Write It Down

| By Charlie Close | I want to talk about the virtues of technical recordkeeping. Seriously. In my work at Gale as a data scientist, I turn our various data sets into metrics, and use the metrics to infer how to make better products and more sales. These inferences are usually expressed in the form … Read more

Cooperative Design
Part 1: Finding a Common Language in the Gale Product Suite

| By Gabe & the User Experience Team | Since 1954, Gale’s mission has been to empower learners and serve libraries with the tools their patrons need. In that time, our suite of products has expanded to meet the evolving needs of the research and education market. We now manage over 160 digital products and … Read more

Gale’s Hackathon: Passionate People Working on New Ideas

| By Aimme Keener | Gale’s credo starts with the statement “We believe in the power and joy of learning,” and the technology team truly embraces this.  Once a month, our team stops all of its day-to-day work on the floor and participates in a hackathon. Hackathons aren’t new.  They have become mainstream in the … Read more

Why Semantic HTML Matters to Accessibility

| By Matt Long, Gale Software Engineering Manager | Web accessibility is about ensuring equal access to content on the web to people with and without disabilities. At Gale web accessibility matters. And while for a variety of reasons equal access can be challenging in certain situations, there are some simple things developers and designers … Read more

A Spotlight on 21st Century Skill Sets and How the Education Industry is Emerging to Meet the Demands

| By Chitraa Sridharan | In the rapidly changing market place today, it is becoming increasingly evident that workplaces need workers who are just not proficient with the core skills but also with people who are prepared to solve complex problems and adapt to changing environments using their 6C (Communication, Collaboration, Critical thinking, Creative innovation, … Read more

Using Search Quality Metrics to Fix a Problem Part 2

| By Charlie Close, Gale Data Scientist | Most of Gale’s products are built around users searching Gale content. For example, a user might search World History In Context for “Bastille Day” to find articles about the French Revolution. Giving high-quality search results is a big part of taking care of our users. In a previous … Read more

So How Are We Doing Measuring Search Quality Part 1

| By Charlie Close, Gale Data Scientist | Gale products are built around search. Almost all sessions start with a search, whether to begin research for a paper, study a topic for a class, or just to read something interesting. To take good care of our users, we must make sure our search functionality is working … Read more