In this post:
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What is this database?
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Where can I find it?
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How do I access and use it?
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Usage examples
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Additional features: Topic Finder and Dictionary
What is the Gale Virtual Reference Library?
High-quality specialized encyclopedias and other reference sources are available online from the library or remotely 24/7. Browse collections of sources for arts, business, education, history, literature, multicultural studies and more.
Where can I find it?
All our databases are listed alphabetically at https://www.tulsalibrary.org/research/databases. This full list is helpful if you want to browse our database offerings. If you know the name of the database you want to use, you can select the corresponding letter of the alphabet; you’ll be taken to a page with available databases matching that letter.
How do I access this database?
You will be asked to log in with your last name and TCCL card number. If you don’t have a TCCL card, you can sign up for one here.
How do I use it?
There are essentially two ways to explore what this database has to offer. The first is browsing the collections listed on the left side or middle of the page after you log in. Once you select a title, you’ll be taken to the Table of Contents. There you can learn more about the book, scroll through its contents and index, or look for a keyword or phrase by using the Search Within Publication feature in the top right.
Alternately, you can search for a keyword or phrase from the homepage, before selecting a specific title. The search results will pull relevant articles from various publications available in the database.
Read on to see some examples of how to navigate this database!
Upon entering the U.S. holiday season, we wanted to find and share information about other holidays celebrated around the world this month. Looking at the collection options from the left side menu, we selected Nation and World:
From there, we browsed the listings and chose “Holidays Around the World.” Once in that publication, we could search for a holiday or even a date to find relevant holiday celebrations. Selecting the relevant search result will show the full excerpt and offer tools such as citing the article, getting a shareable link or even making highlights and taking notes.
Now let’s say we wanted information about a notable person. Each month, TCCL celebrates authors and their literary contributions. In honor of Pearl Cleage’s birthday in the first week of December, let’s learn more about her! We’ll simply search for her name from the Gale Virtual Reference Library homepage. The search results concisely show helpful information about the relevant articles such as the editor and/or author(s), which publication the selection is from, the year of publication, the number of pages of the excerpt and whichever category the publication belongs to in the database.
Another great database feature is the Topic Finder. This tool takes the titles, subjects, and approximately the first 100 words from a subset of your top results and feeds them into an algorithm. Keywords shown in the graphics are those found most often in the text with your search term.
The topic for “Illinois” might bring up expected connections from the text like “Chicago,” along with unexpected but commonly related terms like “water,” “steel,” and the names of people who appear frequently in documents about Illinois.
To use the Topic Finder, you’ll need to enter a search term first. Let’s us “holiday” as an example. Searching for that word from the database homepage yields results, with the Topic Finder option appearing on the right-hand side:
Clicking on Start the Topic Finder will use your pre-existing search word to create a topic tile and wheel. Then you can click on the tiles or wheel categories to pull up search results on the right side of the page. Check out the “holiday” Topic Finder results below:
Anything else I should know?
There’s a dictionary! Simply scroll to the bottom of the page to find it.
