Internet Resources: August 2022 Edition

Selected reviews of digital reference resources from the August issue of Choice.

Posted on August 4, 2022 in Internet Resources

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Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Princeton. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/

The product of a collaboration between Princeton University Press, the California Institute of Technology, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein “provides free access to the first 15 of 16 volumes and English translation supplements to much of the writings (letters, articles, and books) of Dr. Albert Einstein, and many of the letters written to Einstein in cases where permission could be obtained,” wrote Joseph R. Kraus for ccAdvisor. Once complete, “Princeton University Press expects the whole collection to eventually encompass about 30 volumes,” he added. As Kraus also noted, “this resource will help people understand Einstein’s thought processes and see what kind of life he led before coming to the [US]” because it covers only the years from his birth in 1879 through May of 1927.

Overall, the interface is relatively easy to use, with both Basic and Advanced Search functions available, although when conducting a search with multiple keywords using Basic Search, Kraus recommended employing double quote marks. He did, however, praise the ability to search by document type (e.g., postcard, telegram, typed letter, transcript) or by archive location using Advanced Search. As Kraus further highlighted, searches can be limited to a specific volume or to just the translated texts.

“This is not a comprehensive database that contains everything that Albert Einstein wrote or received” and “since the website only covers his life to 1927, … a great deal of correspondence and other writings … have not been published yet.” For example, none of the materials cover Dr. Einstein’s life in the US because he moved there in 1933. Still, as Kraus concluded, no other digital products are comparable to The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Joseph R. Kraus, Colorado School of Mines, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2022 by The Charleston Company.—Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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Ethnic Diversity Source. EBSCO. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://www.ebsco.com/products/research-databases/ethnic-diversity-source

Ethnic Diversity Source compiles comprehensive resources on ethnic studies in one database, covering “the culture, traditions, social treatment, and lived experiences of African Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, European Americans, Jewish Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans, and [m]ulti-racial Americans,” Kenya S. Flash wrote for ccAdvisor. Resources include “over 465 full-text magazines, journals, and newspapers … [and] access to more than 4,500 e-books, 2,000 biographies, 6,300 primary source documents, … and 600 relevant and curated videos by the Associated Press.” As Flash elaborates, the database is intended primarily for researchers in the field of ethnic studies to “critically explore the influence of oppression on race and ethnicity as well as the current relevancy of justice, struggle, and liberation in this discourse and to explore anti-racist engagement beyond the classroom.”

Using EBSCO’s standard, easy-to-navigate interface, Ethnic Diversity Source includes additional helpful features, such as “a thesaurus, cited references, images, and more [indexes].” The citation feature is particularly impressive, enabling students to explore all citations linked to a given author within the database. Additionally, “the image search was good [at] ensuring [that] students can link to subject terms.” However, some drawbacks include the lack of distinguishing characteristics to differentiate the platform from Race Relations Abstract, another EBSCO product; the use of outdated or overly general definitions for different ethnic identities; and incomplete indexing.

Ultimately, as Flash concludes, “Ethnic Diversity Source is an ambitious attempt by EBSCO to provide a product that does in one database what its competitors offer in several products.” Both ProQuest’s Diversity Collection (combining Alt-Press Watch, Ethnic News Watch, and Gender Watch) and Gale’s Gender and Diversity Content Hub could compete with Ethnic Diversity Source. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Kenya S. Flash, Yale University, originally published in ccAdvisor. Copyright © 2022 by The Charleston Company.—Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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Imperial Russian Newspapers. East View Information Services. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://gpa.eastview.com/crl/irn/

Imperial Russian Newspapers is a digital archive of newspapers published in the Russian Empire from the 18th to the early 20th century. As Sofia Fagiolo wrote for ccAdvisor, the database “currently includes 25 titles with nearly 40,000 issues and over 363,000 pages, all presented in full-image and full-text format.” Access to most of the material was “provided [by] the National Library of Russia’s Newspaper Division, which holds the largest and most comprehensive pre-revolutionary newspaper collection in the Russian Federation.” Chronicling Russian history from 1767 to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, this is an excellent resource for scholars.

With a clear interface, Imperial Russian Newspapers is easy to use, “offer[ing] multiple avenues for searching and browsing … the collection,” such as by title and date or using the Map navigation, though at present this latter feature is less helpful because most titles are from St. Petersburg. The Basic Search function allows for keyword searching using Boolean operators, wildcards, word proximity, and fuzzy search. Users can search in either English or Russian, aided by a virtual Cyrillic keyboard and a transliteration table. “The main page … [also] offers a random selection of documents published on each day of the calendar (‘On This Date in History’),” Fagiolo added.

This database “provides a unique, firsthand perspective on the political and cultural events in Tsarist Russia … and all for free,” although because the content is in Russian, its audience will be limited to more advanced researchers. Other databases provide free access to selected issues or fragments of historical Russian newspapers, but Imperial Russian Newspapers is the most comprehensive database of Russian newspapers before 1917. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Sofia Fagiolo, AIB, Italian Library Association, Rome, Italy, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2022 by The Charleston Company.—Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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Political Extremism and Radicalism: Far-Right Groups in America. Gale, part of Cengage Learning. Contact publisher for pricing.
https://www.gale.com/c/political-extremism-and-radicalism-far-right-groups-in-america

“Political Extremism and Radicalism: Far-Right Groups in America (hereafter known as PE&R) contains rare, hard-to-access primary sources that give insight into unorthodox fringe political and religious groups in the [US],” wrote Erica England for ccAdvisor. Part of Gale’s Political Extremism and Radicalism series, this digital archive includes ephemera, newsletters, election propaganda, and sermons/lectures from ultranationalists, white supremacists, and extreme right-wing conservatives. Content is drawn from five source libraries and organized into eight collections. England also noted that Gale includes “a content advisory warning … on the homepage because these archival materials do contain offensive and distressing topics.”

PE&R’s layout is similar to other Gale databases with both Basic and Advanced Search options available in the same location on the home page, from which “users are … able to immediately search within the eight collections.” Users can also choose to view all documents within a given collection, which can be organized by content type, document type, language, and source library. With connections to many pressing contemporary issues, “the information within these collections can be invaluable for teaching equity, diversity, and inclusion as they can be used to frame conversations about racism, sexism, and religious intolerance.” Other helpful features include the essays and other resources located under Research Tools, which provide an important introduction to the topic for novice researchers. Even more impressive is the Topic Finder research tool that England highlighted, which “creates term clusters, visualizing words and subjects that are regularly associated with a specific topic … and can be a springboard to finding a new angle on a large topic.” As England asserted, no other digital databases “contain this amount of primary historical information regarding radical right-wing conservative groups.” Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

This review is a summary of a longer review by Erica England, Washington State University, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2022 by The Charleston Company. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

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