Access to these resources from outside the school building requires a password/user name (unless they are free resources). Drop by the library or check the library's network share folder for a list of logins.

Advanced Placement (AP) Source - contains more than 5,550 full-text academic journals and magazines and over 510,000 photos, maps and flags.  AP Source serves as a particularly valuable complement to Science Direct and JSTOR for research in chemistry, biology, and other sciences.

Columbia International Affairs Online (a.k.a. CIAO) – More than 180 leading academic and research institutions, publishers, government agencies, and journals worldwide contribute to this international relations database which contains over 450,000 pages of scholarly research from 1991 onward including working papers, policy briefs, e-books, journal articles, and case studies.

EBSCO ebooks – books encompassing a broad range of topics and viewpoints about those topics – everything from technology how-to manuals to books with contrasting perspectives on contemporary issues (be on the lookout for bias).  All books are full-text; however, only one user at a time may view a book.

Ethnic Newswatch - features newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority presses. The historical file provides over 300,000 articles from 1959-1989; this hard-to-find content provides primary source material across three turbulent decades. The current file provides visibility into newer ethnic groups as they form distinct communities and develop their own presses.

Gale Resource Collection (main menu) – articles from newspapers, magazines, journals, and reference books, as well as primary resources and multimedia. You may use PowerSearch to cross-search several Gale databases, including Opposing Viewpoints, and a customized Virtual Reference Library (with focused sub-collections like We The People), or you may open and search a database separately. Our subscription also includes a resource-rich collections that must be searched separately, such as U.S. History in Context, World History in Context, The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926, and Declassified Documents.

Highwire Press – From Stanford University Libraries, this database focuses on the life sciences and hosts a repository of high impact, peer-reviewed content which includes nearly 2 million free articles (most made available 12-24 months after publication) and links to other scholarly articles available for a fee. Many articles include a visual citation map of the reference list (sample map).  To set up alerts and designate favorite journals, create a MyHighwire account (click on tab above search box).

Historical Newspapers - In a graphical interface that provides many search and browse options, this database provides an opportunity to contrast American and British perspectives with the New York Times (1851-2007) and the UK's Guardian and Observer (1791-2003), and delve deeper into American history with  coverage from four Black newspapers: Chicago Defender (1910-1975), The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), and The Norfolk Journal and Guide (1921-2003).

JSTOR – Multidisciplinary archive of 700+ scholarly journals available in full-text. Use Advanced Search for the most flexible search options. [JSTOR tips] Important Access Note – Please stop by the library or go to the library’s student share folder for instructions about how to set up an individual JSTOR account.

Literary Reference Center (works best with IE) – combines plot summaries, synopses, work overviews, articles, essays, book reviews, and biographies from major respected reference works, books, and over 420 literary journals with author interviews, full-text classic and contemporary poems and short stories, and over 7100 classic texts.

PubMed Central – U.S. National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) digital archive of free biomedical and life sciences journal literature. If you need full-text articles and don’t have a VCU eID to use their version of PubMed, then use this one. For best results, select Advanced Search and then open the LIMITS tab so that you can apply appropriate limiters to your search (such as limiting to Research & Review articles).  To save searches and links to found articles, create a MyNCBI account (link in upper right once you click Advanced Search).

Open Sources for Research – search tools and databases for finding articles, government documents, reports, and similar sources on the open web (only some articles found with/in these sources are free).

Salem Health, Salem History, and Salem Science – digitized articles and related content from Salem Press reference books (also available in print on the library’s reference shelves).  Titles include Forensic Science and Global Warming in Salem Science; Psychology and Mental Health and Genetics and Inherited Conditions in Salem Health; and in Salem History, American Immigration, decades resources for the 1950's through the 1990's, and History of American Business.

Science Direct (at school access only) – our Freedom Collection subscription provides access to full-text articles of recent research (NOT archival coverage) from over 2000 scholarly journals, usually the current issue and up to four years of back files.  For a list of journal titles and the years included, consult the Freedom Collection journal list.  If you try to access a journal issue that is not included, you will be prompted to log on.  This indicates that the article is not included in our subscription.  If you have an individual VCU eID, you may use it to access VCU’s subscription, which is more extensive than ours.  To save searches, links to articles, and set up alerts, create a personal account (follow link in upper right).

Scientific American Online -  (for off-campus access, click HERE)full-text articles of Scientific American from 1993 to the present, including tables, infographics, photos, and other visuals, as well as articles from Scientific American Mind.

VCU Databases – accessible to all students from the computers inside VCU libraries, and from off-campus to students in VCU dual enrollment courses who have a valid VCU eID username and password. Even if you don’t have a VCU eID, you can use VCU’s Journal Finder to see if a particular journal is available through a subscription database.

Find It Virginia Databases – although the Gale databases on this menu are integrated into the menu of our Gale Resource Collection, logging into this site with your public library card will connect you with ELibrary and any additional databases to which your public library subscribes (if applicable).

Finding_Tools bookmarks on delicious
You’ll also want to check out the following tags in the library’s bookmark account (dragonlibrary) on delicious: archives, databases, directories, portals, and searchtools. These are grouped together in the Finding_Tools bundle near the top of the tag list. The books and ebooks tags may be of interest too.