Blog Archives

Gale Literary Sources Database

By Lindsay Roseberry, Reference Department

We have a great new database for anyone researching authors, literature or writing papers for school. It’s called Gale Literary Sources.

To get to the database from our home page:

  1. Go to our website.
  2. Scroll down to eLibrary, the second link (next to Books & More),
  3. Choose databases.
  4. Choose the Literature category, which takes you to Gale Literary Sources.
  5. In this database you can access primary sources, critical articles, literary analysis, and biographical information. Gale has created a single research database to help you in your research.
  6. To login, use your library card number. (This database is free for all of our library users—all you need is a library card and you can access it.)

gale-1Our library subscribes to these components that make up our database:

  • Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias and other specialized reference sources. These reference materials once were accessible only in the library, but now you can access them online from the library or remotely 24/7.
  • Using Gale’s Literature Resource Center, you can find up-to-date biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism and reviews on nearly 130,000 writers from all time periods, and from around the world.
    Scribner Writers Series provides original, scholar signed essays on the lives and works of authors from around the world from all time periods. Entries include concise essays and biographical information.
  • Twayne’s is devoted to in-depth critical introductions to the lives and works of major writers of the world. It provides insightful and original commentary on the history and influence of the author and his/her world.

When you search for an author or a title, type the name in the search box. You get the first three articles in several categories. Here is a list of them:

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The Content Types tell us that there are 435 critical articles on Ray Bradbury, 358 biographies, 114 overviews, 868 reviews, 126 primary resources and 55 multimedia entries. The multimedia entries are usually NPR interviews which you can listen to or print or download the transcript.

You must keep in mind that some of these articles may be written by Bradbury; maybe he wrote a critical article on an author.

Once you find an article you want to use, you have a choice of offerings from Gale as to gale-4how you retrieve your article. You can email it to yourself (this is very helpful when you are here at the library researching, and don’t have money to print out the article. You can email it to yourself and print it at home.) You can download the article and save it on your computer or you can print it out. You can even download the MP3 of an interview. With the citation tools, you can choose your format, or what your teacher wants you to use. You can even get it translated into your language or choice. It will be a machine translation and only in print, but if you need sources for your Spanish class in Spanish, this might be a good way to find articles.

Gale has also created a way for you to highlight areas of text that you want to perhaps emphasize, remember or use as a quote. Once you highlight a section of text or write a note about a section of text, you’ll see the number change in the Highlights and Notes section. You can also print out your notes and highlighted sections. You even have a choice of highlighting colors.

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One new feature from this Gale database (and all Gale databases, actually) is that you can save your documents to your Google drive or to Microsoft Live. If you write your papers or reports on either of these, you can put all your documents in the same place!

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As if this wasn’t good enough, Gale has upped the ante even more. There is a way you can select the articles you want to look at further. I went through a list of articles and selected the ones I wanted to look at further. These become documents in your folder. When you pull up the folder list, you can open the articles you want to look at, print save or email them.

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We hope you have an opportunity to use our new database! We love it at WCPLtn!

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Making the Most of the Online Kid’s Page: TEL4U

By Lance Hickerson, Reference Assistant

The Kid’s Page has some very helpful homework tools, such as TEL4U.1

You can use TEL4U to answer questions like the following:

  1. What if I need access to a good source of information like the World Book Encyclopedia?
  2. Is there an encyclopedia that plays to the level of younger students?
  3. Is there a place I can find games for children to play?
  4. Is there a place for phonics? I want my child to practice sounding out words and practicing phonics skills.
  5. Where can I go to get Homework Help?

 

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1. What if I need access to a good source of information like the World Book Encyclopedia?2

No problem. Go to the free online source on the Kids Page from the Tennessee Library Association called TEL4U. Check out the Home Screen below which shows links to eBooks, Homework Helpers, Look it Up, Tennessee State History, and Games & Activities. This is especially for grades K – 5. (For older children notice the Teenagers link.) The easiest way to get into the World Book Encyclopedia is to click on Look It Up and then choose World Book Student. Enter a word or phrase to find articles on what interests you.

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2. Is there an encyclopedia that plays to the level of younger students?

Younger students, K thru 2nd grade might enjoy getting to their age friendly Encyclopedia through eBooks and the Early World of Learning. To get to the Encyclopedia, Click on eBooks and open the first eBook called “Early World of Learning.”3

The link opens into a delightful Early World of Learning page with things to Read, Play, Watch, and to Print & Do. These are full of information and of interest. And don’t miss clicking on the frog. But to get to the illustrated Encyclopedia, go to the bottom left of the Early World of Learning page and click on Worldbook Products.4

After clicking on World Book Products, choose the top right option: Info Finder.5

Info Finder opens into the Encyclopedia. Enjoy browsing the many options.6

Bonus: What happens when I click on the Early World of Learning frog?7

It takes us to Nursery Rhymes, Songs, and Story Corner!8

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3. Is there a place I can find games for children to play?
TEL4U has a link called Games & Activities for several sites with games.games

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4. Is there a place for phonics? I want my child to practice sounding out words and practicing phonics skills.
Yes. The Starfall.com site under ebooks.10

From the TEL4U homepage click on eBooks. Then choose Starfall.com.

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5. Where can I go to get Homework Help?
Click on Homework Helpers from TEL4U home page. This opens access to four sites that offer help with homework.12

What’s in the databases for homework help?

A) The Internet Public Library for Kids aims to be online information you can trust.13

B) The World Book Kids is a geat place to start. See info above on encyclopedias.
C) The Learning Express Library is very popular with adults, but it also has homework practice in math skills and reading comprehension for elementary students.14

D) Kids InfoBits is an exciting database designed especially for students in kindergarten through grade 5. It is part of the TEL4U site, but also has its own direct link on the Library Kids page.15

For instance, a student could click on Music and Movies, then choose Popular Movies. The student would then see the list of movies which are covered as seen below.16

If the student chose “The Chronicles of Narnia,” the following information would be seen:17

If the student chooses to learn about People, the following would appear as options:18

In addition to the above options, there are also other areas for study.
Students will benefit from this accessible database for homework assignments or simply browsing from curiosity.19

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