Sex & Sexuality

This robust collection of primary-source documents presents different perspectives about gender and human sexuality throughout the twentieth century. In collaboration with the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections, Sex & Sexuality features correspondence, research papers, and records from the Kinsey Institute from 1947 through 1993. In addition to personal letters from each of the Institute’s first three directors, Sex & Sexuality also features Kinsey Institute Annual Reports, articles written for and about the Kinsey Report column, and documents pertaining to well-known researchers in the field like Alice Field, Harry Benjamin, and James W. Edwards. Extensive care has been taken to present these materials in an exceedingly useful and usable way for the target audience, including comprehensive collection guides, essays from experts contextualising the materials, and an interactive chronology. Sex & Sexuality also employ Handwritten Text Recognition, making everything thoroughly searchable. The database also includes extensive help documentation. This is an invaluable resource for anyone studying the history of human sexuality or related subjects thanks to its inclusion of rare materials and ease of use.

Content

This second module of AM’s resource builds upon the collection established in the first installment, which contained materials from the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections. Module II focuses on individual experiences of sexual expression, community, and gender identity, as well as the criminalization and persecution of people from the LGBTQIA+ community, from the 19th century to today.

Materials include personal accounts and resources relevant to historical events—for instance, documents from the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, which launched in 1970 to observe the first anniversary of Stonewall. Contents come from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University; the ONE Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries; the National Archives, UK; the Sheffield City Archives; the University of Sydney’s Rare Books and Special Collections (which made available the library and papers of sexologist Norman Haire); the University of Sussex (which made available the National Lesbian and Gay Survey from the Mass Observation Archive); the West Yorkshire Archive Service (including the work of Anne Lister, an 18th-century landowner, whose diaries detailed her lesbian relationships); and the British Film Institute (BFI).

As with Module I, users are required to confirm that they are above the age of consent in their country and that they understand the collection might contain “distressing” content.

Usability

Consistent with AM’s range of products, Sex & Sexuality, Module II is a rich, easily accessible collection of primary source materials. The homepage features a search bar, a carousel of highlighted photos, and links to collection guides and further information on the nature and scope of the archive.

A navigation bar under the header contains an introduction to the resource (with background, selection criteria, participating libraries, details on the editorial board, and more), “documents,” “collection guides,” “research tools,” “help,” “advanced search,” and “search directories.”

In addition to basic and advanced search options, users can browse the collection via the documents page, which provides a visual overview of major topics (academic and professional research, sexual behaviors, relationships, etc.). There is an exhaustive range of options to limit results (for instance, to pamphlets, ephemera, articles, magazines).

“Collection guides” gives users quick access to archive-specific materials, such as the Lister Diaries. Clicking “research tools” brings users to essays and video interviews, a chronology, photo exhibitions, films, and objects from the Kinsey Institute.

With advanced search, researchers can use multiple keywords and filter by date, document type, collection, topic, and/or archive. Users can also apply word stemming or proximity values, and limit results to secondary resources. Materials are presented in a high-quality format with searchable text.

Pricing

Costs are determined by a range of factors that influence the size of a potential user group, including but not limited to Carnegie Classification and full-time enrollment. Email info@amdigital.co.uk for more information about pricing.

Verdict

Building on Module I, this installment explores the lives and history of individuals from the LGBTQIA+ community, bringing the collection into the present. Featuring a clean, simple interface, this collection will meet the needs of newcomers to the field of research on sexuality, as well as experienced scholars.

Pulling together rare and valuable pri­mary source material from the highly regarded Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, this collection covers sex and sexual­ity through lenses such as criminology, medicine, anthropology, sexology, and public interest. With a streamlined, easy-to-use navigation, this is a high-quality, user-friendly collection for re­searchers of sexuality, gender studies, and psychology.

Content

Attitudes toward human sexual­ity and gender radically shifted during the 20th century, as the development of the birth control pill gave women increased reproductive autonomy, the LGBTQIA+ community fought for and won civil rights, and the publication of Dr Alfred Kinsey's ground-breaking reports, published in 1948 and 1953, pushed discussions of sexuality into the mainstream. Pulling together rare and valuable primary source material from the highly regarded Kinsey Institute for Re­search in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, AM's collection cov­ers sex and sexuality through lenses such as criminology, medicine, anthropology, sexology, and public interest.

The collection leans heavily on primary sources from leading sex researchers and sexologists, including correspondence, research papers, and records produced during the tenure of institute's first three directors: Kinsey (1947-56), Dr. Paul H. Gebhard (1956-82), and Dr June Macho­ver Reinisch (1982-93). Also included are the Kinsey Institute Annual Reports.

The Alice Field Collection compiles the work of criminologist and sex researcher Field, who, as director of research of the New York City Department of Probation, studied "wayward minors." Under the Harry Benjamin Collection, users will find the correspondence and materials of endocrinologist and sexologist Benjamin, who conducted pioneering work on transgenderism (then known as "transsexualism") and treated Christine Jorgensen, the first well-known patient to undergo gender transition.

The James W. Edwards Collection features the research of anthropologist and East Asian researcher Edwards, who studied prostitution, birth control, AIDS and sexually transmitted infections, and homo­sexuality. The Dr John Money Exchange Correspondence compiles the work of psychologist Money, who studied sexual identity and gender, founding the Gender Iden­tity Clinic at Johns Hopkins in 1966.

The Society for Scientific Study of Sex Collection pulls together files from the international organisation, founded in 1957 to "foster interdisciplinary exchange in the field of sexual knowledge." Finally, the Ver­tical Files include periodicals, newsletters, and ephemera organized by the Kinsey Institute subject classification system.

A "content warning" requires users to confirm that they are above the age of con­sent in their country and alerts that some material may be distressing. The introduc­tion informs users of the potentially sensitive nature of [the] material in ("Content includes, but is not limited to, descriptions and imag­ery of sexual violence; non-consensual sexual activity; sexual activity including minors; genital mutilation; surgery and suicide"), and notes chat language and terminology may be considered offensive To modern au­diences. Personal identifiers have been re­dacted to preserve the privacy of individuals identified in the collection.

Usability

The collection opens with a ba­sic search box and a welcome message. An image carousel highlights pictures from the collection, and thumbnails guide new users to the "nature and scope" page and the collection guides. The top menu includes links to the introduction page, the documents section, the collection guides, explore, and help pages. Links to the ad­vanced search and search directories are available to the right of the menu bar, while links to "my archive," where users can save documents, are located on the upper-right corner of the page.

The advanced search option is stream­lined and easy to use, defaulting to five search boxes, with the option to add more. Users can browse by "keyword anywhere," "title," "people," and "places," and options include word stemming, proximity search­ing, and filter by date, collection, topic, and/ or document type, and refine by secondary sources. A list of previous searches appears in the sidebar, along with a link to the available search directories (currently, "people"). A search tips link offers help.

Query results list each item's title and date; a drop-down menu offers information on each result's collection, document type, and topic. Another cab highlights term frequency - for instance, users will learn that in 1961, there were 1,021 hits for the tern, prostitution. Users can further filter results by documents and/or secondary resources, date range, collection, topic, and/or document type.

After clicking on an item, users are pre­sented with a list of pages in which their term appears. Above that are thumbnails of the original document. Title and date of the document are displayed by default, but users can also view detailed information (collection, series, subseries, archive, and more). Users can add items to their archive, search within the document, download the en­tire document as a PDF or select a range of pages, and access and export citation infor­mation.

They can also zoom in and out on doc­uments, rotate, or search, and the thumb­nails tab makes it easy to select a different page. A back arrow icon allows for returning quickly to the previous page or the search results.

Beyond searching, AM offers a variety of valu­able tools for exploring the collec­tion. Under "documents," users can browse by collection, topic, and "list" view, and limit materials type ( correspondence, court record, ephemera, newspaper, etc.). Under "explore," users will find essays and video interviews, a report on the Kinsey Institute and collections, and an interactive chronology on the history of sexology and related events.

To increase accessibility, AM categorises items in the database by one or more often topics, including gender identities, sex education, art and literature, and sexual behaviors. Other cools include an interactive timeline, essays, collection guides, and a video interview with Dr Ju­dith Allen introducing The Second Kinsey Report. Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology makes all documents fully searchable.

Pricing

Cost is determined by a range of factors that influence the size of [the] potential user group, including Carnegie Classification and full-time enrollment. Contact info@amdigital.co.uk for more informa­tion.

Verdict

Compiling hard-to-find but sig­nificant research on sex and sexuality from a reputed source, this high-quality, user-friendly collection is perfect for institu­tions supporting advanced studies in human sexuality, psychology, gender studies, and related fields.

With resources “obtained exclusively from the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections,” Module I of Sex and Sexuality explores “changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors throughout the [20th] century” wrote Dawn Behrend for ccAdvisor. “The collection currently includes 11,743 unique items,” encompassing correspondence, newspapers, research briefs, and similar content. These sources cover topics spanning gender identity, sexual behavior, sexual health, sexual preference, and general views on sex, reproduction, and relationships, and can be searched by key word using the main search box on the home page. Selecting Advanced Search on the home page also allows users to search by “title, people, or places, using Boolean terms, word stemming, or proximity.” A notable search feature is the handwritten text recognition (HTR) capability, allowing for key word searching of handwritten documents, which is useful, but imperfect as it yields some false returns. Additional features include “a directory of prominent individuals … an interactive timeline of key research and events related to the field of human sexuality in the 20th century, three essays, and one video lecture.”

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. —Abstracted from, ccAdvisor

This review is a summary of a longer review by Dawn Behrend, Lenoir-Rhyne University, originally published in ccAdvisor.org. Copyright © 2019 by The Charleston Company.