Gale Digital Scholar Lab

General Information

The Gale Digital Scholar Lab (DSL) is a platform that allows users to discover and create collections of digitized texts from the Gale Historical Collections, run a variety of statistical analyses on them, and visualize the resulting data.

Users are required to have a Google/Gmail account in order to use the product.

For further information on this product, see https://www.gale.com/primary-sources/digital-scholar-lab

Access

Digital Scholar Lab Access Instructions (UTORid required)

Alternatively, connect via: https://infotrac.gale.com/itweb/utoronto_main?db=DSLAB

Training

Guide to resources
Digital Scholar Lab Tutorial
Short video: demo of the Digital Scholar Lab
In-depth video: Overview of the Digital Scholar Lab’s features (captioned video with slides)

Frequently Asked Questions

Citations

Gale asks that you cite the various tool settings that you use and the document collections that you create. Many thanks to Dr. Sarah Ketchley, Senior Digital Humanities Specialist at Gale for the explanation and examples below.

Citing Tool Settings
Please include:

Name of Tool
Platform (i.e. Gale Digital Scholar Lab)
Year or version
Date of Access
URL

Examples:

Chicago Manual of Style Note Format:
“Named Entity Recognition”, Gale Digital Scholar Lab, accessed February 15, 2022, https://go.gale.com/ps/textAnalysisTools?p=DSLAB&jobId=48290&method=analysisResults&u=omni&authType=Microsoft&type=NER&contentSet=1589225177088&triggerTool=treeView&result=treeView&toolVersion=2

MLA Format:
“Named Entity Recognition.” Gale Digital Scholar Lab. 2022. Web. February 15, 2022. https://go.gale.com/ps/textAnalysisTools?p=DSLAB&jobId=48290&method=analysisResults&u=omni&authType=Microsoft&type=NER&contentSet=1589225177088&triggerTool=treeView&result=treeView&toolVersion=2

Citing Your Document Collections
Please follow protocols for citing datasets generally, including:

Author
Title of Content Set (created by the researcher, and can be edited)
Source of Content Set (put "Gale Digital Scholar Lab [Distributor].")>
Date of Creation of Content Set
Content Set URL (open the content set in a tab and paste the URL)

Examples:

Chicago Manual of Style Bibliographic Format:
Ketchley, Sarah L. 1840-1849 American Fiction Female Authors. Gale Digital Scholar Lab [distributor]. February 2022. https://go.gale.com/ps/myContentSets?method=viewCSDocs&u=omni&p=DSLAB&contentSet=1539283042148

MLA Format:
Sarah L. Ketchley. 1840-1849 American Fiction Female Authors. Gale Digital Scholar Lab [distributor]. February 2022. https://go.gale.com/ps/myContentSets?method=viewCSDocs&u=omni&p=DSLAB&contentSet=1539283042148

Privacy and Google Accounts

Currently, the DSL requires both authorization using your UTORid and an active Google/Gmail account. DSL's Privacy Policy states:

"When logging in to the Gale Digital Scholar Lab application using either Google or Microsoft, the application accesses the user's Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive through an anonymous access token that is created when users first log in. This anonymous token is generated in order to connect users to the content and analysis they create in the Gale Digital Scholar Lab. The application does not collect, read, access, or store any of the data from a user's Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive account(s), nor does it access any open documents. In addition, the application does not access or share personal information as part of this process."

For more information, please see this Google Privacy FAQ from Gale.

Uploading Texts

The DSL allows you to upload your own texts as individual .txt files (under 10 MB each). The following explanations regarding security measures, privacy, and licensing restrictions come from the DSL's FAQ.

"What measures are in place to secure my uploaded documents?

All documents pass through a Sentinel One security scanner and file sniffer to ensure what is uploaded is a plain text file. There is also cross-scripting on the text entry and metadata forms to prevent any malicious attacks on the environment. All documents are stored in an encrypted cloud-based storage solution with high availability.

Are there any rights restrictions around uploaded content?

Gale provides a text upload feature that allows users to analyze non-Gale content within Gale Digital Scholar Lab. The upload of personally identifiable information is not recommended. Additionally, users assume sole responsibility for clearing rights to any content loaded into this feature. In the event texts are loaded into the platform without proper rights clearance, the user indemnifies Gale from resulting litigation related to the use of that content outside the bounds of its legally stated use."

Content

The following archives are available within this product: