Providing access to a collection of databases, articles, organizations, and more, the Center for Homeland Defense and Security has launched a new School Shooting Safety Compendium on its website.
The compendium provides a comprehensive, curated collection of resources to aid CHDS students, alumni, academics, officials, researchers, policymakers, and the public on the topic of school shootings.
According to the compendium webpage, the continued increase in the number and impact of “shootings and other violent acts” in schools across the nation prompted CHDS to develop the compendium to aid officials and researchers in their efforts to address the topic.
The compendium mission is as follows:
“While no amount of scientific study can fully explain the tragedy of school shooting incidents, singly or as a phenomenon, we hope this compilation of knowledge can contribute to solutions and ultimately to the security of our most precious institutions.” The compiled resources will be updated “as necessary to reflect new or updated information.”
Longtime Naval Postgraduate School Librarian Greta Marlatt, who serves as the Dudley Knox Library Outreach and Support Manager, helped collect a variety of sources on the topic to build the compendium, and said it’s “a useful starting point for researchers, as it gives them some specific references to articles, books, and theses, etc.,” and also “provides a starting point of focused databases to search in and recommendations for highly focused journals.”
Marlatt noted that there are plans in place to add more sources and build out more specific categories—such as K-12, Colleges/Universities, etc.—at some point in the future.
The compendium webpage provides a series of six links to “relevant data and analysis of gun violence in American primary and secondary schools from reputable sources,” including CHDS.
The links can be accessed either via speed links on the right side of the webpage or by scrolling down, and they include: Specialized Databases; Articles; Organizations; Books and Reports; Journals; and, Theses and Dissertations.
CHDS will provide its own data reports and analysis on the compendium webpage usage in June 2023.
