State Papers Online: Eighteenth Century, 1714-1782, Part III: Western Europe is the newest addition to the extensive State Papers Online archive. Part III provides primary source material from the Catholic courts of Spain, Portugal and France, as well as from smaller states of Italy and the Mediterranean, bringing together a huge variety of people, places and events. Great powers and small Republics, border skirmishes and arguably – in the Seven Years’ War – the first global conflict, monarchs, spies and merchants; all are part of the network of information and politics centring on the British Secretaries of State in Whitehall, and through them, the King.
Gale Publishers
Feminist protests over the years – the continued fight for equality
By Anita Klich, Gale Ambassador at Portsmouth University, UK
Women have been fighting for equality for decades; in the 1980s and ‘90s, there were many protests addressing the issue of inequality in the workplace and society overall. The Gale resource Archives of Sexuality & Gender provides students and scholars with documents to examine and critically assess issues concerning LGBTQ history and culture as well as Feminist movements, thus allowing academics to compare and determine how the situation has – or has not – changed over the years.
23rd Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Special Libraries Association/Arabian Gulf Chapter
By Vicky Pavlicic, Senior Marketing Manager at Gale International
Come and Visit the Gale Booth and Enter our Photo Competition – we are at stand B79/80!
We want to find out from you why you think digital resources specific to research and teaching are so important.
Come along to meet us, take a photo and answer the statement “I love Digital Resources because_______” and we will enter your name into a prize draw to win a compact Panasonic Lumix Digital Camera. The winner will be announced on Wednesday afternoon, just in time to take pictures at the gala dinner!
The Rogue Compositor at The Times in 1882
This is the true story of a compositor working at The Times in 1882 who deliberately and maliciously inserted a ribald comment when setting the type for the newspaper. Who would have thought such a scandal could happen at such a newspaper? The Times of London, which began in 1785 and the archive of which was the first digitised primary source collection produced by Gale, has always been an establishment newspaper and is still known today as Britain’s ‘newspaper of record’. Scholars and researchers use the digital archive for purposes of studying contemporaneous reports of historical events, being reports that are written from the newspaper’s traditionally conservative perspective ─ which is something that would only add to the shock when these scholars stumble across this incident from 1882.
Digital Humanities at the British Society for 18th Century Studies (BSECS) Conference
By Seth Cayley, Gale Vice President, Gale Primary Sources. Seth collaborates with our US product teams to direct Gale’s international archive programme.
In January, I had the pleasure of attending the annual British Society for 18th Century Studies (BSECS) Conference. This is one of the liveliest academic conferences that I attend, and always features a diverse array of sessions. Amongst my personal highlights from this year’s conference were a thought-provoking panel on Black Georgians, and a plenary lecture on the culture of letter-writing between women.
The “North–South” Problem in the Official Discourses of Chinese Leaders
By Kiang Yeow Yong, Development Editor, Gale Asia
Theory of Building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Chronology is a Gale Asia title published in November 2015. Presented in the form of a detailed chronology of key events and people based on archival records – mainly excerpts from official documents, speeches, and talks – the book provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the arduous process of how the Chinese communists integrated Marxism with the concrete realities of China from 1978 to 2011, and established a theoretical framework around the theme of building socialism with unique Chinese characteristics.
Wouter Looes and Jans Pelgrom: A Dutch Stake in ‘Australia Day’
Television advertisements in the lead up to Australia Day on 26 January 2017 have been telling the Australian people to celebrate the day “how you want to”. It is an interesting message from the Australian government. A typical Australian reaction to it might be to ask, if now we are to celebrate it how we want to, what was the prescribed method beforehand? Another broad section of the community might wonder whether the day has ever been celebrated at all – isn’t it just another public holiday? But, taking it in good faith, clearly this message is intended as an open and friendly acknowledgement of the fact that, for many of the people of Australia in 2017, Australia Day is not what it once was. Although the Queen of England remains our constitutional head of state, in today’s multi-cultural, multi-faith community the observance of Australia Day as a celebration of its anniversary is becoming more marginalised every year. The fact is that, quite apart from the ancient claim of the aboriginal people, many countries and cultures can say they have had a part in the creation of modern Australia. Some have done so during the 20th and 21st centuries with contributions to culture, cuisine or the arts. Others have done so by virtue of a particular historical incident.
‘A Genteel Murderess’ – Christiana Edmunds and the Chocolate Box Poisoning
One of the delights of a collection like Gale NewsVault is the opportunity to follow the progress of a story through the reports of a range of writers and newspapers, and to draw new conclusions on social and political themes. Coverage of stock markets collapsing or governments changing hands can help illustrate such topics, and offer researchers insight into public opinion, debate and interests. So too can smaller stories, such as a seaside town witnessing a string of unexpected and unusual murders, straight out of the Golden Age of Crime.
“This is all mind-boggling stuff”: The Reception of A Brief History of Time
On January 8th 2017, Professor Stephen Hawking celebrates his 75th birthday. Few scientists have such a strong place in the popular imagination, being the subject of numerous media from Hollywood films to documentaries to books, among many others. For 30 years he held the post of Lucasian Professor at Cambridge University, a chair held by no less than Sir Isaac Newton, filling some rather large shoes.
Credit where cash is due: Christmas on the plastic
| By James Alex Waldron, Marketing Communications Manager |
When we covered The Commercialisation of Christmas last year, hundreds of you followed the story of how advertising shifted the mood of the season from religious festival to retail bonanza.
As 2016 became the year of smartphone projectors, Bluetooth headphones, and Minion Pie Faces, I used Gale Primary Sources to provide the next part in our story of evolving buying habits. Following the reflections in the Press to provide part two — from early private brand announcements to full-page menus of big-ticket goods. What happened when the retailers themselves pushed gifts that necessitated new ways to pay.