primary sources

New Smithsonian Primary Sources in U.S. History: Lively, First Person, and Real

Posted on May 26, 2016

Primary sources have been called snippets of history – small windows that show a picture of one moment in time. A letter, a memoir, a personal account – each provides a unique, often personal perspective. And when they are put together in a meaningful way, they create a full and rich picture of historical events, people, and developments while supporting national learning standards.

By directly engaging with artifacts and individual records, students can explore, analyze, and delve more deeply into a topic.  In addition, primary sources help students:

  • Develop critical thinking skills by examining meaning, context, bias, purpose, point of view, and more.
  • Pursue independent learning as they construct knowledge by interacting with sources that represent different accounts of the same event/topic.
  • Understand how viewpoints and biases affect interpretation of history.

Read moreNew Smithsonian Primary Sources in U.S. History: Lively, First Person, and Real

Updates & Changes Coming to Your Declassified Documents Resource in July 2016

Posted on May 12, 2016

Announcing the new U.S. Declassified Documents Online!

As a purchaser of Declassified Documents Reference System, your library knows the value of offering this behind-the-scenes information from the U.S. government’s executive branch. The content is incomparable to anything else available; you tell us that all the time.
But the interface…

An updated experience has been added to your resource. When beginning a session in Declassified Documents Reference System, users will see a banner at the top of the screen allowing them to try a new experience—U.S. Declassified Documents Online.

Read moreUpdates & Changes Coming to Your Declassified Documents Resource in July 2016

Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture: “Enthralling” and “Remarkable” Primary Sources

Searching for “extraordinary” materials to enhance understandings of the evolution of criminal justice and penal reform? Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture 1790-1920 features “easy to use navigation” paired with 2.1 million pages of materials supporting the study of nineteenth-century criminal history, law, literature, and justice, to enhance law and society knowledge during a pivotal era of social change. Only Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture, 1790-1920 helps users explore the links between fact and fiction by integrating legal and historical documents with literature, an emerging crime-fiction genre, newspaper reports, and more.

Read a review posted by Cheryl LaGuardia of Library Journal, April, 2016

Read moreCrime, Punishment, and Popular Culture: “Enthralling” and “Remarkable” Primary Sources

Continuing the Tradition with Gale Primary Sources

Posted 3/9/16

By Robert L. Lisiecki

Providing a wealth of rare, formerly inaccessible historical content from the world’s most prestigious libraries, Gale Digital Collections has been changing the nature of research for years. This isn’t changing; however, to more accurately portray what it is that we are offering, we have decided to update our name: With that, we are happy to introduce you to Gale Primary Sources.

Read moreContinuing the Tradition with Gale Primary Sources

Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity: What is It?

Posted February 24, 2016

By Robert L. Lisiecki

As you may or may not know, Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, recently released a new primary source collection, Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940. This collection brings together approximately 1.5 million pages of primary sources and is perfect for students, educators, and researchers looking for the largest available, accessible collection materials supporting Women, Gender, LGBTQ, and Sexuality studies.

Read moreArchives of Human Sexuality and Identity: What is It?

Explore Histories of Everyday Life in Totalitarian Regimes through first-hand accounts and fictional works from the twentieth century.

Posted on February 22, 2016

 

Guided by a five-person advisory board of distinguished scholars, Histories of Everyday Life in Totalitarian Regimes spans multiple disciplines, including history, literature and language.  Examine what life was like during the twentieth century under totalitarian rule. This set holds a wealth of information for various college courses and also high school teachers encouraging the analysis of primary and secondary sources.

Learn more about Histories of Everyday Life in Totalitarian Regimes with Editor-in-chief Peter Fritzsche, PhD., as he introduces the series’ distinctive approach.

 

Read moreExplore Histories of Everyday Life in Totalitarian Regimes through first-hand accounts and fictional works from the twentieth century.

New LGBTQ Digital Archive Collection Just Released–Trial Now

Posted February 8, 2016

by Jessica Bomarito, Acquisitions Editor, Gale

Gale Digital Collections

Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940

With material drawn from hundreds of institutions and organizations, including both major international activist organizations and local, grassroots groups, the documents in the Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 present important aspects of LGBTQ life in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. The archive illuminates the experiences not just of the LGBTQ community as a whole, but of individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations that constitute this community. Historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals are featured, as well as publications by and for lesbians and gays, and extensive coverage of governmental responses to the AIDS crisis. The archive also contains personal correspondence and interviews with numerous LGBTQ individuals, among others. The archive includes gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries, reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health, including the worldwide impact of AIDS, materials tracing LGBTQ activism in Britain from 1950 through 1980, and more.

Read moreNew LGBTQ Digital Archive Collection Just Released–Trial Now

Celebrate the Chinese New Year with Gale Primary Sources

Posted on February 8, 2015

By Masaki Morisawa

CNY1

“… the blessed Chinese New Year has come round, the Post Office has ceased to function, the office boy has burned his fingers lighting fire crackers and the door between my office and the Depot is locked; the doorkeeper has gone home with the key ….”

So writes John Darroch, a British missionary, in the March 1933 issue of The Chinese Recorder, one of the seventeen English-language journals published in or about China that will be included in the upcoming digital collection China from Empire to Republic: Missionary, Sinology, and Literary Periodicals 1817-1947.

Read moreCelebrate the Chinese New Year with Gale Primary Sources

Happy Birthday Abe!

Posted on February 8, 2016

Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is February 12th! He was the 16th President of the United States, holding office during the Civil War, and proved to be one of the great figures in American history.

Did you know…

  • Lincoln lost five separate elections before being elected president.
  • Lincoln proclaimed all persons held as slaves in states of the rebellion “forever free.”
  • Abraham Lincoln is the only president in American history to hold a patent.

Let’s take a trip back in time to the years of his presidency. We’ve highlighted a few titles that can be found on Gale’s eBook platform, GVRL, to help you get started.

Abraham Lincoln, 1st Edition
April 2014
It may be little exaggeration to say that the figure of Abraham Lincoln embodies the American ideal more so than any other U.S. president. Although he came from humble beginnings and held several odd jobs before launching his career in politics, Lincoln’s determination and natural abilities brought him to the White House, where he led the struggle to preserve the union and emancipate the country’s slaves. Lincoln’s remarkable life—from his childhood to his role as Commander in Chief during the Civil War to his tragic death—is chronicled in this captivating volume.

Read moreHappy Birthday Abe!

Early Arabic Printed Books from the British Library: Editor’s highlights

by Ellie Hawkes

One of the best things about being Product Editor on the Early Arabic Printed Books project is being exposed to works that I have never encountered before. Having worked on rare book digitization projects many times in the past, it’s a real treat to

Read moreEarly Arabic Printed Books from the British Library: Editor’s highlights