Reference Works Online - Facts & Encyclopedias

To access Oakton Library Reference Works from an off-campus computer, click on a reference work title below and then use your Oakton username and password to login. Questions? Call (847) 635-1644.

* Automotive Repair Center

Step-by-step procedures and diagrams with more than 65,000 technical service bulletins & recalls, written specifically for the Do-It-Yourselfer but comprehensive enough for professional technicians, covering approximately 25,000 vehicles manufactured from 1954 to the present.

* Background Notes

This U.S. Department of State website includes facts about the land, people, history, government, political conditions, economy, and foreign relations of independent states, some dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty.

* Black Thought and Culture ASP

(on-campus computers only)Black Thought and Culture contains 1,297 sources with 1,098 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Includes interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material.

* Citation guides:

Guides to citing reference works.APA, MLA, MLA 2009, Turabian, Chicago Manual of Style

* Consumer Edition Health Source EBSCO

Provides information on many health topics including the medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general health. Health Source: Consumer Edition provides access to nearly 80 full text, consumer health magazines.

* CQ Contemporary Middle East Historic Documents

120 primary source documents covering the period 1917 to 2007.

* CQ Historic Documents

Each annual volume includes approximately 100 documents covering the most significant events of the years 1972 - 2008. These documents range from presidential speeches, international agreements, and Supreme Court decisions to U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions.

* Credo Reference - All Subjects Search

Contains dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, quotations and atlases, plus a wide range of subject-specific titles.

* Digital Sanborn Maps 1867-1970

Sanborn® fire insurance maps are detailed property and land-use records covering more than 12,000 U.S.towns and cities.

* Encyclopedia Britannica

Basic introduction to over 75,000 different topics, including encyclopedia articles, maps, news, definitions, and statistics. Includes a dictionary/thesaurus, (media (photographs and selected audio/video files), famous quotations, country profiles, selected websites and news articles.

* Encyclopaedia Judaica GVRL

More than 21,000 entries on Jewish life, culture, history, and religion, written by Israeli, American and European subject specialists.

* FactsonFile American History Online

Spans more than 500 years of political, military, social, and cultural history, highlighting the important people and events of the American experience.

* FactsonFile Ancient and Medieval History Online

Explores the pre-modern world with in-depth focus on Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

* FactsonFile Ferguson's Career Guidance Center

Provides detailed profiles of more than 3,300 jobs and 94 industries, invaluable advice on career skills, more than 55,000 resource entries.

* FactsonFile Health Reference Center

Provides clear and comprehensive information on conditions and diseases, health and wellness, mental health, and the human body.

* FactsonFile Modern World History Online

Covers the people, places, and events in the broad expanse of history—from mid-15th century to the present.

* FactsonFile Science Online

Presents a broad range of scientific disciplines through extensive definitions, essays, diagrams, biographies, and experiments.

* FactsonFile Portal

Links to the FactsonFile databases available at Oakton.

* FirstSearch World Almanacs

Contains Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, The World Almanac of the U.S.A., The World Almanac of U.S. Politics and The World Almanac for Kids

* Funk & Wagnall's New World Encyclopedia EBSCO

Database contains over 25,000 records with full text and various images in many subject areas.

* Gale Virtual Reference Library

eBook editions of Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Encyclopaedia Judaica, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, and International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.

* Grove Art Online Oxford

Includes Grove Art Online, Oxford Companion to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics and Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.

* Harper's Weekly

Online version of Harper's Weekly (1857-1912), the leading American illustrated magazine of its day, covering political, military, social, and cultural stories. May be browsed by date or literary genre; the full text is searchable by keywords.

* Health Source - Consumer Edition EBSCO

Provides a comprehensive resource for consumer-oriented health content designed to support the information needs of patients, and to foster an overall understanding of health-related topics.

* Historical Statistics United States

Data relates to the social, behavioral, humanistic, and natural sciences including history, economics, government, finance, sociology, demography, education, law, natural resources, climate, religion, international migration, and trade. Includes over 37,000 data series and statistics from more than 1,000 sources.

* LearningExpress Library

300+ practice tests covering ACT, SAT, GED, civil service, military, and professional licensing, certification practice tests.and more. Complete answer explanations and study suggestions. Login with your Oakton Library username and password at an on-campus computer, then use that username and password for on-campus and off-campus access to your account at "My Center."

* LexisNexis Academic

Provides full-text access to general, regional and international news, company news and financial information, legal information, and other topics such as biographical information.

* Literature Resource Center Gale

Critical and biographical information about more than 120,000 authors from the Classical period to the present. It provides several hundred thousand full text journal articles and other critical essays, thousands of plot summaries and links to authoritative Web sites, over 100,000 author biographies, several thousand author portraits, and the Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature.

* Novelist Plus EBSCO

Online readers' advisory tool that helps readers find new fiction and non-fiction titles based on books they've already read or topics in which they are interested. Readers can look for books about particular subjects, relationships, geographic areas, or periods of time. Book reviews are also available.

* Novelist Plus K-8 EBSCO

Identifies books appropriate for children's reading abilities and interests. Search by author, title, series, reading level, and plot to find descriptions, reviews, discussion guides, and related articles. Browse by genre and subgenre and by various awards given to children's literature.

* Occupational Outlook Handbook

is a source of career information published by the U.S. Department of Labor

* Oxford English Dictionary

A comprehensive dictionary of the English Language that stresses the historical origins of words.

* Oxford African American Studies Center

Primary documents, web sites, and maps. Material is compiled by Oxford University Press from their many reference works, such as Africana, Encyclopedia of African American History, various Oxford Companions, and the forthcoming African American National Biography.

* Oxford Islamic Studies

Includes the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, primary source documents, translations of the Qur'an,with links to an online version of A Concordance of the Qur’an by Hanna Kassis. Timelines covering major events in the Islamic world and images and maps are provided.

* Oxford Reference Collection

Over 150 basic reference sources, covering subjects such as art and architecture, biology, classics, computing, economics & business, environment, history, language, literature, law, medicine, mythology & folklore, performing arts, physics and math, politics, social sciences, religion & philosophy, and science in general.

* Sage Reference Collection

Provides full-text access to high quality reference works in many areas of the social sciences: anthropology, criminal justice, education, political science, psychology, public policy, and sociology.

* Saskia Art Images Collection

Contains 30,000 digital images of paintings, sculpture and architecture, as well as archaeological sites.

* Student Research Center

Search magazines, newspapers, biographies, country reports, dictionary, encyclopedia, films and videos by topic headings and limit searches by Lexile reading levels.

* WorldCat OCLC

Union catalog of more than 39 million records representing the electronic holdings of several thousand libraries.

* World Conflicts Today

Brings together volumes of news articles, primary sources, books, and opinion pieces generated by each conflict over the years.

* Women and Social Movements ASP

Includes books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies that document women's activism in American public life.

Updated 10/07/09