Visual Discovery Tools for Digitized Primary Sources: Gale Primary Sources
— by Y. Y. Kwan
Primary sources are original historical documents from the past. Many primary sources are available in digitized format today, including Gale Primary Sources, the online platform of the US publisher Gale. HKU Libraries has access to over 30 historical archives from Gale covering various time periods and types of material, including many relevant to the colonial history of Hong Kong.
While the typical way to find primary sources is by searching and retrieving a list of relevant documents (see below), the Gale Primary Sources platform also offers two visual search methods that aid intuitive discovery: Term Frequency and Topic Finder.
Figure 1: A “normal” search result list from Gale Primary Sources (keyword “kowloon walled city”)
Term Frequency—Find Historical Ups and Downs
The term frequency tool in Gale Primary Sources can be used to view your search results in a chronological line graph format. The tool can be accessed from the bottom right of the Gale Primary Sources home page.
Figure 2: The Term Frequency tool found at the bottom right of the Gale Primary Sources home page
Once you get to the Term Frequency tool, you can enter a search term to view an interactive line graph. You may also enter multiple terms to compare them on the same screen. Clicking on one of the dots on the line graph will take you to the search results from that year.
Figure 3: A Term Frequency result for the search term “kowloon walled city” in Gale Primary Sources
For instance, you may click on the peak at 1948 in the above graph to see what documents contain the term “Kowloon walled city” from that year.
Topic Finder—Identify Common Topics from Your Results
Another helpful visual tool is the Topic Finder. The tool can also be found on the Gale Primary Sources home page, this time on the bottom left.
Figure 4: The Topic Finder tool found at the bottom right of the Gale Primary Sources home page
By entering a term in the search box, the tool creates an interactive visual with words and phrases appearing in rainbow colored bubbles. Clicking on any of the words within the visual displays a list of corresponding documents on the right hand side. This tool can be used to find commonly occurring topics within your search result. Note that the tool only analyzes the top 100 results from your search.
Figure 5: A Topic Finder result for the search term “kowloon walled city” in Gale Primary Sources
Links to both the Term Frequency tool and Topic Finder tools can also be found in the lower right of the “normal” search result page of Gale Primary Sources. Note that when clicked from the search result, the Term Frequency will only analyze documents within your current search results, while the Topic Finder tool will analyze the top 100 results.
Figure 6: The Topic Finder and Term Frequency tool links found in Gale Primary Sources search results page
In conclusion, the above tools found within the Gale Primary Sources platform can help researchers and students make unexpected discoveries of hidden trends or topics which may be difficult to identify from a normal search results list.
Reference
Morisawa, Masaki. “Kowloon Walled City: An Accident of Hong Kong History.” The Gale Review, 30 July 2024, https://review.gale.com/2024/07/30/kowloon-walled-city/. Accessed 9 Aug 2024.
