| By Julie Mellors, Content Developer, Gale |
O Canada! Have you checked out Gale’s Canada In Context database recently? There’s plenty to see. We have added a lot of timely and important new portals that deserve a look.
Canada In Context is a database that was created for students and researchers studying Canada, its people, and its history and offers a broad range of information on Canadian topics, people, places, and important events. Covering all of Canada’s provinces and numerous Canadian cities, it offers a full range of important topics for readers interested in the world’s second largest country. Some of the important topics included are First Nations and residential schools; Canadian government with portal pages on all of its premiers; Canadian Literature, from biographies of Margaret Atwood and Lucy Maud Montgomery, to important works such as Anne of Green Gables; Canadian historical topics such as Vimy Ridge, Dieppe Raid, and the October Crisis of 1970; and important social issues like immigration, gun control, abortion, climate change, and health care.
This past year we have added many new portals on important Canadian topics. Truth and Reconciliation is a big one, documenting and addressing the injustices that occurred under Canada’s residential school system. We have also added high-profile biography pages on political people such as Doug Ford, the twenty-sixth premier of Ontario and other notable figures such as Chris Hadfield, Emily Carr, and Nikola Tesla.
A portal page on NAFTA was launched in March and offers up information on the treaty and a new trilateral economic treaty to replace NAFTA called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Important historical topics like the Komagata Maru Incident and the Chinese Head Tax were also highlighted this year. Health care is a hot topic around the world and we created a health care portal detailing Canada’s public health care system that is funded and administrated by its federal, provincial, and territorial governments. Upcoming portals will include more information on notable Canadian figures like Billy Bishop and Nellie McClung and Canada-focused social issues such as cyberbullying.
With a Canadian perspective and using Canadian writers, Gale’s Canada In Context features authoritative and continuously updated reference material. There are also images, full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, videos, audio files, tables, charts, and graphs, and links to carefully vetted websites. It also contains Canadian-specific content including encyclopedias, CBC videos, NPR audio selections, global news feeds, and thousands of articles from over 300 Canadian newspapers and magazines. A ton of new information has recently been added, with more updates to come in future months. Stay tuned!
Julie Mellors is a content developer at Gale. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan. Go Blue! She loves to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Some of her favorite things to do are swim, hike, read, and travel. She has been on many adventures with her husband and two children.