Britannica Online

Yesterday we held a "Back to school" night to help patrons become familiar with the databases our library purchases. One of those is the Encyclopedia Britannica Online and it is a great resource for quality information written by experts which offers neutral, unbiased perspectives - perfect for that school report.  This database is waaaaaay more than the encyclopedia that sits on the shelf - it is updated every day and contains magazine articles, recommended Internet links, videos and media, and many other features.

You can create your own "workspace" where you can actually write your reports or save information you've found. Teachers would like this function because they can share their workspace with students and students can share their work with the teacher.

There is a section on countries where you can find the latest statistics and demographics and a world atlas. The Classic Literature and Primary sources and e-books sections of the Encyclopedia have the whole content of books the teacher might require you to read and which we no longer keep on our shelves - it is a great place to find that hard to find book by some classic Greek guy like Lucius Apleius or Epictetus (yeah, maybe someday you'll want to read something by them).

The kids section of Britannica has lots of fun games and exercises to help you with math, language arts, science and social studies. Each day the student news is updated with the events of that day. Take some time to browse around in the encyclopedia, I'm sure you'll find there is a lot more there than you ever expected.

Susan