The Gale Virtual Reference Library is a resource that I have actually been using semi-regularly already for reference and research, but I still find it helpful to do a bit more exploring into it's possibilities and potential.
Using GVRL to search for spring holiday traditions around the world (which is a really cool idea, by the way), I was able to come up with quite a bit of information, mostly going off of the "Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of World Holidays". I found festival traditions from Iran (The Nouruz Festival, going back about 3,000 years), China (The Ching Ming Festival, going back 1,800 years), Ukraine (The Velykden Festival, now celebrating Easter), Norway (Constitution Day), and the more well known Western holidays.
Finding food recipes was harder, though I found mention of the traditional foods with a little bit of searching. Usually information on the foods and games of a festival were included in the same article that I was reading off of, but then I did find another reference "The Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World" which turned out to be much more specific.
I used the Advanced Search and found plenty of new books; apparently there were around 29,000 added in 2012, ranging through every subject imaginable.
Glad I went through this again, to brush up my knowledge of this great resource! I can already think of several projects for which some of the information I just searched would be useful for.
So glad to hear that you are using GVRL and have now learned about some of the new titles. There are actually 29,000 articles, which are chapters in the new titles, and lots more great stuff to explore. Good work here; thanks for your comments!
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