if any titles are relevant to your specific research. In some cases, you will find very relevant material. In other cases, you will find material that is only slightly relevant or perhaps not relevant at all. As a researcher, you must make that determination based on the focus on your own research.