Hacking History with Gale Digital Scholar Lab

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│By Sarah L. Ketchley, Senior Digital Humanities Specialist │

On 5th December 2024, the Gale Digital Scholar Lab team, in association with Loyola University Chicago, University Libraries, offered a hands-on workshop freely available to researchers, educators, librarians, and anyone interested in exploring innovative ways to improve their digital humanities (DH) research skills. “Hacking History” brought together a diverse community for a day of collaboration, conversation and collegiality – along with some friendly competition between teams to create digital projects over the course of the day. 

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Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection: Part II

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│By Clem Delany, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

In December 2024, Gale Primary Sources released part two of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection, sourced from the British Library. Adding to the original, previously digitised collection of Reverend Charles Burney are an additional 200-odd titles of newspapers, newsbooks, and broadsheets from across the period.

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Treaty Ports and Modern China

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Map of China

|By Liping Yang, Senior Manager, Academic Publishing, and Lindsay Whitaker-Guest, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources|

Gale has just released China and the Modern World: Regional China and the West, 1759-1972. As the ninth instalment in the series, this new archive features a compilation of 39 series of mostly British Foreign Office (FO) files. These include general correspondence and registers composed by the British legation in Beijing as well as British consulates based in more than 20 Chinese coastal and inland treaty ports.

Also included are the private and semi-official correspondence of Sir Henry Pottinger, Sir John N. Jordan, and Lord Edmund Hammond as well as the records and photographs of the British concession in Tianjin. This post will explore a few of the topics and events which can be studied through this new archive.

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Marie Stopes and Family Planning

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│By Alison Foster, Gale Technical Support Executive│

‘A magnificent monster,’ as described by Nature magazine in 1992, Marie Stopes (1880-1958) was markedly renown for successfully opening the first birth control clinic in the world, in London, in 1921. This, and subsequent clinics, gave free advice about reproductive health to married women without the sanction of the medical or health community.

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The Development of Poetry in Medieval and Renaissance British Literary Manuscripts

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│By Caley Collins, Gale Ambassador at University College London (UCL)│

Unless you study literature, chances are poetry isn’t the first thing you would think to use as a primary source for an essay. However, poetry gives a fantastic first-hand insight into the language, values, and customs that people were concerned with during specific time periods, making it useful for a wide variety of degrees, including History and Politics. Gale’s Medieval and Renaissance collection, which is part of the British Literary Manuscripts Online archive, contains a vast collection of primary sources ranging from a 1066 Old English historical translation to a 1901 collection of medieval letters.

Using these sources, this post will explore the differences and similarities between poetry written over the course of several centuries. I will quote the sources using modern English spellings, but leave the titles as they were originally written out.

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An Exploration of Women’s Liberation: Insights from Gale Primary Sources

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│By Poppy Sargent, Gale Ambassador at the University of Exeter│

Exploring women’s liberation throughout the years reveals a journey of bravery, courage, and transformation. From the beginning of the women’s liberation movement to the twentieth century, women have held a powerful position in society, whether this be in the workplace, politics, or simply social aspects of society.

Leveraging insights from Gale Primary Sources, this exploration delves into the ways in which women’s liberation was advertised, highlighting key events which led up to the result of women’s suffrage in the United States, various leaflets and posters used to advertise suffrage, and how these can be used to influence modern day suffrage articles. Gale’s extensive archives highlight the crucial role of the media in advertising women’s suffrage.

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Representations of Girls in History of Disabilities: Disabilities in Society, Seventeenth to Twentieth Century

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│By Lucy McCormick, Gale Ambassador at the University of Birmingham│ Earlier this year, Gale launched History of Disabilities: Disabilities in Society, Seventeenth to Twentieth Century – a rich digital archive of monographs, manuscripts, and ephemera, sourced from the New York Academy of Medicine. This offers countless avenues for exciting historical research. To provide an example, … Read more

Exploring Sentiment in Historical Texts With Gale Digital Scholar Lab’s New “Sentiment by Timeframe” Visualisation

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│By Sarah L. Ketchley, Sr. Digital Humanities Specialist│

Gale Digital Scholar Lab has introduced a new visualisation feature in the Sentiment Analysis tool: Sentiment by Timeframe. This enables researchers to bring additional depth to sentiment analysis for historical texts. This tool is part of an ongoing effort to expand the capabilities of the Lab’s six digital humanities tools and is designed to support researchers in analysing, interpreting, and visualising data across various historical documents.

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Ways To Improve Discoverability at Your Library

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| Magaly Taylor, Usage and Discovery Product Manager |

Discovery is a crucial aspect of working with eResources for content providers and libraries. It encompasses actions related to searching, retrieving, and accessing relevant content that end users may not be aware of. The term ‘Discoverability’ is key here. It refers to the extent to which eResources are searchable in a discovery system, and it directly influences the ease with which users can find the information they need, thereby enhancing their overall experience. In this post I will explore the complexities of discovery and how to enhance discoverability in libraries.

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A Window Into Decolonization: Perspectives From Formerly Colonised and Commonwealth Regions

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│By Aiman Urooj, Gale Ambassador at the University of Delhi│

For scholars deeply studying decolonisation, access to primary sources and uncovering the voices that influenced anti-colonial movements is indispensable.

Archival collections consisting of historical documents like political pamphlets, newsletters, and institutional press releases provide unique insight into the socio-political and intellectual struggles of the independence movement. In that line, Gale Primary Sources’ Decolonization: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories digital archive proves to be an essential asset for researchers intending to understand the real dynamics of the revolutionary period.

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