DPS+Digital+Research+Tools

** The Dirty Dozen of Research ** Google Embedded Research Tool Last summer, Google sneaked a new tool in to Google Documents that is totally awesome. It allows students (or anyone) to perform searches for web resources, images, quotes, and scholarly articles from within the document — and then it cites the sources with a click of a button!

DPS LION DataBases LION (Library Information On the Net) is the interface for DPS school and central libraries print and digital resources. Online databases contain information which has been organized into a specific subjects or types. They are generally premium materials for which Library Services has paid a subscription fee. They contain information not generally accessible on the public Internet. They are available at school and for home use by DPS students and staff.

iSEEK A 2009 Codi Award Finalist, iSeek is a great search engine for students, teachers and administrators. Simply ask a question or enter search topics or tools and iSEEK will pull from scholastic sources to find exactly what you are looking for. The search engine is safe, intelligent and time–saving—and it draws from trusted resources from universities, government and established non–commercial sites.

Google Book Search In this day and age everything is online—even books. Google Book Search allows web users to peruse though an index of thousands of books, from popular titles to old, to find pages that include your search terms. Once you find the book you are looking for, you can browse through pages, find online reviews and learn where you can get a hard copy. From bibliographies to lesson plans, the pool of thousands of books can help students and teachers reach their educational goals.

Google Custom Search Engine It’s no secret that Google is always one step ahead—and this holds true for their custom search engine tool. Google Custom Search Engine is a research tool where users can create a customized search to probe across specified sites. All you need to do is select the websites and pages you'd like to search from—then Google will do the dirty work. The ability to narrow down the pool of sources can really help students and teachers work efficiently on the web.

Google Scholar Last Google application, I swear! Google Scholar was created as a tool to congregate scholarly literature on the web. From one place, students have the ability to hunt for peer–reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.

Federal Resources for Academic Excellence Created in the late 90s by the U.S. Federal Government, the Federal Resources for Academic Excellence (FREE) makes it easier to find teaching and learning resources. More than 1,500 federally supported resources are hosted on this search engine on topics including: arts & music, health & physical education, language arts, math and U.S. History.

Virtual Learning Resources Center Virtual Learning Resources Center (VLRC) is an online index that hosts thousands of scholarly websites, all of which are selected by teachers and librarians from around the globe. The site provides students and teachers with current, valid information for school and university academic projects using an index of more than 10,000 web pages gathered from research portals, universities and library Internet subject guides recommended by teachers and librarians. Areas represented in this search engine include : full–text magazines, newspapers, electronic text archives, art history, biography, biology, career information, psychology, history, government information, literature, medicine, social sciences, legislation, art, crime, history, economics, education, writing, foreign languages, geography, genealogy, government, literature, mathematics, music, science and technology.

American Memory History majors: take not of this search engine. American Memory is a gateway to the Library of Congress’s database of more than nine million digitized documents, sound recordings, images, maps, and other American primary sources. This free and open access site includes sound recordings, images, prints, maps and articles that document United States history and culture. This search engine is the go–to source for American history.

Noodle Tools Noodle Tools is a service that helps students find references for papers or projects. Users can choose the best search for your information need based on an analysis of your topic or sift through the database of how–to articles. This site is widely used among college institutions, as it provides not only an all–inclusive search functionality, but also a citation generator for bibliographies in MLA, APA, or Chicago style.

WorldCat Instead of sifting through hundreds of books at the library, just pop in front of your laptop and navigate to WorldCat—a site where you search many libraries at once for an item and then locate it in a library nearby. Whether it’s popular books, music and videos—WorldCat will help you locate the materials for your next paper or project. You can also discover many new kinds of digital content, such as downloadable audiobooks. You may also find article citations with links to full text, authoritative research materials and digital versions of rare items that aren't available to the public.

Librarians' Internet Index A librarian's forte is research—and this search engine has channeled their expertise to a site called Librarians Internet Index. The search engine is a well–annotated directory of web resources hand–picked by librarians. It has over 20,000 records representing high–quality websites from topics ranging from technology to social science.