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Reference Databases by Subject

General/Interdisciplinary

Biographies

  • Gale in Context: Biography – information about notable people, both contemporary and historical, from a wide range of sources, such as biographical dictionaries, magazines, newspapers, and academic journals.
  • Biography Reference Bank (information about notable people from periodical articles and biographical dictionaries)
  • Current Biography Illustrated (focuses on information about celebrities)

Business

Education

  • LearningExpress Library (guides to professional certification exams such as Praxis as well as graduate school entrance exams such as the GRE, MCAT, LSAT)
  • StudySC (supports South Carolina-specific curriculum standards) Reference Sources for K-12 Students

Hispanic Studies

History

  • African-American History – a multimedia database made up of articles from reference works and newswires, as well as primary sources, images, and videos.
  • History Reference Center (a multimedia resource that includes reference sources, academic journals, primary historical documents, and videos)

Literature

  • Bloom’s Literature (information on literature primarily from high school textbooks and academic books)
  • Gale Literary Sources (a database covering mostly (but not exclusively) English-language literature and comprising all sorts of resources, including reference works, academic journals, book reviewing magazines, and even full-length monographs)
  • Literary Reference Center (an eclectic database comprising literary criticism, author biographies, plot summaries, and even complete classic works of literature)
  • NoveList Plus (recommends novels based on user-selected criteria)
  • Oxford English Dictionary (traces the historical development of English-language words)
  • Poetry for Students (analyses of the themes, images, and structures of well-known poems)
  • Short Stories for Students (analyses of the plots, themes, characters, and cultural/historical contributions of well-known short stories)
  • Writer’s Reference Center

Music

Politics

Science

  • Science Reference Center (science encyclopedias, reference books, and periodicals)
  • Science.gov (scientific information generated by federal government agencies such as the EPA, the National Library of Medicine, and NASA)

South Carolina

  • SCIWAY (web sites providing information on South Carolina)