Databases by Type

A database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. In one view, databases can be classified according to types of content: bibliographic, full-text, numeric, and images.

Biography

Academic Search Premier

This multi-disciplinary database provides full-text articles and eBooks.

Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database

CLCD is an ever-growing online database of reviews and related information on children’s literature.

Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2004

A multicultural biographical source that covers notable individuals from every part of the world and from all time periods who have made significant contributions to human culture. (Gale Virtual Reference Library)

Gale In Context: College

Gale In Context: College is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on a wide array of subjects. The solution merges Gale’s authoritative and continuously updated reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.

Literature Resource Center

Literature Resource Center (LRC) is a comprehensive literary reference database, which provides users with a broad spectrum of reference information from antiquity to the present day.

MasterFILE Complete

Designed specifically for public libraries, this multidisciplinary database provides full text for general reference publications with full-text information dating as far back as 1975. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, MasterFILE Complete also includes full-text reference books, full text from biographies, full-text primary source documents, and an Image Collection of photos, maps, and flags.

Book Reviews

Academic Search Premier

This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for journals, including full text for many peer-reviewed titles. 

Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database

CLCD (Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database) is the premier single-source, a single-search provider of online information to help educators and librarians find just the right books to meet their educational and collection management requirements. CLCD provides Children’s and Young Adult Literature records containing professional reviews of children’s books, multimedia, and audiobooks (aggregated from 42 sources). The database provides national, state, and international award entries dating back to 1922. Also included are author-illustrator links. Subscribers can search by keyword, author, title, and subject; and filter by reading level, age, grade, and interest level; and then view, sort and distribute the resulting information. In addition, CLCD includes Teaching Tools which shows links to hundreds of websites with lesson plans and teaching guides.

JSTOR

Has created a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive of scholarship, preserving over one thousand academic journals in both digital and print formats.

Gale Literature Resource Center

Literature Resource Center (LRC) is a comprehensive literary reference database, which provides users with a broad spectrum of reference information from antiquity to the present day. LRC is a comprehensive database that combines information from books and monographs, major literary encyclopedias and reference works, hundreds of literary journals, and unique sources not available anywhere else. LRC contains detailed information on the most studied authors and their works and is an essential resource for public, academic, and high school libraries.

Project Muse

Offers full-text access to current content from prestigious humanities and social sciences journals.

RCL: Resources for College Libraries

RCL provides a list of core titles essential for undergraduate teaching and research. The RCL database is designed to connect high-quality titles to higher education institutions, all in an easy-to-use, responsive interface.

Useful for book reviews, building and assessing college library collections, metrics, selecting new course content, and fiscal planning.

e-Books

The Book of Concord

Confessions of the Lutheran Church.

Cambridge Core: Histories Online

Cambridge Core includes the Cambridge Histories Collection. This collection offers a big perspective in subject areas such as American History, Ancient History, and Classical Studies, Asian History, British and European history, Literature, Middle East and African Studies, Music and Theatre, Philosophy and Political Thought, and Religion.

Directory of Open Access Books

A discovery service for peer-reviewed books published under an Open Access license.   Currently, there are just over 23 publishers participating with about 755 Open Access books. New publishers and books will be added as information is gathered.

eBook Collection

EBSCO is now a key provider of e-books and audiobooks to libraries and other institutions worldwide. Nearly 300,000 e-books and audiobooks and growing . . . These books can be downloaded to your computer and to selected mobile devices.

Ebooks Minnesota

Ebooks Minnesota is an online ebook collection for all Minnesotans. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects for readers of all ages and features content from our state’s independent publishers, including some of our best literature and nonfiction.

*Your location must be in Minnesota to access. Use, “Log in by my Device Location”.

Folger Digital Texts

Folger Digital Texts offers meticulously edited, accurate texts—drawn from the Folger Editions, the leading Shakespeare texts used in American classrooms—in a beautifully readable format with the added power of in-depth, behind-the-scenes coding. The site—including full source code—is a free, online resource for students and teachers, theatergoers, scholars, and others.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Provides electronic references covering a wide variety of topics and subjects – ranging from current events to classics and from Arts & Humanities to small businesses.

Google Books

Search and preview millions of books from libraries and publishers worldwide. Discover a new favorite or unearth an old classic.

HathiTrust

HathiTrust is a collection of digital content from research libraries, Google Books project, and Internet Archive digitization initiatives.  It is a  large collaborative repository started in 2008 by thirteen universities with the common goal of preserving cultural collections for use now and in the future.

Infobase eBooks

  • Unlimited simultaneous use, 24/7
  • Custom bookmarks
  • The ability to print, email, and save pages
  • The ability to link to a specific eBook, chapter, or page
  • 550 Literature titles to choose from

Kretzmann: Popular Commentary of the Bible

by Paul E. Kretzmann  

The Popular Commentary is a Lutheran commentary written for the common people to read, understand, and live as a child of God.

MLC Overdrive

Download audiobooks, e-Books, and videos through this online library.

Getting started with Overdrive

Magill’s Literary Annual

Evaluates major examples of serious literature.

Oxford Handbooks Online

Handbook series contains in-depth, high-level articles by scholars at the top of their field. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research.

Oxford Reference

Titles from Oxford University’s award-winning scholarly reference collection in History and Culture, and Literature and Language.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg offers free e-books to download to your PC or mobile devices. Formats include ePub, Kindle, HTML, and simple text. Its focus is on the world’s great literature.

TdS Overdrive

Download audiobooks, eBooks, and videos through the Traverse des Sioux Library online library.

Encyclopedias / Dictionaries

AccessScience

The online version of McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology and the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. It contains more than 8,000 articles written by the leading figures in their fields – including 30 Nobel Prize winners – edited and illustrated with the non-specialist in mind.

Britannica Online Academic Edition

  • Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Britannica Student Encyclopedia
  • and Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.

Cambridge Core: Histories Online

Cambridge Core includes the Cambridge Histories Collection. This collection offers a big perspective in subject areas such as American History, Ancient History, and Classical Studies, Asian History, British and European history, Literature, Middle East and African Studies, Music and Theatre, Philosophy and Political Thought, and Religion.

Note: After you have submitted a search, look on the left panel for the following:  “Only show content I have access to.” Check the box.

The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology

An essential reference resource for scholars of global hymnody, with information on the hymns of many countries and languages, and a strong emphasis on the historical as well as the contemporary.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Gale Virtual Reference Library is an eBook collection of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.

Gale Literature Resource Center

Literature Resource Center (LRC) is a comprehensive literary reference database, that provides users with a broad spectrum of reference information from antiquity to the present day. LRC is a comprehensive database that combines information from over 1,000 books and monographs, major literary encyclopedias and reference works, hundreds of literary journals, and unique sources not available anywhere else. LRC contains detailed information on the most studied authors and their works and is an essential resource for public, academic, and high school libraries.

Oxford Index

A free search portal to Oxford resources.

Oxford Reference

History & Culture

Literature and Language

Oxford English Dictionary

Is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language. It is a guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present, and past.

Oxford Music Online

Access is also available to the full text of:

Salem Literature

  • Magill’s Literary Annuals
  • Masterplots

Science Reference Center

Science Reference Center™ is a comprehensive research database that provides easy access to a multitude of full-text science-oriented content. Designed to meet every student’s science research needs, Science Reference Center contains full text for hundreds of science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, and other sources.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

It contains dynamic reference work, maintaining academic standards while evolving and adapting in response to new research.

Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia 10th ed.

Covers emerging technologies affecting genetics, global warming, communications, informatics, and nanotechnology.

Government Information

Academic Search Premier

This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for journals, including full text for many peer-reviewed titles.

Archive Grid

Open the door to history. ArchiveGrid is an important destination for searching through historical documents, personal papers, and family histories held in archives around the world.

Catalog of U.S. Government Publications

The CGP is the finding tool for federal publications that includes descriptive records for historical and current publications and provides direct links to those that are available online.

JSTOR

Has created a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive of scholarship, preserving over one thousand academic journals in both digital and print formats.

My Congressional District

The first interactive tool geared exclusively toward finding basic demographic and economic statistics for every congressional district in the U.S. This Web app uses the latest annual statistics from the American Community Survey, providing the most detailed portrait of America’s towns and neighborhood

U.S. Government Publishing Office

The U.S. Government Printing Office disseminates official information from all three branches of the Federal Government.

U.S. National Archives

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever.

Images

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library

Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections is an online database that provides public access to digitized materials from the collections of the Margaret Herrick Library.  Currently, the database contains more than 35,000 items, including correspondence, photographs, early release fliers, full issues of rare periodicals, sheet music, and movie star ephemera.  The database also includes complete copies of more than 250 Academy publications, dating back to the founding of the organization in 1927.

American Memory Images

The Library of Congress American Memory photos and prints comprising of several collections.

J. Paul Getty Museum

Collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets works of art of the highest quality, to increase knowledge of the visual arts.

MasterFile Complete

A multidisciplinary database provides full text for nearly 1,750 general reference publications with full-text information dating as far back as 1975. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, MasterFILE Premier also includes nearly 500 full-text reference books, full text from 84,774 biographies, 105,786 full-text primary source documents, and an Image Collection of 440,207 photos, maps, and flags. This database is updated daily via EBSCOhost.

National Gallery of Art

The United States art museum located on the National Mall in Washington D.C.

General databases that are most likely to give you results on any search.

Academic Search Premier

This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for journals, including full text for peer-reviewed titles.

Cambridge Core: Histories Online

Cambridge Core includes the Cambridge Histories Collection. This collection offers a big perspective in subject areas such as American History, Ancient History, and Classical Studies, Asian History, British and European history, Literature, Middle East and African Studies, Music and Theatre, Philosophy and Political Thought, and Religion.

GVRL: Gale Virtual Reference Library

Gale Virtual Reference Library is an eBook collection of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.

JSTOR

Has created a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive of scholarship, preserving over one thousand academic journals in both digital and print formats.

EBSCO MegaFILE

EBSCO MegaFILE combines its largest and most essential databases into a single, easy-to-use product. Databases include Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, MasterFILE Premier, and Regional Business News.

Project MUSE

Offers full-text access to current content from prestigious humanities and social sciences journals.

Newspapers

Chronicling America

America’s historic newspapers from 1789-1963.

ProQuest US Newsstream, including Star Tribune

Primary Sources


What are Primary Sources?

Michigan State University Library provides an informative presentation on what is, and how to find, primary sources.


Academic Search Premier

This multi-disciplinary database provides full text for journals, including full text for peer-reviewed titles.

C-SPAN Video Library

The C-SPAN Archives records, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, research, and archival uses.

Chronicling America

America’s historic newspapers from 1789-1963.

JSTOR

Has created a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive of scholarship, preserving over one thousand academic journals in both digital and print formats.

MasterFILE Premier

This multidisciplinary database provides full text for nearly 1,750 general reference publications with full-text information dating as far back as 1975. Covering virtually every subject area of general interest, MasterFILE Premier also includes nearly 500 full-text reference books, full text from 84,774 biographies, 105,786 full-text primary source documents, and an Image Collection of 440,207 photos, maps, and flags.

ProQuest US Newsstream, including Star Tribune

Includes: Historical and current periodicals and newspapers, many updated daily and containing full-text articles from 1860.

Science Reference Center

Science Reference Center™ is a comprehensive research database that provides easy access to a multitude of full-text science-oriented content. Designed to meet every student’s science research needs, Science Reference Center contains full text for hundreds of science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, and other sources.

Statistics

American FactFinder

Provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Historical Statistics of the United States

Millennial Edition: The standard source for the quantitative facts of American history.

National Center for Education Statistics

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations.

Video Resources

Annenberg Learner

Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum.

C-SPAN Video Library

The C-SPAN Archives records, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, research, and archival uses.

Movie Image Archive

This library contains thousands of digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download.

PBS Video

PBS and our member stations are America’s largest classroom, the nation’s largest stage for the arts and a trusted window to the world. In addition, PBS’s educational media helps prepare children for success in school and opens up the world to them in an age-appropriate way.

TV News Archive

Internet Archive collects and preserves television news. The collection now contains 350,000 news programs collected over 3 years from national U.S. networks and stations in San Francisco and Washington D.C.  The archive is updated with new broadcasts 24 hours after they are aired.