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Reference Resources

Online catalogs of many Alabama libraries with a common search screen. Audience: middle school through college, general public Alabama Libraries   Kids InfoBits features a developmentally appropriate, visually graphic interface, a subject-based topic tree search and full-text, age-appropriate, curriculum-related magazine, newspaper and reference content for information on current events, the arts, science, health, people, government, history, sports, and more. Audience: elementary school Kids InfoBits  
Auto Repair Reference Center includes automotive repair information supplied by Nichols Publishing, the former publisher of the Chilton information. It contains information on most major manufacturers of domestic and imported vehicles, with repair information for most vintage makes starting as far back as 1954. Database content includes approximately 25,000 vehicles covered from 1954 to present; over 100,000 factory drawings and step-by-step photographs; over 65,000 technical service bulletins & recalls issued by the original equipment vehicle manufacturer; wiring diagrams for easy viewing and printing; specifications & maintenance schedules; Labor Time Guide & Estimator; and Quick Tips, a complete guide to vehicle ownership & maintenance. New repair procedures and updates will also be added continuously. Audience: high school, college, general public Auto Repair Reference Center   This new interface is designed to offer elementary school students an easy-to-use and graphically appealing search experience, including improved functionality over Searchasaurus and Primary Search. It features better relevancy ranking, topic searching and access to a wide variety of source types. The Basic Search screen highlights Topics rather than Source Types, and includes the ability to search Images or Images/Videos, from the toolbar. Audience: elementary school Kids Search  
Britannica Online Public Library Edition includes two unique home pages -- one for children and another for adults -- that will serve an entire library community with a single product. Britannica Online Public Library Edition contains 4 full encyclopedias, the Encyclopædia Briannica, Compton<92>s by Britannica, Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia, and Britannica Concise Encyclopedia each covering the research needs of a different age group. Along with this encyclopedia content, Public Library Edition contains full-text magazine articles, Web sites that have been reviewed and verified by Britannica editors, a homework help section for students, a world atlas, Merriam-Webster dictionaries and thesauri for children and adults, a Spanish-English dictionary, video and audio content, daily content updates, and more. Audience: general public Britannica Online Public Library Edition    Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) indexes more than 600 periodicals, plus books, research reports and proceedings. Subject coverage includes librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. Coverage in the database extends back as far as the mid-1960s. Audience: media specialists, college, general public Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts       
Menu of full text databases provided by EBSCO. Databases can be searched individually or (by marking the selection boxes) can be searched simultaneously in related groups. Audience: middle school through college, general public EBSCO Search     Supports the general reference questions of public library users, this database indexes 2,780 journals, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal with full text for over 1,950 journals, including Consumer Reports and Business Week nearly 5,000 Magill's Book Reviews, and Essential Documents in American History-over 1,000 original historical documents. Audience: general public MasterFILE Premier    
An encyclopedia of animals with in-depth information on a variety of topics relating to animals, including the nature and habitat of familiar animals. Audience: All Encyclopedia of Animals (now part of Kids Search & Searchasaurus)   Newspaper Source provides selected full text for 180 regional U.S. newspapers, international newspapers, newswires, newspaper columns and other sources as well as indexing and abstracts for national newspapers. This database is updated daily. Audience: middle school through college, general public Newspaper Source   
General encyclopedia for K-12 students includes full text articles; its 25,000 encyclopedic entries are searchable by subject or keywords. Audience: middle school through college, general public Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia   Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center draws on the acclaimed social issues series published by Greenhaven Press, as well as core reference content from other Gale and Macmillan Reference USA sources to provide a complete one-stop source for information on social issues. Access viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles. Audience: high school through college, general public Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center   
Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. These reference materials once were accessible only in the library, but now you can access them online from the library or remotely 24/7. Because each library creates its own eBook collection, the content you see may vary if you use the database at different libraries (your school, your public library, or your office). Audience: middle school through college, general public Gale Virtual Reference Library     The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. The OED covers words from across the English-speaking world, from North America to South Africa, from Australia and New Zealand to the Caribbean. It also offers the best in etymological analysis and in listing of variant spellings, and it shows pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Audience: high school through college, general public Oxford English Dictionary  
General interest database offering a single search interface to find articles from newspapers, reference books, and periodicals, many with full-text and images. Audience: middle school through college, general public General Reference Center Gold   Oxford Reference Online Premium brings together language and subject reference works from one of the world's biggest reference publishers into a single cross-searchable resource.The Core Collection contains over 100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. It is a fully-indexed, cross-searchable database of these books, giving subscribers unprecedented access to a comprehensive information resource.The Premium Collection offers all of the above, plus added functionality and more detailed information across a broad subject range from titles in the world-renowned Oxford Companions Series, to enhance the coverage already provided by the award-winning Core Collection. Audience: high school through college, general public Oxford Reference Online Premium  
History Reference Center features cover-to-cover full text for more than 650 historical encyclopedias and other non-fiction books. The database also includes full text for nearly 60 leading history periodicals; 58,000 historical documents; 43,000 biographies of historical figures; more than 12,000 historical photos and maps; and 87 hours of historical film and video. Audience: high school through college, general public History Reference Center   Serials Solutions provides a reference tool (with title search capability) to determine which full-text electronic serials are available through the AVL licensed databases. Use Serials Solutions to reduce search time when looking for a specific electronic journal and to find and use AVL resources that may be overlooked. Serials Solutions will help you to know what electronic journals are available in the AVL databases. Audience: middle school through college, general public Serials Solutions  
Full text for 50 general interest Spanish-language and bilingual periodicals and El Neuvo Herald (Miami). Users must formulate queries in Spanish because indexing and thesaurus terms on based on Spanish terms. Audience: All Informe (Spanish)   Selective, interactive reference tool of full text articles, many with images, from 1,100 magazines for young readers. Discoverer helps students develop their research, writing, language, and computer skills. Site resources include Spotlight of the Month topics, The World Almanac for Kids, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus and the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. Audience: elementary through middle school SIRS Discoverer  
A 'mega-content' database indexing over 6,000 periodicals, newspapers, and newswires with backfile coverage from 1980 to present, updated daily. The database includes full text articles for 3,000 periodicals, 89 wire services and business press releases. OneFile offers single source searching for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social science, sports, technology, and many general interest topics. Audience: middle school through college, general public (InfoTrac) General OneFile   Provides students with the most appropriate research tools for easily obaining the information that they need from their EBSCO databases. Users can easily pre-determine which content sources (e.g., Magazines, Newspapers, Biographies, Country Reports, Film & Video) will be included with their search. They can also search their databases by topic heading, make use of an online dictionary and encyclopedia, explore the top searches of the day, and even limit their search according to appropriate Lexile reading levels. Audience: middle and high school Student Research Center           
Designed to help students complete school assignments and find general information on current events, the arts, science, popular culture, health, people, government, history, sports and more. The database offers full text articles from 325 magazines, newspapers, and reference books most often selected by libraries for this age group. Audience: middle through high school (InfoTrac) Student Edition  

Almanacs

Selective, interactive reference tool of full text articles, many with images, from 1,100 magazines for young readers. Discoverer helps students develop their research, writing, language, and computer skills. Site resources include Spotlight of the Month topics, The World Almanac for Kids, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus and the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. Audience: elementary through middle school SIRS Discoverer

Dictionaries

Consumer health information on health topics including the medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general health. It indexes and abstracts over 205 general and professional health journals and features full text articles for nearly 190 journals, Stedman's Medical Dictionary, twenty health reference books, and over 1,000 pamphlets published by health-related associations. Information provided in this database should not be viewed as a means for self-diagnosis or a substitute for professional medical advise, diagnosis or treatment. Audience: high school through college, general public Health Source: Consumer Edition
Selective, interactive reference tool of full text articles, many with images, from 1,100 magazines for young readers. Discoverer helps students develop their research, writing, language, and computer skills. Site resources include Spotlight of the Month topics, The World Almanac for Kids, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus and the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. Audience: elementary through middle school SIRS Discoverer

Directories

Serials Solutions provides a reference tool (with title search capability) to determine which full-text electronic serials are available through the AVL licensed databases. Use Serials Solutions to reduce search time when looking for a specific electronic journal and to find and use AVL resources that may be overlooked. Serials Solutions will help you to know what electronic journals are available in the AVL databases. Audience: middle school through college, general public Serials Solutions

E-books

Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. These reference materials once were accessible only in the library, but now you can access them online from the library or remotely 24/7. Because each library creates its own eBook collection, the content you see may vary if you use the database at different libraries (your school, your public library, or your office). Audience: middle school through college, general public Gale Virtual Reference Library
Oxford Reference Online Premium brings together language and subject reference works from one of the world's biggest reference publishers into a single cross-searchable resource.The Core Collection contains over 100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. It is a fully-indexed, cross-searchable database of these books, giving subscribers unprecedented access to a comprehensive information resource.The Premium Collection offers all of the above, plus added functionality and more detailed information across a broad subject range from titles in the world-renowned Oxford Companions Series, to enhance the coverage already provided by the award-winning Core Collection. Audience: high school through college, general public Oxford Reference Online Premium
  See 'Subject Reference' categories.
 

Encyclopedias

Britannica Online Public Library Edition includes two unique home pages -- one for children and another for adults -- that will serve an entire library community with a single product. Britannica Online Public Library Edition contains 4 full encyclopedias, the Encyclopædia Briannica, Compton<92>s by Britannica, Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia, and Britannica Concise Encyclopedia each covering the research needs of a different age group. Along with this encyclopedia content, Public Library Edition contains full-text magazine articles, Web sites that have been reviewed and verified by Britannica editors, a homework help section for students, a world atlas, Merriam-Webster dictionaries and thesauri for children and adults, a Spanish-English dictionary, video and audio content, daily content updates, and more. Audience: general public Britannica Online Public Library Edition
An encyclopedia of animals with in-depth information on a variety of topics relating to animals, including the nature and habitat of familiar animals. Audience: All Encyclopedia of Animals (now part of Kids Search & Searchasaurus)
Literature Resources from Gale is a search environment, designed specifically for literature research, that searches several Gale Literature databases (Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, Dictionary of Literary Biography, LitFinder, Merriam Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Scribner Writer's Series, and Twayne's Authors) at the same time. Audience: high school through college, general public Literature Resources from Gale

News & Current Events

Selective, interactive reference tool of full text articles, many with images, from 1,100 magazines for young readers. Discoverer helps students develop their research, writing, language, and computer skills. Site resources include Spotlight of the Month topics, The World Almanac for Kids, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus and the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. Audience: elementary through middle school SIRS Discoverer
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Last Updated on September 30, 2009