Online Databases

Last updated: 03/27/2010
© 2005 Garden City Public Library

If a link appears below, you can access the database remotely (i.e., from your home). Click on the logo or link of the database that you would like to search. Have your library card available. You must enter your library-card number (without spaces) to access most of these databases.

With the exception of netLibrary, these databases are also available in the Library at public workstations. Users are asked to limit their time to 15 minutes if someone is waiting. If a database is available only in the Library, it is marked with a picture of a CD.

To help you find the most appropriate resource for your search, we have grouped the databases by subject, but there are many overlaps in coverage. To jump to a subject, click on one of the categories to the left.

Encyclopædia Britannica Online Reference Center
A comprehensive multimedia encyclopedia.

Grolier Online Passport
Published by Scholastic Library Publishing, it includes:

• Encyclopedia Americana,
• Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, and
• The New Book of Knowledge for students in Grades K-8.

Grove Music Online
Grovemusic.com includes the full text of the 29 volume print edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.  There are more than 3000 links to related sites, including sound clips and illustrations.

Newsletters ASAP
Gale Group has compiled information from specialized business, industry, and technology newsletters issued by various news services and industry watchers.

Predicasts PROMT
Predicast Overview of Markets and Technology includes summaries and full text from nearly 1,000 business and trade journals, newsletters, newspapers, market-research studies, press releases, and investment reports. Research companies, markets, products, and technologies.

ReferenceUSA 
This database provides information on 12 million businesses and 650,000 physicians and dentists in the United States.  It is searchable by corporate or personal name, location, ticker symbol, and yellow-page heading. 

Career Cruising
Plan your future with a career-guidance system that helps you match your skills and interests to a career. It includes:

• "Career Matchmaker" assessment tools;
• "Explore Careers," with job descriptions, educational requirements and multimedia interviews;
• "Explore Schools," containing information on colleges and other educational institutions;
• "Portfolio," a free account to let you save your results, develop a plan, and create a resume; and
• "Search Career Cruising," to help you pinpoint the information you need right away.

Coin Career Library
This EBSCO service has five components to help users match their interests to occupations and educational programs:

• "Exploration Center," which contains interest-and-skills assessments, connecting results to occupations and information on colleges and majors, financial aid, apprenticeships, and military occupations;.
• "Planning Center," which includes a resume builder and college and career planning checklists;
• "Resource Center," which provides profiles of up-and-coming or unusual careers, web resources, full-text Articles, curriculum, occupation videos in English and Spanish, and state-specific data;
• "Help Center," with documents for student and parent users, help files, and FAQs; and
• "Activity Center," including quizzes on history and vocabulary, polls, sample proficiency and standardized-tests, and GED sample tests.

Learning Express Library (Learn-a-Test)
Prepare for success with LearningExpressLibrary.com's practice tests and study materials. Available topics include ACT, SAT, GED, Armed Services, Citizenship, Firefighter, Police, Postal Worker, Real Estate, and more. If you are a new user, you will need to set up a free personal account. We recommend that you use your library-card number as your username.

EBSCOhost Kid Search
A child-friendly, graphically-rich search interface designed for elementary and middle-school students, Kids Search automatically searches across all the same databases as Searchasaurus (see below) for a keyword or topic. Results can be sorted by source type (magazines, reference books, photos, flags, etc.).

• Encyclopedia of Animals, consisting of indexing, abstracts, and full-text records describing the nature and habitat of familiar animals;
• Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia;
• Middle Search Plus, with full text for over 100 magazines covering general topics appropriate for middle and junior-high school students; and
• Primary Search; providing full text from nearly 70 children’s magazines appropriate for elementary schools and children’s reading room.

Career Cruising
Plan your future with a career-guidance system that includes assessment tools to help you match your skills and interests to a career, job descriptions and requirements, and college profiles. Create an account to track your progress.

Learning Express Library
The Computer Skills section includes instruction in Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Access, Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Powerpoint, and Word. If you are a new user, you will need to set up a free personal account. We recommend that you use your library-card number as your username.

ConsumerReports.org
This award-winning website provides product ratings and reviews, recommendations, and buying advice. Additional information includes brand reliability and user reviews, plus news, blogs, forums and video content.

The New York Times 
ProQuest Direct, Bell & Howell's online service, provides coverage of The New York Times as follows:

• Current: ASCII full-text articles from 1980 forward, updated daily,
• Deep Backfile: Digital reproductions of the paper from the first issue in September 1851 through 2003, including not only news but also editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, drawings, maps, charts, and advertisements. This Historical Newspapers database requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free download.

The New York Times Historical
The Historical database provides digital reproductions of the Times from the first issue in September 1851 through 2005, including obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, and photos. This Historical Newspapers database from ProQuest Direct requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free download.

InfoTrac General Reference Center Gold
Part of Gale's Infotrac stable, this is a general-interest database with an easy search interface for articles from newspapers, reference books, and magazines, many with full text and images. Find the latest on current events, popular culture, business and industry, the arts, science, sports, hobbies, and more.

Readers' Guide (Available in the Library at the Index2-5 and Ropac1-6 computers)
Produced by the H.W. Wilson Company, this is the electronic version of the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature used by generations of students to research magazine articles. It contains indexing and abstracting of more than 3 million articles from 375 leading magazines published in the US and Canada, plus the full text of selected periodicals since 1994. The database consists of two parts:

• Readers' Guide Full Text (1983 - Present)
• Readers' Guide Retrospective (1890 - 1982)

ReferenceUSA 
The Reference USA Health Care database provides information on 650,000 physicians and dentists in the United States. It is searchable by office or personal name, location, medical school, age, gender, specialty, and more.

Greenwood Daily Life Online
Drawing on reference works, monographs, and primary documents, this database portrays everyday life and social customs throughout world history. It includes maps and multimedia resources. There are several modules:

• African American Experience
• Daily Life Through History
• Daily Life in America
• Latino Amerian Experience
• Pop Culture Universe
• World Cultures

The New York Times  
ProQuest Direct, Bell & Howell's online service, provides coverage of The New York Times as follows:

• Current: ASCII full-text articles from 1999 forward, updated daily,
• Backfile: Abstracting and indexing from 1989 forward, and
• Deep Backfile: Digital reproductions of the paper from the first issue in September 1851 through 1986, including not only news but also editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, drawings, maps, charts, and advertisements. (Please note that this database is not yet complete.) This Historical Newspapers database requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free download.

Auralog TellMeMore
Courses in Dutch, English (American), French, German, Italian, and Spanish (Castilian and Latin) are available. After you create a free personal account to track your progress, a computer test determines your hardware capacity and installs the necessary software. Then you define your objectives and take a pretest to measure your starting level as a student.

Grove Music Online
Grovemusic.com includes the full text of the 29 volume print edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.  There are more than 3000 links to related sites, including sound clips and illustrations.

The New York Times  
ProQuest Direct, Bell & Howell's online service, provides coverage of The New York Times as follows:

• Current: ASCII full-text articles from 1980 forward, updated daily,
• Historical: Digital reproductions of the paper from the first issue in September 1851 through 2005, including not only news but also editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, drawings, maps, charts, and advertisements. This Historical Newspapers database requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free download.

• Encyclopedia of Animals, consisting of indexing, abstracts, and full-text records describing the nature and habitat of familiar animals;
• Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia; and
• Primary Search; providing full text from nearly 70 children’s magazines appropriate for elementary schools and children’s reading rooms;

Learning Express Library (Learn-a-Test)
Prepare for success with LearningExpressLibrary.com's practice tests and study materials. Available topics include ACT, SAT, GED, Armed Services, Citizenship, Firefighter, Police, Postal Worker, Real Estate, and more. If you are a new user, you will need to set up a free personal account. We recommend that you use your library-card number as your username.

Live Librarian
Professional Librarians are available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer your questions using special chat software on the Internet.