The New Haven People and Environment Research Library (New Haven PERL) is a digital library for projects that explore the intersection of people and the environment in New Haven, Connecticut.
Access New Haven PERL here
New Haven PERL is managed by the New Haven PERL Advisory Committee and the Yale Center for Environmental Justice. As a midsize city close to several universities, New Haven is often subject to studies and research projects. In addition, there is increasing interest in how environmental and social justice projects can benefit New Haven’s community. Project-based courses, thesis projects, and programs increasingly center on New Haven’s at-risk communities and grassroots organizations and apply interviews, surveys, or focus groups to engage residents. However, the findings from these studies often do not make it back to the people of New Haven. This has been an issue for a long time, so our team sought out to create a user-friendly platform that connects projects about New Haven with people and change-makers in New Haven. Thus, New Haven PERL was born.
Our purpose is to improve access to research about people and the environment in New Haven in order to:
- Make research about New Haven more accessible to the people of New Haven.
- Support researchers in their efforts to build on existing work so that they can avoid redundant research and reduce the burden of research on community members.
- Foster connections and collaboration among researchers, community groups, students, local leaders, and more.
Using the New Haven PERL, community members, researchers, activists, and students can:
- Explore resources to learn more about their community, see what kind of research has already been done in New Haven, find information to include in grant applications or letters to their elected officials, and more.
- Identify and contact people doing the type of work they’re interested in by looking at the authors of relevant resources.
- Share their original work with the New Haven community and people doing research about/within New Haven.
