Databases
Encyclopedias & Reference Resources
Databases by title:
AtoZdatabases: Search Jobs, Businesses or Mailing Lists
The Premier Job Search, Reference, and Mailing List Database. The database includes 2.3 million job listings, 30 million business profiles, 1.1 million healthcare professionals, and much more. Ideal for sales leads, mailing lists, market research, employment opportunities, finding friends and relatives, and much more!
FirstSearch/SILC
FirstSearch/SILC (Statewide Illinois Library Catalog) provides access to the combined holdings of OCLC member-libraries in Illinois, as well as a rich collection of reference databases including periodical indexes, MEDLINE, World Almanac, and WorldCat (the combined holdings of OCLC member-libraries worldwide).
Access to FirstSearch/SILC is provided by the Illinois State Library.
History Reference Center
Covering both U.S. and world history topics, History Reference Center features historical reference books, magazines, journals and thousands of primary sources documents.
Hobbies and Crafts Reference Center
How-tos and creative ideas in arts and crafts, collecting, home and garden, indoor recreation, kids' crafts, model building, needlecrafts and textiles, outdoor recreation, performing arts, science and technology, and scrapbooking and papercrafts.
Home Improvement Reference Center
Detailed, user-friendly how-to information covering a variety of home improvement and repair projects.
Literary Reference Center
A literary database covering all genres and timeframes. It includes thousands of synopses, critical essays, book reviews, literary journals and autobiographies, plus full-text classic novels, short stories and poems.
MasterFILE Complete
The largest collection of popular full-text magazines, reference books and other highly-regarded sources from the world's leading publishers. Covering virtually every general interest subject area, it also includes an extensive collection of photos, maps and flags.
Middle Search Plus
Database providing popular middle school magazines and reference books covering subjects such as history, current events, science and sports. Also includes thousands of biographies and primary source documents, plus over a million photos, maps and flags.
Primary Search
A database providing popular children's magazines, easy-to-read encyclopedic entries and a vast image collection. Students can learn about a variety of topics, including endangered species, famous musicians, fitness and space exploration.
Scholastic Go!
Scholastic GO! contains more than 115,000 articles covering every core-curriculum subject. The articles and their illustrations are derived from the content of seven Scholastic encyclopedia databases: Encyclopedia Americana, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, The New Book of Knowledge, America the Beautiful, Lands and Peoples, Amazing Animals of the World, and The New Book of Popular Science. Use the Search box for quick and easy access to a robust list of articles, images, Web Sites, and other content. On the search results page access dictionaries, world newspapers, maps and GoTube videos.
World Book
An encyclopedic database of more than 25,400 articles from the World Book Encyclopedia; 248,000 definitions of words from the World Book Dictionary; and a media database of audio, maps, panoramic photographs, videos and animations.