Social Change and Civil Rights in Modern America

If you live in a major city like Los Angeles, New York, or as I do in Detroit, you are witness to outcries and protests in response to the recent grand jury decisions in Missouri and New York. Disturbing images of angry protesters facing off with police officers, too often along racial lines, affect us all in different but profound ways. Young people, now so connected to the world, are inundated with news stories, videos, and commentary – often politically biased – on social media and the web. The events cry out to be put in historical context, and our job as adults is do so, and thus help younger generations better understand our seemingly chaotic times.

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New Parenthetical Citation Tool Now Available in GVRL

At Gale we are always working to improve our products and make them more useful for our customers. Along those lines, we’re happy to announce the addition of a new Parenthetical Citation tool to GVRL. Designed to work in concert with our popular Highlights & Notes tool, it adds the ability to automatically produce a citation for highlighted text in a GVRL eBook.

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In Other News: The Royals

A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL.  By Michelle Eickmeyer Lorde was right; we will never be Royals. (At least not most of us, at any rate.) Of all the British things we Americans like, the Royal family is top of the list. Particularly, we are … Read more

Global Issues in Context named “Biggest Hit with Patrons” by Library Journal

We are proud to announce that Global Issues in Context, Gale’s online resource covering the modern world’s most important topics, was recently named “Biggest Hit with Patrons” by Library Journal in their “Best Databases 2014” roundup. The recognition means even more because the winners are nominated by LJ’s readers, many of whom use our products every day. The nominating librarian stated that the product is “wildly popular with students,” and that she is “amazed at the usage statistics generated by my institution.”

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In Other News: The Grand Jury

A look at a current news item through the lens of different titles available on GVRL.

By Michelle Eickmeyer

Earlier this week, I read this article about growing concern with the silent dwindling of the wild giraffe population around the world. I really wanted to write about giraffes. But I can’t. Instead, this week we’ll focus on the concept of the grand jury and what, for many, seems like a system which makes no sense and is mightily broken.

Two grand juries returned verdicts this week in cases involving a white police officer and the death of a black man. From lack of proof to belief that ample proof was ignored, protests and press conferences, the strength of the American legal system was the lead story every day this week. For better, or worse.

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