Building a Digital Archive: The Role of Relevance and Research Trends in ‘Refugees, Relief and Resettlement’

Migration Maps, primary sources

By Bennett Graff, Senior Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources

Released in early 2020, Refugees, Relief, and Resettlement: Forced Migration and World War II lets students and scholars explore the largest displacement of people in human history, which occurred in the near decade-long window just before, during, and shortly after the Second World War. When Gale creates any of its archives, a great deal of planning – which can range from two to five or more years – will have gone into its conception and execution. During that period, Gale’s editors weigh a series of factors before the decision to proceed with the project. In this post, we’ll consider two of these factors in relation to Gale’s Refugees archive: contemporary relevance and academic research trends.

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Coping at College – Research Resources and Mental Health

Stressed student in bedroom

│By Evelyn Moran, Gale Ambassador at the National University of Ireland, Galway│

When I first started university just over three years ago, I had a bit of a cry to myself that first night alone in my room. Part of me wanted to call my mam and say, “I don’t know what to do, please come get me”. Orientation week was jam-packed. There was lots of wandering around with a map in hand, asking for directions and following people I recognised, working out whether I had time to make the Philosophy talk, or should I go straight to Celtic Civ instead? My friends from home were at different unis, and I wasn’t all that great at starting conversations with new people. (One time I talked about a wobbly chair until silence took over…) It got easier, but many things remained jumbled.

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How To Handle Primary Source Archives – University Lecturer’s Top Tips

Hands gesturing to explain. Table and Laptop.

│By Lily Cratchley, Gale Ambassador at the University of Birmingham│

Through the medium of a Zoom interview, Dr Daniel Whittingham, History Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, talked me through how he found Gale Primary Sources integral to writing his book, Charles E. Callwell and the British Way in Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and then kindly offered his professional advice for students about finding, using and citing online archives, including the best ways to incorporate primary sources into an essay or dissertation.

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