Alabama Virtual Library: Connecting You to a World of Knowledge  












 
 

High School Resources

Multiple Database Search:
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: high school EBSCO Search (French) (German) (Spanish) (list databases) 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 (list databases)    
Gale's PowerSearch platform allows a user to search Gale's Professional Collection, InfoTrac OneFile, InfoTrac Junior Edition, InfoTrac Student Edition, LegalTrac, Expanded Academic ASAP, General Reference Center Gold, Gale Virtual Reference Library, and Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center at the same time. Audience: middle school through college, general public Gale PowerSearch (list databases)    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   (list databases)      

Single Database Search:
Online catalogs of many Alabama libraries with a common search screen. Audience: middle school through college, general public Alabama Libraries   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)  
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   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
Britannica OnlineŽ School Edition offrs teachers and students access to three complete encyclopedias, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Compton's By Britannica and the Britannica Elementary Encyclopedia that ensure consistency with classroom-topics and age-appropriate language. Teacher and student tools are also included such as video, media, journals, magazines, interactive activity guides, lesson plans, an Internet guide and downloadable student activities. The School Edition has 118,000 articles, 22,000 images, 2,000 video clips, 24,000 biographies and detailed maps of 196 countries. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus and Spotlight features are also a part of this resource. Audience: K-12 Britannica Online School Edition - Encyclopedia Britannica   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   
Business and Company Resource Center integrates detailed company and industry news by bringing together articles from periodicals, company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, and chronologies. Audience: high school, college, general public Business and Company Resource Center   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  
Full text articles and images from academic and business journals. Provides information on management issues, economic indicators and business theories and practices, as well as on the activities of companies and industries worldwide. Audience: high school, college, general public Business Index   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  
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)   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  
Ethnic NewsWatch (ENW) features newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. With titles dating from 1990, ENW presents a comprehensive, full-text collection of more than 1.8 million articles from more than 315 publications offering both national and regional coverage. While the content may mirror mainstream media coverage, the viewpoints are decidedly unique. Ethnic NewsWatch delivers hundreds of important ethnic press publications. The voices of the Asian-American, Jewish, African-American, Native-American, Arab-American, Eastern-European, and multi-ethnic communities can be heard. Titles include Kurdish Life, Asian Week, Jewish Exponent, Seminole Tribune, Appalachian Heritage, The Boston Irish Reporter, Chinese America, The Filipino Express, Hmong Times, and many more. A majority of this content is exclusive to ENW and not available in any other database. Audience: high school through college, general public Ethnic NewsWatch   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    
GreenFILE offers well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on the environmental effects of individuals, corporations and local/national governments, and what can be done at each level to minimize these effects. Multidisciplinary by nature, GreenFILE draws on the connections between the environment and a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology. Topics covered include global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more. The database provides indexing and abstracts for approximately 384,000 records, as well as Open Access full text for more than 4,700 records. Audience: high school, college, general public GreenFILE  

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

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

Integrates searching for literary information including critical analyses, biographies,and bibliographies for more than 120,000 authors from every age and literary discipline. The Center covers 90,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers with additional coverage for 2,500 of the most-studied authors. Includes electronic versions of many of Gale's reference publications: Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Merriam Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Scribner Writer's Series (for example, covering African American Writers, Latin American Writers, Science Fiction Writers, Supernatural Fiction Writers), Twayne World Authors (200 authors), Twayne US Authors (200 authors), and Twayne English Authors (200 authors). Audience: high school through college, general public Literature Resource Center
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

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
  Current Events
Spotlight of the Month

 

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Last Updated on September 30, 2009