Reference materials are a great place to find background information on your topic as well as concise facts, statistics, definitions and an overview of your topic.
Formally called "Gale Virtual Reference Library." Ebooks, subject-specific encyclopedias, biographies, and contemporary topics organized into a variety of subjects including business, education, environment, medicine, mythology, science, and technology. Easy to search. Citations provided.
Over 3 million articles from dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, quotation sources and atlases. Articles are often very short. “Mind Maps” help with topic exploration. Includes video content.
If you know you prefer to hold a book in your hands (not view pages on a screen), use the Catalog search. While there may be some reference titles among your search results, you can limit results to General collection titles that you can check out of the Library.
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You can visit the shelves just to browse, too! Find the call number and location to browse the Reference, General, and/or Media collections. |
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Using One Search will identify much more than books, but you can limit results to Books/ebooks (and if you prefer ebooks only, limit again to Fully Available Online).
Not all books are made alike! Just as there are different types of articles, books provide a variety of depth and coverage of a topic.
General vs. Reference
Books in the General collection (including ebooks) cover a wide range of subjects and typically provide great detail (though some titles are intended to provide overviews). Depending on the author, the content can range from scholarly analysis to general discussion. These are works that the author intends for you to read to cover to cover (ideally - but for research, not so much).
Reference books contain information we refer to for specific portions rather than for reading in entirety. They include factual information in broad summaries or as overviews as well as introduce specialized terms or vocabulary specific to a field or area of study. Reference books are available in the library or online in Gale eBooks.
If you prefer an e-book search EBSCO e-Books Academic Collection.
A vast collection of online books covering a wide range of topics including children’s and adult fiction, non-fiction, biographies, business, computer science, cooking, crafts, education, engineering, humor, law, literature and criticism, law, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, religion, science, self-help, social sciences, sports and games, study aids, language learning, travel, true crime. Citations provided.
Formally called "Gale Virtual Reference Library." Ebooks, subject-specific encyclopedias, biographies, and contemporary topics organized into a variety of subjects including business, education, environment, medicine, mythology, science, and technology. Easy to search. Citations provided.