Research Resources
The following list of databases is a good place to get started with your research. Many of these are subscription resources paid for by the Sawyer Free Library, NOBLE, and the state of Massachusetts, and they offer more information than a Google search. If you don’t know where to start, ask one of our Information Service Librarians for assistance.
Need assistance using our online research resources? Ask a librarian for assistance via Ask a Librarian chat, call us at 978-325-5500, or email us at info@sawyerfreelibrary.org.
Reference | Arts, Humanities, & Culture | Business | Career | Genealogy | Grants | Health & Medicine | History | Newspapers & Periodicals | Readers’ Advisory | Science | Social Sciences
New Databases
Mango Language Learning (Arts, Humanities & Culture)
Learn real-life conversations with native-speaker audio and cultural context so that you can speak like a local. Over 70 language available as well as a downloadable app for easy practice.
LinkedIn Learning is an American massive open online course provider. It provides video courses taught by industry experts in software, creative, and business skills.
Foundation Directory Online (On-site Access Only)
Foundation Directory is a research tool to help nonprofits find grants from funders most likely to support their cause.
On-site access to FDO is permitted anytime the library is open and requires no login. It can be accessed directly through the link above on one of the public computers or by connecting to the Sawyer Free Library wi-fi network.
Reference
These research resources cover a wide range of topics and can be a great first step for locating articles and other information before jumping into a subject-specific database.
Peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world’s leading journals and reference sources. With extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and other subjects.
This resource offers full text for more than 2,000 journals, including more than 1,500 peer-reviewed titles. A multi-disciplinary database, Academic Search Elite covers virtually every area of academic study. (NOBLE cards only)
Offers reference materials for adults, as well as children. Included are a dictionary, thesaurus, videos, images, primary sources, and e-books.
Encyclopedias (English and Spanish)
Brittanica comprehensive encyclopedias with dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, and more.
Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia
This database provides over 25,000 encyclopedic entries covering a variety of subject areas.(NOBLE cards only)
Use this comprehensive periodical resource for any subject. Coverage goes back to 1980 with over 12,000 titles (7,800 full-text including The New York Times back to 1985).
For beginning researchers in Kindergarten through Grade 5. The curriculum-related, age appropriate, full-text content is from the best elementary reference sources and magazines.
More than 1,730 general reference publications such as Consumer Reports with full text information dating as far back as 1975. (NOBLE cards only)
Middle Search Plus & Primary Search
Popular magazines for middle and jr. high school research. All full text articles included in the database are assigned a reading level indicator (Lexiles), and full text information dates as far back as 1990. Includes biographies, primary source documents, photos, maps and flags. (NOBLE cards only)
Research Companion (new)
ProQuest Research Companion is ProQuest’s flagship information literacy product. It was built to help students do more effective scholarly research and to support educators as they teach the core information literacy principles of finding, evaluating, and using information.
An engaging cross-curricular, K-12 resource created for middle school assignment needs
Art, Humanities, & Culture
Includes major cooking and nutrition magazines, and culinary journals. Coverage includes thousands of searchable recipes, restaurant reviews, and industry information.
Find engaging explorations of cultural differences, contributions and influences.
Fine Arts and Music Collection
Wilson Art Index and RILM are among the resources in this collection.
Nearly 100 titles suit hobbyists and professional carpenters alike.
Gale Literature Resource Center is Gale’s most current, comprehensive, and reliable online literature resource, offering the broadest and most representative range of authors and their works, including a deep collection of full-text critical and literary analysis for literary studies.
Learn real-life conversations with native-speaker audio and cultural context so that you can speak like a local. Over 70 language available as well as a downloadable app for easy practice.
Full-text periodicals support coursework and general interests alike.
Religion and Philosophy Collection
Insightful content covers every category of religion and philosophy.
Business
Coverage includes accounting, marketing and management, plus business theory and practice.
The industry’s most used business research database, providing full text for more than 2,300 journals, including full text for more than 1,100 peer-reviewed titles. (NOBLE cards only)
Hospitality, Tourism & Leisure Collection
Find information on the history of the hospitality and tourism field, also. Study specialized aspects of the industry including cultural aspects of travel, leisure activities, economic aspects of tourism, and more.
Insurance and Liability Collection
Reliable information on labor relations, mortgages, legal issues and more.
Comprehensive full text coverage for regional business publications. Incorporates coverage of 75 business journals, newspapers and newswires from all metropolitan and rural areas within the United States. (NOBLE cards only)
Small Business Resource Center
Startups and established businesses alike can access How To’s covering vital questions.
Career
Career Transitions provides guidance and essential activities for job seekers and those investigating new careers options, including the college bound, enrolled students, and soon to be graduates and alumni. The site also contains specific tools for school, public, and academic libraries.
LinkedIn Learning is an American massive open online course provider. It provides video courses taught by industry experts in software, creative, and business skills.
Professional Development Collection
Designed for professional educators, this database provides a highly specialized collection of 520 high quality education journals, including nearly 350 peer-reviewed titles. This database also contains more than 200 educational reports. (NOBLE cards only)
Vocations & Careers Collection
Covers the college and job search and provides current and applicable content for all vocational milestones from nearly 400 journals. General career guides as well as highly specialized industry journals.
Genealogy
Ancestry Library Edition makes family research easy for beginners while still providing in-depth tools for even the most advanced genealogists. (In-library access only)
Fold3 is an Ancestry database that allows researchers to look for their military and veteran ancestors. (Gloucester cards only.)
Grants
Foundation Directory Online (On-site Access Only)
Search thousands of grantmakers, grants, and funding opportunities for projects and non-profit organizations.
Grants to Individuals (On-site Access Only)
Find funding opportunities and resources for individuals, including scholarships, fellowships, and more from nearly 10,000 grantmakers.
Health & Medicine
Health Reference Center Academic
Full text of nursing and allied health journals, plus the wide variety of personal health information sources.
Provides information on many health topics including the medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general health. (NOBLE cards only)
HealthSource: Nursing/Academic Edition
This database provides nearly 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. (NOBLE cards only)
Provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine. (NOBLE cards only)
All aspects of the Nursing profession–from direct patient care to health care administration–are covered in this collection.
History
Nearly a million biographical entries spanning history and geography. Search by name, occupation, Nationality, birth place, or death place.
This NewsBank database gives users access to the experience of African American life as recorded by the news media, from the early 1700s through modern times.
Military and Intelligence Database Collection
Journal content covers the past and current state of military affairs.
Comprehensive, contextual, media-rich search results from an extensive collection of historical information, including Primary Source Microfilm’s digital archives, Macmillan Reference USA, Charles Scribner’s Sons, and full-text periodicals and academic journals.
Periodicals for analysts, risk management professionals and students.
Offers students and researchers access to periodicals, reference works, and primary documents. Includes historical maps, atlases, and audio and video selections from NPR, archival newsreels, and more.
Newspapers & Periodicals
Full text from 1980-current. Includes published obituaries. Click here for a video tutorial on using The Boston Globe Online.
Consumer Reports (Newspapers & Periodicals)
Consumer Reports, formerly Consumers Union, is an American nonprofit consumer organization dedicated to independent product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-oriented research, public education, and consumer advocacy.
Full text of Gloucester Daily Times from 2009-2019. Limited articles from 2008 are available.
Search full-text articles by headline, date, newspaper section and more.
A periodical database designed for students in junior high and middle school with access to a variety of indexed and full-text magazines, newspapers and reference books for information on current events, the arts, science, popular culture, health, people, government, history, sports, and more.
Full-text of The New York Times, including the NYT Book Review and NYT magazine from 1985-current.
Cover-to-cover full text articles for 28 national (U.S.) & international newspapers; selected full text for more than 260 regional (U.S.) newspapers; and 20,000+ full text television and radio news transcripts. (NOBLE cards only)
An easy-to-use collection of over 7,000 international newspaper and magazine publications, including translations in 60+ languages. Enter your Sawyer Free Library credentials to enter and then select PressReader from the list of offerings. Access is authenticated for 24 hours, but can be renewed unlimited times.
Readers’ Advisory
A readers’ advisory database, Novelist Plus provides reviews, Author Read-alikes, What We’re Reading, Book Discussion Guides, BookTalks, Annotated Book Lists and much more for over 135,000 fiction and non-fiction titles. (NOBLE cards only)
NoveList K-8 Plus is a comprehensive reading resource for fiction and nonfiction. With its fun and intuitive interface, NoveList K-8 Plus will help you integrate reading across the curriculum and support your young readers. (NOBLE cards only)
Science
Nearly 200 titles provide broad coverage of agriculture and related fields.
Environmental Studies & Policy Collection
Includes magazines and academic journals, and provides instant access to multiple viewpoints, including perspectives from the scientific community, governmental policy makers, and corporate interests.
Gardening, Landscape & Horticulture Collection
Ideal for gardeners, landscape architects, farmers and biotechnologists, this collection of journals includes content relating to both the practical aspects as well as the scientific theory of horticulture studies.
Well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. (NOBLE cards only)
Science Database (new)
This database is a definitive resource for students studying both the applied and general sciences. With coverage dating back to 1986, ProQuest Science Journals features over 1030 titles, with more than 760 available in full text. Search over 2.7M records, dating back to the mid 1980s.
Information on hundreds of today’s most significant science topics.
Social Sciences
Communication and Mass Media Collection
Current, accurate information covers advertising, literature, linguistics and more.
Whether studying to become a lawyer or law enforcement officer, paralegal, or for a career in Homeland Security, this collection provides users with access to a variety of materials, including more than 700 journals.
Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC)
The Educational Resource Information Center contains more than 2,200 digests along with references for additional information and citations and abstracts from over 1,000 educational and education-related journals. (NOBLE cards only)
More than 450 full-text academic journals, hundreds of full-text reports, and many premier reference sources. Focuses on educational principles, child development and psychology, and best practices in education.
Balanced coverage of gender studies, feminism, family/marital issues, health, and more.
Offers international viewpoints on a broad spectrum of global issues, topics and current events.
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts
LISTA indexes more than 560 core journals, nearly 50 priority journals, and nearly 125 selective journals; plus books, research reports and proceedings. Subject coverage includes librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. (NOBLE cards only)
Opposing Viewpoints (new)
Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints is the premier online resource covering today’s hottest social issues, from capital punishment to immigration to marijuana. This cross-curricular resource supports science, social studies, current events, and language arts classes. Informed, differing views help learners develop critical-thinking skills and draw their own conclusions.
Find 24/7 access to 200 subject-appropriate full-text periodicals.
