Learning Resources & Research Databases by Subject
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Click to access databases in the library.
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General Research
back to top- eLibrary*: Find over 2000 articles, ebooks, transcripts, photos, websites, focused multi-media, maps and reference sources such as almanacs and encyclopedias. For upper Elementary through High School.
- Encyclopedia Americana: In-depth information for older students and adults.
- Gale Virtual Reference Library*: A database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
- Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia: Quick reference with rich media for middle school and higher.
- Infotrac Expanded Academic ASAP*: Magazine, newspaper and journal articles appropriate to college and university-level research. All topics and mostly full-text.
- Infotrac General Reference Center Gold*: One-stop access to general interest magazines, business periodicals, reference books, maps, historical images, and newspaper articles. Mostly full-text.
- Infotrac OneFile*: A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics. Millions of full-text articles. Updated daily.
- New Book of World Knowledge: Reference and current events for elementary school and higher.
Arts & Humanities (Literature)
back to top- Fine Arts and Music Collection (Onefile)*: Resources to support research in areas such as drama, music, art history, and filmmaking.
- Informe!*: Una colección de revistas hispánicas con textos completos. Abarca negocios, salud, tecnología, cultura, temas de actualidad y otras materias.
- Literature Resource Center: Full-text journal articles, literary criticism, reviews, biographical information, and overviews on over 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world.
- Michigan Authors and Illustrators*: A searchable database of Michigan authors and illustrators. Provides biographical and contact information.
- Oxford Islamic Studies Online: An authoritative resource of the best current scholarship on Islamic studies to foster a more accurate and informed understanding of the Islamic world.
- Religion & Philosophy Collection (Onefile)*: Resources covering all aspects of religion and philosophy.
- SIRS Renaissance*: Provides dynamic information on the following topics: architecture and design, culture, literature, multimedia, music, performing arts, philosophy and religion, and visual arts.
Biography and Genealogy
back to top- Ancestry Library Edition: The ultimate source for genealogy, family trees and family history records online.
- Biography and Genealogy Master Index*: Indexes current, readily available reference sources. Bibliographic citations only.
- Biography in Context: Contains more than 435,000 biographies on more than 340,000 people.
- Encyclopedia Americana: Includes in-depth biographical information for older students and adults.
- HeritageQuest Online*: Includes all of the images, and extensive indexing, from the 1790 - 1930 U.S. federal censuses. It offers more than 22,000 digitized book titles, including early family histories and local histories. Additionally, there are more than 250 primary-source documents such as tax lists, city directories, probate records and more. It also includes Periodical Source Index (PERSI), Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files, the Freedman’s Bank Records, and the U.S. Serial Set Private Relief Actions, Memorials and Petitions.
Books and Reading
back to top- Books and Authors*: A database to help you decide what to read next. Search by character, topic, setting, time period, genre, title, author, and series.
- Ebsco eBooks (was Netlibrary)*: Over 20,000 eBooks available on all topics. New username and password can be acquired at the Reference desk.
- Literature Resource Center: Full-text journal articles, literary criticism, reviews, biographical information, and overviews on over 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world.
Catalogs and Directories
back to top- eBooks (was Netlibrary)*: Over 20,000 eBooks available on all topics. New username and password can be acquired at the Reference desk.
- MeLCat*: A catalog of materials available through Michigan libraries. Patrons of participating libraries can order items from other statewide participating libraries and have them delivered to their local library branch.
College and Career Prep
back to top- LearningExpress Library*: Provides a completely interactive online learning platform of practice tests and tutorial course series designed to help test takers succeed on academic or licensing tests.
- Tutor.com®: Get a live tutor to help you with writing, Science, Math, History and more! Help is available for students from grade school through college, as well as adults who need help with resumes, GED prep and more. Now only available to Westland residents!
Health and Medicine
back to top- Infotrac Health Reference Center Academic*: Multi-source database provides access to the full text of nursing and allied health journals.
- Infotrac Health and Wellness Resource Center*: Provides instant access to carefully compiled and trusted medical reference materials.
- Nursing and Allied Health (Onefile)*: Information to both professionals already working in the field as well as students pursuing a nursing-focused curriculum.
- Nursing Resource Center*: Brings together in an easy-to-use interface disease and drug overviews, care plans, relevant journal results and animated anatomy and physiology diagrams to complement the core encyclopedia texts.
- Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Collection (Onefile)*: Includes over 100 titles covering the fields of physical therapy and sports medicine for both the researcher and practitioner alike.
History and Government
back to top- America the Beautiful: State by State history and current events for elementary and middle school students.
- CultureGrams*: A leading reference for concise, reliable, and up-to-date cultural information on countries across the globe.
- GPO Access*: Free access to a wealth of important information products produced by the Federal Government.
- Lands and Peoples: An encyclopedia of countries, cultures and current events for middle and high school.
- Making of Modern Michigan*: Michigan's unique heritage is represented through photographs, family papers, oral histories, genealogical materials and much more from local history collections around the state.
- Michigana - Sources in U.S. History Online*: This digital archive documents state history. Drawn from the Sabin collection and other Gale sources, the archive provides access to a wide variety of documents: personal narratives and memoirs, pamphlets and political speeches, sermons and songs, legal treatises and children's books.
- Military and Intelligence (Onefile)*: Includes content from over 400 journals, which covers all aspects of the past and current state of military affairs.
- U.S. History Collection (Onefile)*: Resources for both to the novice historian as well as to the advanced academic researcher.
- War and Terrorism (Onefile)*: A periodical collection of hand selected titles for analysts, risk management professionals and students of military science, history, social science.
- World History Collection (Onefile)*: Information from all periods of history.
Home and Garden
back to top- Chilton Library*: Covers authoritative automotive repair information on thousands of year, make, and model combinations covering the most popular vehicles of the past 30 years.
- Culinary Arts Collection (Onefile)*: Coverage includes major cooking and nutrition magazines, culinary journals and several Delmar Reference titles.
- Gardening, Landscape and Horticulture Collection (Onefile)*: This collection includes content relating to both the practical aspects as well as the scientific theory of horticulture studies.
- Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Collection (Onefile)*: Includes current and relevant content from travel industry journals, travel guides and magazines.
Homework Help
back to top- America the Beautiful: State by State history and current events for elementary and middle school students.
- Culture Grams*: A leading reference for concise, reliable, and up-to-date cultural information on countries across the globe.
- eLibrary*: Find over 2000 articles, ebooks, transcripts, photos, websites, focused multi-media, maps and reference sources such as almanacs and encyclopedias. For upper Elementary through High School.
- eLibrary Elementary*: Just for kids in grades K-6. Video, audio, books, pictures, magazines, maps, newspapers, & transcripts of tv and radio shows.
- Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia: Quick reference with rich media for middle school and higher.
- Infotrac Junior Edition (Jr High)*: This periodical database is designed for students in junior high and middle school with access to a variety of indexed and full-text magazines, newspapers and reference books.
- Infotrac Student Edition (High School)*: This periodical database designed for high-school students has information on current events, the arts, science, popular culture, health, people, government, history, sports and more.
- Kids InfoBits*: A database developed especially for beginning researchers featuring a developmentally appropriate, visually graphic interface
- Lands and Peoples: An encyclopedia of countries, cultures and current events for middle and high school.
- LearningExpress Library*: Provides a completely interactive online learning platform of practice tests and tutorial course series designed to help test takers succeed on academic or licensing tests.
- New Book of Popular Science: Science and technology, plus science in the news for middle and high school.
- New Book of World Knowledge: Reference and current events for elementary school and higher.
- Opposing Viewpoints: A one-stop source for information on today's hottest social issues organized by reading level.
- SIRS Discoverer*: A children's database with full-text of articles, books, video, audio on all topics.
- Tutor.com®: Get a live tutor to help you with writing, Science, Math, History and more! Help is available for students from grade school through college, as well as adults who need help with resumes, GED prep and more. Now only available to Westland residents!
Law and Business
back to top- Business Insights: Essentials*: A fully integrated resource bringing together company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, chronologies, and periodicals.
- Environmental Studies and Policy Collection (Onefile)*: Includes perspectives from the scientific community, governmental policy makers, as well as corporate interests.
- Gale Legal Forms: Provides a wide selection of state-specific (and multi-state) legal forms across the most popular legal areas. Includes real estate contracts, wills, pre-marital agreements, bankruptcy, divorce, landlord tenant and many others.
- Gale Small Business Resource Center: Perfect for business schools and entrepreneurs, this compilation provides insights, tips, strategies and success stories.
- Infotrac General Business File ASAP*: Access to a combination of broker research reports, trade publications, newspapers, journals and company directory listings with full text and images available.
- Insurance and Liability Collection (Onefile)*: This collection takes a broad view of the asset protection industry, covering such topics as labor relations, mortgage banking, legal issues, and more.
- LegalTrac*: Provides indexing for more than 1,400 titles including major law reviews, legal newspapers, bar association journals and international legal journals.
- Morningstar Investment Research Center: Morningstar’s hedge fund database contains data on 7,000 actively reporting funds from more than 3,700 managers. Additionally, Morningstar offers historical information on more than 12,000 dead U.S. and international hedge funds.
- Reference USA: Contains detailed information on more than 14 million U.S. businesses, 210 million U.S. residents, 855,000 U.S. health care providers, 1.5 million Canadian businesses, and 12 million Canadian households.
Newspapers and Media
back to top- Communications and Mass Media Collection (Onefile)*: Provides current and accurate information in full-text from journals focused on all aspects of the communications field
- Lansing State Journal: Comprehensive coverage (2002-Present) of articles, stories, columns, commentaries, reviews and more for the newspaper from the state capital of Michigan.
- New York Times (12 months full text)*: The daily newspaper New York Times 1995-present.
- Newstand*: A collection of more than 1,000 newspapers from around the country and the world. Includes the New York Times (1985-current). All full text.
Science and Technology
back to top- Agriculture Collection (Onefile)*: Current and authoritative content that spans the agriculture industry -- from practical aspects of farming to cutting edge scientific research in horticulture.
- Computer Database*: Has over 2,687,481 articles from journals, trade magazines and popular computing magazines.
- Environmental Studies and Policy Collection (Onefile)*: Includes perspectives from the scientific community, governmental policy makers, as well as corporate interests.
- General Science Collection (Onefile)*: A collection of over 1,000 peer-reviewed journals, providing researchers with the information needed to stay current on the latest scientific developments.
- GreenFILE: Offers well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment.
- New Book of Popular Science: Science and technology, plus science in the news for middle and high school.
Scholarly Research
back to top- Infotrac Expanded Academic ASAP*: Magazine, newspaper and journal articles appropriate to college and university-level research. All topics and mostly full-text.
- OneFile (Academic)*: The premiere source for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world's leading journals and reference sources.
Social Science and Education
back to top- Criminal Justice Collection (Onefile)*: Whether studying to become a lawyer or law enforcement officer, paralegal, or for a career in Homeland Security, this collection covers it all.
- Diversity Studies Collection (Onefile)*: This collection explores cultural differences, contributions and influences in our global community.
- GLBT Life and Issues (Onefile)*: Covers such topics as gender studies, family and marital issues, health aspects, and many more.
- Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Collection (Onefile)*: Includes current and relevant content from travel industry journals, travel guides and magazines.
- Information Science and Library Issues Collection (Onefile)*: Comprehensive content for information professionals and other knowledge workers.
- LearningExpress Library*: Provides a completely interactive online learning platform of practice tests and tutorial course series designed to help test takers succeed on academic or licensing tests.
- Pop Culture Collection (Onefile)*: This collection provides useful information for any researcher in a social science, history, art or liberal arts course.
- Psychology Collection (Onefile)*: Researchers will have access to hundreds of subject-appropriate full-text periodicals - many cited in the PsycINFO index.
- Tutor.com®: Get a live tutor to help you with writing, Science, Math, History and more! Help is available for students from grade school through college, as well as adults who need help with resumes, GED prep and more. Now only available to Westland residents!
Testing
back to top- LearningExpress Library*: Provides a completely interactive online learning platform of practice tests and tutorial course series designed to help test takers succeed on academic or licensing tests.
- Tutor.com®: Get a live tutor to help you with writing, Science, Math, History and more! Help is available for students from grade school through college, as well as adults who need help with resumes, GED prep and more. Now only available to Westland residents!
*MeL Databases
These databases are part of MeL which is a project of the Library of Michigan, an agency of the state government. The Library of Michigan contracts with MCLS and partners with a number of Michigan organizations and institutions to provide MeL services. This project is made possible by grant funds from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the State of Michigan through the Library of Michigan.