 Welcome to my eLibrary Elementary page! Elibrary (http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/libweb/k6/do/search) is a database by ProQuest designed just for elementary students. Here, you can search for many magazines, newspapers, books, maps, and pictures. Searching is easy - you can type in a keyword, or even a question. For example, if you're researching giraffes' diet, you could type in "giraffe diet" or "what do giraffes eat?". If you're looking for only a certain type of material, like a book or newspaper article, you can easily narrow your search to include only those materials. It's easy for new researchers to do!
 Your results will appear on a new page, and include icon which tell you what kind of material each item is. Some of them include the following:
 Book Magazine NewspaperBy clicking on these icons, you can arrange your results to show that type at the top of the page. Every material is designed for elementary kids, so it won't be too hard to read. Each result also includes the lexile level, which tell you more about how difficult or easy the material will be. All results are full-text, which means the entire article is included, not just part of it. You can email the article, print it, or add it to "your list". Here, you can keep all the important results you find in one place.
You can also do an advanced search using eLlibrary. You can search for a specific title or source, date range, or even author.
Another cool feature is the "Skip to the best part" button in each document. By clicking on this, you can jump to the part of the document that includes the largest amount of words from your search.
You can also do a topic search using eLibrary Elementary. If you're not quite sure what to look for when beginning a project, this can be a great help. Type your topic into the box (such as "spiders"). The results include ideas for more specific topics, such as "wolf spiders" or "jumping spiders". You can also browse certain subjects. For example, you can click on "World History" and find topics related to this subject, such as "Women's History" and "Native Peoples".
Finally, the Reference Desk includes helpful materials like a dictionary, thesaurus, and an atlas. One weakness of the database is that you can't directly search for websites. However, many great formats are available you can't find through Google or the web. The search engine isn't as powerful as some others, but the results are very age appropriate. Other strengths include the child-friendly interface, use of natural language with the search function, and attention to reading level through Lexile ratings.
eLibrary Elementary has many great tools to discover! Have fun exploring!
Sincerely,
Hanna Morgan
Creator of this page
June, 2009
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