Hidden Valley Middle School Databases

1
Hidden Valley Middle SchoolDatabases

• Access and Usage
• Amy V. Cummings, Library Media Specialist

2
Very important

• If you find magazine, newspaper, reference book,
  and encyclopedia articles from databases, you
  should cite them as you would the print versions.

• However, in your works cited entry, you must also
  give credit to the database that you used to find
  each article.
• The databases are not your sources of
  information. Your sources of information are the
  articles that the databases helped you find!

3
For example, this is how you would cite a
magazine article from the InfoTrac OneFile
Database.

• Somini, Sengupta. After New Talks, India Says it
  May Pull Troops from
• Kashmir. The New York Times. 6 Sept. 2005.
  InfoTrac OneFile.
• Hidden Valley Middle School Library, Roanoke.
  3 Oct.
• 2005 lthttp//web1.infotrac.galegroup.com/gt.

4
Start out on the HVM site.Click the library link
on the left.
5
This is the librarys page. Click the Reference
Databases link.
6
Lets look at World Book Online first.
7
Type your topic and click go.
8
The encyclopedia articles always show up first.
Usually the first hit is the one that most
closely matches what you typed in. Click the
title of the article in blue to read it.
9
The article takes more than one screen, so you
will have to click the parts of the article on
the left to see the whole thing.
The parts of the article
10
Scroll to the bottom of any page to see how to
cite it, or click the link on the left.
This is your works cited entry!
11
Now lets look at SIRS Discoverer. You can find
magazines, newspaper, and reference books.
12
Type a topic in the search field or click one of
the categories below.
13
Click the links at the top for the type of
resource you need.
Your sources!
Click the title of the article to read it.
14
Click on the Find it Virginia Link for the Gale
Databases, including InfoTrac.
15
The databases at the top of the screen with a
green background are cross-searchable. Click the
submit button to search the ones with a check in
the box to the left.
16
The databases at the bottom of the screen with a
white background are not cross-searchable, but
must be searched individually.
17
Lets search the cross-searchable databases
first. Uncheck the ones you dont want to search,
if any, then click submit.
18
Lets search pyramids of giza as a an example.
19
It is typical to get a screen that looks like
this sometimes instead of going directly to your
results. It just wants you to narrow your search.
Follow the links for your results.
20
Notice the tabs across the top of the screen show
what types of resources were found. If there had
been any reference books available, that tab
would have been blue too.
21
Lets look at the first magazine article found.
It came from the Feb. 2, 2006 issue of Science
Weekly magazine, pages 1-12. No author is listed.
It came from the Military and Intelligence
Database, which is one of the databases from Gale
we cross-searched.
You need that information to make your works
cited entry!!
22
With most articles you have the option of reading
the browser version or the pdf (scans of the
actual pages in the magazine). Beware of the how
to cite link it isnt entirely in line with MLA.
Use at your own risk.
Your choice
23
Heres what an article looks like, using the
first article on pyramids as an example.
24
The works cited entry for this article would look
like this. The part in red is what must be added
because the article was from a database.

• Pyramids. Science Weekly 2 Feb. 2006 1-12.
  Military and
• Intelligence Database. Gale Group Databases.
• Hidden Valley Middle School Lib. 4 April 2006
• lthttp//www.infotrac.galegroup.comgt.

25
Go back to Find It Virginia and click the
Biography Resource Center, which is located
toward the bottom of the screen.
26
Type the name of the person that you want to
research and then click search.
27
These are your results. Narrative and Thumbnail
biographies are book sources. The others are
magazines and suggested Websites.
Lets look at the first article.
28
This is the digital version from a hardcover
book, Contemporary Authors. Note that no author
is listed for this article, nor are the pages on
which the article appeared in the book. If they
were listed, you would have to include them.
29
The works cited entry for this article would look
like this. The part in red is what must be added
because the article was from a database.

• Langston Hughes. Contemporary Authors.
  Farmington
• Hills, MI Gale, 2006. Biography Resource
  Center.
• Gale Group Databases. Hidden Valley Middle
• School Lib. 4 April 2006
• lthttp//www.infotrac.galegroup.comgt.

30
Sirs Knowledge Source, Sirs Discover, and
eLibrary are other databases that you may try.
ProQuest is the database service that owns them.
ProQuest Databases for finding magazines,
newspapers, and reference materials.
31
For additional help, click the Library Skills
and Resources Link from the librarys Web page.
32
From here you can see this PowerPoint
presentation again, or download works cited and
in-text citation handouts. Click on citation
machine. Its a handy resource to check you work
with works cited entries.