Research Tools

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You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. = Open access at the Main Library and Ellettsville Branch or at home with a library card number.

You can only use this within the library building. = Accessible only at Main Library and Ellettsville Branch.

You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. = Accessible anywhere without a library card.

NEW RESEARCH TOOLS (eBooks)—the Gale Virtual Reference Library℠
From Gale®, part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing. Browse the following four categories or search the entire collection. You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number.

Science in Context You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Comprehensive selection of science content. Supporting high school curricula and university coursework, Science in Context features authoritative information for assignments and projects, and provides detailed coverage of popular subjects from obesity to endangered species.

Financial Literacy You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Practices adopted in the early years of adulthood can have dramatic effect on a person's quality of life, level of success, and age of retirement. This service conveys financial wisdom in terms that are easy to understand with suggestions that are easy to apply.

History Resource Center You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Comprehensive online collection that provides multicultural, global, and research-based content that supports today’s history research requirements. It offers access to reference content, academic and scholarly journals, thousands of primary source documents, images, and maps integrated into a cross-searchable database.

Legal Resources You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- the most comprehensive index available to the legal literature of the English-speaking world. It provides subject, author, case name, and statute name access to over 700 journals from the major nations of the common-law tradition.

Ancestry Library Edition You can only use this within the library building. -- Genealogical information from 1.2 billion+ records in 3,000+ databases. U.S. Federal Census from 1790, American Genealogical Biographical Index, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index are included.

Associations Unlimited You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Contains information for approximately 460,000 international and U.S. national, regional, state, and local nonprofit membership organizations in all fields, including IRS data on U.S. 501(c) nonprofit organizations.

Community Organizations You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- Search our database of organizations in Bloomington, Monroe County and the surrounding communities. Compiled by MCPL staff.

Children's Literature Comprehensive Database You can only use this within the library building. -- Provides extensive information about children's books, video and audio recordings, and other media. Records includes official cataloging data, subject terms, and annotations, plus information provided by various Reading Measurement Programs. In addition, CLCD contains full-text reviews of children's books. Search by genre, age-level recommendations and more.

ChiltonLibrary.com You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- ChiltonLibrary provides exclusive photographs, diagnostics designed by instructors, step-by-step repair procedures, Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) maintenance schedules, wiring diagrams, recalls and Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) for automobiles and light trucks in one easy-to-use web site

ConsumerReports.org You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- ConsumerReports.org is one of the most trusted sources for information and advice on consumer products and services. ConsumerReports.org accepts no outside advertising, no free test samples, and has no agenda other than the interests of consumers.

Fold3.com You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) is a subscription website that features searchable original documents of special interest to genealogists and historians, providing users with an unaltered view of the events, places and people that shaped the American nation and the world. Browsers are invited to share, discuss, and collaborate on their discoveries with friends, family, and colleagues.

Foundation Center Online Professional -- With an unprecedented level of detail on grantmakers and their grants, Foundation Center Online Professional will give you the competitive advantage in finding funders fast. Only Foundation Center Online Professional lets you text-search across their unique database of 250,000+ recent 990s. And you'll have immediate access to exclusive funder portfolios filled with information that can help you work smarter, work faster. Foundation Center Online Professional also includes a database of 80,000 grantmakers and half a million grants. Only available inside the Main library in Bloomington. Ask staff for assistance.

Foundation Grants to Individuals -- Quickly search through detailed descriptions of more than 6,000 foundation programs that fund students, artists, researchers, and other individual grantseekers. This unique online database, the only one devoted exclusively to the needs of individuals, is convenient and easy to use! Within seconds you can generate your own list of prospective funders. Only available inside the Main library in Bloomington. Ask staff for assistance.

GreenFILE You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- a freely accessible research database focusing on the relationship between human beings and the environment, with well-researched but accessible information on topics ranging from global warming to recycling to alternate fuel sources and beyond. Comprised of scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports, GreenFILE offers a unique perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the ecology. mobile access

Grolier Online - Multimedia Encyclopedia You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Quick reference with rich media and news for middle school and high school - Reduce search time across a wide variety of media with the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia—the powerful database that contains both resources for students and activities for teachers and librarians to use with their students.

Grolier Online - New Book of Knowledge You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- An online encyclopedia, complete with Wonder Questions, facts and figures, projects and experiments, literary selections, and Internet links to carefully evaluated related sites.

Grolier Online - Lands and Peoples You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- A geography and current-events encyclopedia with the latest information including articles, maps, photographs and charts on each and every country in the world plus many other features.

Grolier Online - America the Beautiful You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- State-by-State history and current events for elementary and middle schools with over 1,400 colorful, easy-to-read, highly interactive articles with over 2,300 of the most useful Web links—complete with summaries. Also has timelines, games, an almanac and maps.

HeritageQuest Online You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Provides a collection of research materials for tracing family lineage and American culture. Includes more than 25,000 genealogies, local histories, primary source materials and genealogical and local history serials. All materials are keyword searchable and can be downloaded and copied. Also includes Census images for 1790-1930. Census records can be searched by name, place of birth, age, and ethnicity.

Indiana Room Collection & Searchable Resources You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- A wide variety of resources covering current and historical information provided by the Indiana Room of the Monroe County Public Library

INSPIRE You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- INdiana SPectrum of Information REsources - A database of newspaper, magazine and journal articles, many of them full-text. INSPIRE can be accessed by Indiana residents who have Internet access at school, home, in their library or at their place of business. If you are having trouble using INSPIRE from home or work, visit the INSPIRE Frequently Asked Questions page.

IUCAT You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- Holdings of the Indiana University Libraries. IUCAT may be used by anyone.

Local Newspaper Index (Bloomington HT) You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- An index to state and local news stories from the Bloomington Herald-Times and the Herald-Telephone for the years 1985-2005. More entries will be added on a regular basis. Compiled by MCPL staff.

Mango Languages You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Mango is an online language learning system that teaches real conversation skills for practical communication. Through fun and engaging interactive lessons, Mango makes learning a new language fast, easy and incredibly effective.

Mitchell1 OnDemand5 You can only use this within the library building.-- Mitchell 1 is the premier provider of automotive repair and estimating information to the automotive industry. A single source look-up to locate any year, make, model and product as it relates to a repair procedure, wiring diagram, spec, parts and labor estimating, a TSB or factory recall.

National Geographic Publications Index You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- This index contains records describing each NGS magazine article, book, map, video, cd-rom, and more. From 1888 to date.

Novelist Plus You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- Fiction and non-fiction recommendations for a wide range of adult, teen and child reading interests as well as book reviews, author read-alikes, theme-oriented book lists, book discussion guides, book talks, and feature articles. mobile access

Obituary Index (Bloomington HT) You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- Currently includes obituaries from old and current local newspapers in Monroe County. Compiled by MCPL staff.

Reference USA You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- The ReferenceUSA database contains detailed information on more than 12 million U.S. businesses, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and churches. In addition, the Residential database includes 102 million U.S. households.

SIRS Knowledge Source: SIRS Researcher You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- SIRS Researcher® is a general reference database containing thousands of full-text articles exploring social, scientific, health, historic, business, economic, political and global issues. Articles and graphics are selected from 1,500 domestic and international publications and are indexed primarily according to Library of Congress subject headings.

TumbleBookLibrary You can use this from anywhere without a library card number. -- TumbleBooks is an online collection of, animated, talking picture books, including some bilingual titles. Also features unabridged audiobooks, puzzles and games for children.

WorldCat You can use this inside the library building or from home with your library card number. -- WorldCat is a worldwide union catalog created and maintained collectively by more than 9,000 member institutions. With millions of online records built from the bibliographic and ownership information of contributing libraries, it is the largest and most comprehensive database of its kind.

Most annotations on this page are quoted from the promotional information on the providers' websites.