Hidden Valley Middle School Databases Access and Usage Amy V. Cummings, Library Media Specialist

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!

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 InfoTrac OneFile. Hidden Valley Middle School Library, Roanoke. 3 Oct

Start out on the HVM site. Click the library link on the left.

This is the library’s page. Click the Reference Databases link.

Let’s look at World Book Online first.

Type your topic and click “go.”

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.

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

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!

Now let’s look at SIRS Discoverer. You can find magazines, newspaper, and reference books.

Type a topic in the search field or click one of the categories below.

Click the links at the top for the type of resource you need. Your sources! Click the title of the article to read it.

Click on the Find it Virginia Link for the Gale Databases, including InfoTrac.

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.

The databases at the bottom of the screen with a white background are not cross-searchable, but must be searched individually.

Let’s search the cross-searchable databases first. Uncheck the ones you don’t want to search, if any, then click submit.

Let’s search “pyramids of giza” as a an example.

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.

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.

Let’s look at the first magazine article found. It came from the Feb. 2, 2006 issue of Science Weekly magazine, pages 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!!

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 isn’t entirely in line with MLA. Your choice Use at your own risk.

Here’s what an article looks like, using the first article on pyramids as an example.

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: Military and Intelligence Database. Gale Group Databases. Hidden Valley Middle School Lib. 4 April 2006.

Go back to Find It Virginia and click the Biography Resource Center, which is located toward the bottom of the screen.

Type the name of the person that you want to research and then click “search.”

These are your results. Narrative and Thumbnail biographies are book sources. The others are magazines and suggested Websites. Let’s look at the first article.

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.

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, Biography Resource Center. Gale Group Databases. Hidden Valley Middle School Lib. 4 April 2006.

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.

For additional help, click the “Library Skills and Resources Link” from the library’s Web page.

From here you can see this PowerPoint presentation again, or download works cited and in-text citation handouts. Click on citation machine. It’s a handy resource to check you work with works cited entries.