Author: Jen Hoyer

The library has a wide variety of online resources that celebrate the contributions of women and gender diverse people, and that look at the issues that impact women’s lives. Looking for material to add to your syllabus, sources to cite in your assignments, or just a good read? Check out some of these databases! If you’re off campus, you’ll be prompted to log in with your CUNY login when you click on any of the links below.

Women and Social Movements in the United States,1600-2000 includes primary and secondary sources that help us understand women’s history in the United States, and specifically the contributions that women have made to social movements. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools. In addition to regular search tools, you can browse this collection by person or social movement. And, explore curated sets of primary sources that can support your research or teaching, such Writings by Black Women Suffragists, 1831-1965, which includes more than 1,900 items written by about 150 Black women suffragists.

North American Women’s Drama contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights. Written by women in the United States and Canada from Colonial times to the present, many of these works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. Almost a quarter of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays. 

Gale OneFile: Contemporary Women’s Issues provides information on issues that impact women around the globe. I love how Gale OneFile includes a topic finder that helps visualize connections between material included in my search results; clicking on “topic finder” on the home screen takes me to a search box that will provide me with a visual depiction of my search results, for example from this search for “maternal health”:

Gale OneFile: Gender Studies includes material about gender studies, family and marital issues, and more. This database also provides the visually-based topic finder; this time, I started my search instead with the Subject Guides and searched for “health,” which helped me find subject guides for Personal Care Products and Wellness Programs. There’s so much to explore in these databases.

Did you know that the library has tons of streaming video available — and not just to help with your homework? As we gear up for Oscars season, you can revisit Everything Everywhere All at Once through the library collections. Click here to head straight to the film! (If you’re off campus, you’ll be asked to log in with your CUNYfirst ID.)

This movie is available for streaming through Swank, one of the library’s streaming video databases; you can explore the rest of our Swank subscription at cityte.ch/swank. Or, explore more streaming video through Kanopy and Academic Video Online (AVON). 

One of the databases that City Tech Library provides access to is Black Thought and Culture, provided by Alexander Street Press. You can head straight there at cityte.ch/bltc; if you’re off campus, you’ll be asked to log in with your CUNYfirst credentials.

Black Thought and Culture is an amazing place to explore primary source materials. Not only can you read hundreds of issues of the Black Panther newspaper, but this database also includes oral histories from the Columbia University Black Panther Project. Browse by content type and select “oral histories,” and then search “Black Panther” within these results.

Or, if you’re looking for material related to a specific place, browse by location to find primary source material related to black thought and culture in that place. Interested in Black history in Denmark? This database has details on Bobby Seale’s receipt of a peace prize from a Danish high school.

Another great browsing option is by title; selecting Crisis from a list of titles brings us to content from the official magazine of the NAACP, including a transcription of W.E.B DuBois’ report on the 1919 Pan African Congress.