To enhance students’ abilities in utilizing Gale databases for Sinological research and studies, on September 23, 2024, the Chinese Culture and Global Communication (CCGC) program has invited Mr. Shi Yichen, a Gale trainer (China) to introduce students enrolled in the course “History of Western Sinology” to the fundamental tools of advanced search on Gale’s extensive primary sources’ database- “Nineteenth Century Collections Online” (hereafter NCCO). The training session was moderated by the course instructor, Dr. Wei Chin Wong.

Figure 1: Mr. Shi Yichen demonstrated how Gale digital database and advanced search tools could assist our research and studies related to our major.

UIC’s Learning Resource Centre has subscribed to Gale NCCO database since December 2018. NCCO is a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focused on primary source collections of the nineteenth century. Collections for this program are sourced through partnerships with 93 major world libraries as well as specialist libraries, and content includes monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more.

Mr. Shi began his presentation by showcasing Gale databases’ search tools, explaining the differences between primary and secondary sources, and further emphasizing the central role of primary sources in academic research. Mr. Shi then demonstrated how Gale NCCO database and its digital resources could save both researchers’ time and financial costs, and how some world-class institutes have benefited from the digital research tools, including scholarly research projects on women’s rights movement in Britain, racial discrimination against the Irish peoples in London, and many other topics related to novels, food history, and linguistics, etc.

Figure 2: After listening to Mr. Shi Yichen’s presentation, all students immediately proceeded to an in-class exercise assigned by the course instructor (Dr. Wei Chin Wong), in order to practice how to utilize Gale’s NCCO database.

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At the end of the training session, Mr. Shi Yichen also shared with us the funding opportunities and research resources that Gale offers to students and young researchers at the global level. He encouraged all CCGC students of our cohort to aspire to these resources and make greater use of the extensive digital primary source materials, further enhance our research and learning efficiency. Overall, this event not only provided valuable research and learning opportunities for CCGC students, but it also exposed us to the wealth of literary resources and greater potential of the Gale database toward researching and understanding the history of Western Sinology and China Studies.

Figure 3: A group photo.

Acknowledgment:

Learning Resource Centre

Reporter: Paige ZHANG Peici

Photographer: Noreen DENG Xiyu

Edited by Connie LI Tian