Gale is continually updating and adding new content to our In Context products, ensuring that they offer timely, authoritative, useful information. The items below were added or updated during the week of March 2, 2015.
Read moreProduct Updates: New In Context content for 03/02/2015
By Jamie LaRue
I believe that librarianship is at the threshold of transformative change. Some of that change is society-wide. Some of it is specific to libraries. In recent years, I’ve spent a lot of my professional time exploring and talking about three key trends. Together, they make up my platform as a candidate for ALA president.
Read moreMoving from Gatekeeper to Gardener: An Introspective On Librarianship
By Jennifer Albers-Smith
I was a Computer Science major for a couple years at the University of Michigan (before declaring an English and Sociology double major) and participated in the Women in Science & Engineering (WISE) residence program. One of the events on our radar was the Sally Ride Science Festival that took place on North Campus. Each year, I was amazed as the campus was swarmed with hundreds of children. The festival, which still takes place each year at colleges across the United States, it is a fun-filled day of science projects, workshops, and experiences for middle schoolers.
This festival struck me in particular because no one had encouraged me (outside of my chemist father and pharmacist mother) to turn my interest in science into a career. There weren’t programs for young girls (or at least none in my area) trying to promote scientific careers in a fun way. And as a pioneer for STEM education and the first American woman in space, Sally Ride deserves a shout-out for this month’s focus on Women’s History Month.
Read morePaving the Way for Women in the Sciences with Sally Ride
By Jennifer Albers-Smith
If any of you happened to use Google on February 10, you would have seen the customized home page for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthday. Dead for 58 years, her name is still synonymous with Westward Expansion and the nineteenth century prairie. All these years later, her literature continues to have a life of its own. After all, few go through childhood without reading Little House on the Prairie.
I loved the Little House books as a child (and now as an adult) and read them all several times. Her writing took me to another time and place, a place that I found fascinating, especially during a time when the game Oregon Trail was immensely popular on floppy disk. And don’t forget the Little House TV series! When my parents and I traveled West on a two-week vacation, we stopped along the way at some of the places the Ingalls family stopped; we even saw the giant wagon ruts in Wyoming.
Read moreA Grown Woman’s Tribute to Little House on the Prairie
By Robert Lisiecki
March marks the time for us to celebrate Women’s History Month. During this month, we’ll remember and celebrate the various women throughout history who have made lasting impacts on the world as we know it today. And boy, there are a lot of women to celebrate.
The women we recognize come from different eras and backgrounds—each presenting her own unique story. When thinking about the uniqueness that each story presents, I began thinking about some of our resources. Each resource is crafted and created to provide a unique functionality and utility to tell its own story.
Today, I’d like to reflect on five different women from five different resources, highlighting some high-level information. Some women are more well-known while others, to me at least, are less. I hope this post can serve as an example on how different resources can impact research. Let’s go.
Five Impactful Women from Five Different Resources
Gale is continually updating and adding new content to our In Context products, ensuring that they offer timely, authoritative, useful information. The items below were added or updated during the week of February 23, 2015.
Read moreProduct Updates: New In Context content for 02/23/2015
Gale is continually updating and adding new content to Kids InfoBits, ensuring that you and your students have access to the most timely, engaging, and authoritative information. The items below were added in February 2015.
By Ryan Price
In October of 1893, General Roy Stone, a Civil War hero and roads advocate, was appointed to be in charge of the new Office of Road Inquiry (ORI) within the Department of Agriculture. With a budget of $10,000, ORI promoted new rural road development to serve the wagons, coaches, and bicycles on America’s dirt roads.
Read moreThe History of Transcontinental Travel Part 2: Wheels and Wings
Gale is continually updating and adding new content to our In Context products, ensuring that they offer timely, authoritative, useful information. The items below were added or updated during the week of February 16, 2015.
Read moreProduct Updates: New In Context content for 02/16/2015
A look at a current news item through the lens of different Gale electronic resources.
By Michelle Eickmeyer
Here we go – it’s Friday the 13th! Long held to be back luck, Friday the 13th has the dubious distinction of being a problem. But are you superstitious? And is everyone superstitious in the same way?