Gale’s Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) Workshop

I Introduction

Gale is one of the largest publishers of reference materials in the world. High school libraries were limited in the number reference materials to purchase each year due to the expense of these items, and a lack of shelf space to house these large collections. With the growth of the World Wide Web Gale has been able to digitize their reference works and offer them at a reduce cost to high school libraries. In 2008, GPHS started out with access to 24 GVRL reference works in our collection. Three years ago, we were able to purchase a high school collection of GVRL resources which expanded our collection to 340 reference databases. Most of these reference databases are award winning reference titles.

This afternoon we are going to explore our collection of GVRL reference databases and integrate these resources into one of your student research assignments.

You can access all our Premium Databases at GPHS through the LMC’s Online Resources link on the LMC home page.

Once you are on the Online Resources page, click on the Premium Databases to open the dropdown menu.

Your students may have to scroll down the page to locate our GVRL materials.

GVRL has seven short videos for showing students how this database works. Most of these videos are between 2 and 5 minutes in length, which is perfect for integrating them

into your research lessons. One of the most interesting videos of this database is the ability to translate articles into different languages. In addition, there are three handouts you or your students can print out in PDF format to help remember how to navigate these online reference materials.

II Searching a single reference database in GVRL

Once you have opened GVRL you can look for a single database by either scrolling through the various database collections we have available for students, or by clicking on the Collection’s category you want to explore. Today, I’m going to click on the Literature collection to see what reference sources are available in our LMC.

There are 22 literature databases in our collection. Most of these databases have multiple volumes inside each database. Today, let’s select American History Through Literature, 1870-1920.

Students can browse through the table of contents, the book index, list of illustrations, or view this database by volume. Or, on the right-hand side of the page students can use the search window to enter a specific search. Let’s search for articles about American History that include the influence of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain).

There are 71 articles on American History which include information about Samuel Clemens. In addition, you may narrow this search even further by using the limited search window to the right. For today, let’s select the article on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Students can change the format of this article by viewing it as an eBook, or they can listen to the article being read to them. In addition, like Gale’s Opposing ViewPoints database, there are many tools students can use. Students can cite the article for their reference page, e-mail, download, print, save, download as an MP3 file, or share this article with classmates. Also, they can highlight and take notes while reading the article, or even translate the article if English is their second language. Lastly, they can search for related subjects in this database.

Most teachers ask students to write a works cited or reference page for their research assignments, so let’s look at this tool. When students click on this tool they get a popup window over the article. Students can change the citation format (e.g. MLA 8th edition, MLA 7th edition, APA, etc.). They can either copy/paste the citation into their paper, or download the citation to their computer. They can even export the citation to several different online applications.

III Searching Within a Subject Collection of Databases

Students can also broaden their search by searching within an entire subject collection instead of a single database. Again, let’s select Literature but instead of selecting one database let’s search for Samuel Clemens with Literature.

Instead of 71 articles to choose form, students now have 118 articles to select to read. In addition, students can limit their search by changing the content level, document type, publication title, and subject. Please notice there are more articles about the works he wrote.