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Gale Announces New Cross-Searchable Slavery Database

Gale (www.gale.com), a part of Cengage Learning (www.cengage.com), announced a new electronic resource to be released in late May that will offer a comprehensive archive chronicling slavery from the 16th century through the early 20th century. The company says that Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive represents the first-ever, large-scale database to make available historical books, manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals, court records, and other sources in one cross-searchable location. The new resource is part of Gale's expanding program of digital archives designed to serve the needs of academic researchers and students.

The first of the four-part series, Debates over Slavery and Abolition, explores the varying viewpoints and debates that surrounded the practice, experience, and eventual abolition of slavery in the U.S., as well as in Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It will be followed by Part 2 in 2011. Once completed, the entire four-part digital archive will comprise 5 million pages of documents. This collection-Debates over Slavery and Abolition, Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, Institution of Slavery in the U.S., Age of Emancipation-embraces the historical study of slavery in a comprehensive, conceptual, and global way.

Collections drawn from institutions such as Amistad Research Center, Oberlin College, Yale University, and Oxford University allow for unparalleled depth and breadth of content. Scholarly reference materials are drawn from MacMillan, Scribner's, and Gale encyclopedias, among others, and contextual commentary has been created specially for this collection. With documents from 5,000 books and pamphlets, 60 newspapers and periodicals, and 600,000 pages of manuscripts, teachers and researchers will have access to a comprehensive array of opposing views and perspectives in one database.

Source: Gale