Databases A-Z
Unless otherwise noted all resources can be accessed from
home with a Public Library card.
Academic Search Premier (EBSCO) Abstracts and full text articles
from thousands of academic and peer-reviewed publications.
AccessScience An authoritative and dynamic online resource that contains incisively written, high-quality reference material that covers all major scientific disciplines. An award-winning gateway to scientific knowledge, it offers links to primary research material, videos and exclusive animations, plus specially designed curriculum maps for teachers.
Alabama Coal Mine Fatalities, 1898 - 1938 consists of 2188
records compiled by the staff of Birmingham Public Library's
Government Documents Department using available annual reports of
Alabama mine inspectors from 1898 through 1938.
Alabama
Decorative Arts Survey This database contains digitized images
of the Decorative Arts Survey photographs and survey sheets.
Alabama Episcopal
Church Registers The Alabama Episcopal Church Registers database lists confirmations, baptisms, marriages and burials for more than 14,000 people in sixteen Alabama parishes for the period of the 1830s to the 1970s.
Alabama Inventors Database Includes inventors who lived in
Alabama at the time they received their patents from the United
States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The Government Documents
Department of the Birmingham Public Library compiles these records
and updates the database on an ongoing basis.
Alabama Legal Forms
Take the law into your own hands and create accurate, reliable legal documents with no hassle with Gale LegalForms. It offers Alabama-specific
"attorney forms" – officially approved forms actually used by law firms. Many of the forms and documents are available in Word and Adobe format so you just need to simply
"fill in the blanks."
Alabama Mosaic
Repository of digital materials on Alabama's history, culture,
places, and people. Its purpose is to make unique historical
treasures from Alabama's archives, libraries, museums, and other
repositories electronically accessible to Alabama residents and to
students, researchers, and the general public in other states and
countries.
Alt HealthWatch (EBSCO) Focuses on the many
perspectives of complementary, holistic and integrated approaches to
health care and wellness, offering full-text articles for more than
180 international, and often peer-reviewed journals and reports.
Ancestry (available only inside the library)
In celebration of Alabama's bicentennial, Ancestry Library
Edition (ALE) is now available for use at all Alabama public
libraries. This puts billions of genealogical resources at the
fingertips of any Alabama resident with a library card.
Birmingham
Black Barons One of the most successful baseball teams in the
Negro Leagues, played from the 1920's until the 1950's. The team
played their home games at Rickwood Field. This database is a
keyword index to articles that appeared in local newspapers
including the Birmingham News, the Birmingham World and the
Birmingham Reporter. The Government Documents Department of the
Birmingham Public Library is compiling this database which is being
updated regularly.
Black Freedom
Struggle in the United States This website presents primary source documents from several of the time periods in American History when the river of the Black Freedom Struggle ran more powerfully, while not losing sight of the fierce, often violent opposition that Black people have faced on the road to freedom.
This website contains approximately 1,600 documents focused on six different phases of Black Freedom:
Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860),
The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877),
Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932),
The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945),
The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975), and
The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)
Book Collection: Nonfiction (EBSCO)
A rich research database for public libraries, it contains
informative abstracts and full text for more than 2,000 popular
nonfiction books. The database includes full text entries on social
studies and science, as well as information on careers, health,
sports, adventure, and technology.
Britannica
E-Books Over 325 Britannica e-books on subjects like
biographies, geography, government, history, literature, math,
philosophy, science, and sports.
Britannica Academic Edition Encyclopædia Britannica Online
includes the complete encyclopedia, as well as Merriam-Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, Britannica Student Encyclopedia
and the Britannica Book of the Year. Through this service, you can
find more than 118,000 articles, updated and revised by Encyclopædia
Britannica editors and contributors; over 14,000 illustrations,
including photographs, drawings, maps, and flags; and more than
215,000 entries--including definitions, pronunciation guides, and
word histories.
Britannica Public Library Edition Includes two unique home pages
-- one for children and another for adults -- that will serve an
entire library community with a single product. Britannica Online
Public Library Edition contains 4 full encyclopedias, the
Encyclopædia Britannica, Compton’s by Britannica, Britannica
Elementary Encyclopedia, and Britannica Concise Encyclopedia each
covering the research needs of a different age group. Along with
this encyclopedia content, Public Library Edition contains full-text
magazine articles, Web sites that have been reviewed and verified by
Britannica editors, a homework help section for students, a world
atlas, Merriam-Webster dictionaries and thesauri for children and
adults, a Spanish-English dictionary, video and audio content, daily
content updates, and more. Audience: general public.
Britannica School Edition Offers teachers and students access to
three complete encyclopedias, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the
Britannica Student Encyclopedia and the Britannica Elementary
Encyclopedia that ensure consistency with classroom-topics and
age-appropriate language. Teacher and student tools are also
included such as video, media, journals, magazines, interactive
activity guides, lesson plans, an Internet guide and downloadable
student activities. The School Edition has 118,000 articles, 22,000
images, 2,000 video clips, 24,000 biographies and detailed maps of
196 countries. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus and
Spotlight features are also a part of this resource.
Business Collection Provides coverage of all business
disciplines, including accounting, economics, finance, marketing,
management and strategy, as well as business theory and practice.
Users will understand the activities of companies and industries
worldwide through business and trade publications, complemented by a
selection of international, U.S., and regional news publications.
Business Index Management issues, economic indicators, business
theories and practices, activities of companies and industries
worldwide. Full-text articles, images, and citations from academic
journals and trade magazines.
Business Insights: Essentials Company profiles, brand
information, rankings, investment reports, histories, chronologies.
Detailed news and information on companies and industry.
Business Source Premier (EBSCO) Provides full
text for more than 2,300 business-related journals, including full
text for more than 1,100 peer-reviewed titles, and is updated daily.
Chilton Library The world's most comprehensive and trusted
automotive repair database with easy-to-follow, step-by-step
repair guidance on thousands of cars and trucks from 1940 to the
present.
Civil Rights Digital Library
Promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users
discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries,
archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale.
Duolingo Free science-based language education platform.
Digital Collections
Birmingham Public Library's Digital Collections were created to
preserve and make available the local history of Birmingham and the
surrounding area. These resources may help students, teachers,
genealogists, historians and interested citizens learn more about
the history of Birmingham, Alabama.
DigitalLearn.org is a
collection of self-directed tutorials for end-users to increase their
digital literacy. Feedback from public library staff directed PLA to
develop courses on the most basic skills, such as using a computer,
navigating a web site, and searching. Modules are video-based with
narration, 6 to 22 minutes long, written at the 4th grade reading level,
and help learners practice skills like using a mouse and setting up
passwords. Nearly all modules are available in Spanish as well as
English.
EBSCOhost Full text articles, abstracts, and citations from
magazines, newspapers, academic and professional journals, trade
publications, reference works, travel guides, ERIC(r) the
Educational Resource Information Center, etc. Daily news updates.
General reference, current events, business, consumer health,
general science, and multi-cultural periodicals. Images and maps.
Electric Library Full text from popular magazines, reference books,
travel guides, newspapers, and broadcast transcripts. Find topics,
pictures, and maps by subject. Many options for sorting results
include relevance, date, reading level. Has a "go to best part"
feature.
Encyclopedia of
Alabama An ever-growing, comprehensive source of information on
Alabama's history, culture, geography, and environment.
ERIC Educational Resource Information Center. Full text of more
than 2,200 digests. Citations and abstracts from over 980
educational and education-related journals.
Ethnic NewsWatch Information about ethnic groups in articles,
editorials, and reviews. Newspapers, magazines and journals of the
ethnic and minority press.
First Search (OCLC) Worldwide library catalog identifies
libraries that own items searched. Comprehensive reference
service available only though libraries. Databases, links to the
World Wide Web, over 10 million online full-text articles,
full-image articles from over 4,000 Children.
Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia This database provides
over 25,000 encyclopedic entries covering a variety of subject
areas.
Gale In Context: Elementary Meets the research needs of students in
Kindergarten through Grade 5. It features a developmentally
appropriate, visually graphic interface, a subject-based topic tree
search and full-text, age-appropriate, curriculum-related magazine,
newspaper and reference content for information on current events,
the arts, science, health, people, government, history, sports and
more.
Gale Virtual Reference Library Gale Virtual Reference Library
delivers a wealth of eBook reference content in a database format,
allowing libraries to choose exactly which titles to make available
to their patrons. The sources that Gale Virtual Reference Library
offers in eBook format include multi-volume encyclopedias,
biographical collections, business plan handbooks, company history
compilations, consumer health references, and specialized reference
sources. Subjects covered include Arts, Biography, Business,
Education, Environment, History, Law, Literature, Medicine,
Multicultural Studies, Nation and World, Religion, Science, and
Social Science.
General OneFile Millions of full-text magazine articles on
business, computers, current events, economics, education,
environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law,
literature, art, politics, science, social science, sports,
technology, etc. Images.
GreenFILE offers well-researched information covering all
aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of
scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content
on the environmental effects of individuals, corporations and
local/national governments, and what can be done at each level to
minimize these effects. Multidisciplinary by nature, GreenFILE draws
on the connections between the environment and a variety of
disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and
technology. Topics covered include global climate change, green
building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy,
recycling, and more. The database provides indexing and abstracts
for approximately 384,000 records, as well as Open Access full text
for more than 4,700 records. Audience: high school through college,
general public.
Health InfoNet of Alabama
is a free, award-winning consumer health information service of the
Alabama public and medical libraries.
Health Source: Consumer Edition Richest collection of consumer
health information available to libraries worldwide, providing
information on many health topics including the medical sciences,
food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general
health. Health Source: Consumer Edition features searchable full
text for nearly 150 journals. This database is updated on a daily
basis.
Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition Provides nearly 550
scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines.
Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition also features abstracts and
indexing for nearly 850 journals. This database is updated on a
daily basis.
History Reference Source Features cover-to-cover full text for
more than 650 historical encyclopedias and other non-fiction books.
The database also includes full text for nearly 60 leading history
periodicals; 58,000 historical documents; 43,000 biographies of
historical figures; more than 12,000 historical photos and maps; and
87 hours of historical film and video.
Homework Alabama Alabama's Free Live Online Homework Help
Service: HomeworkAlabama.org. This service offers free homework help
from subject specialists. Available Everyday from 3 p.m. until
Midnight! Free Tutoring - Math - Science - Social Studies - English,
Grades 4-12 and College Intro. HomeworkAlabama.org is provided free
of charge to all residents of Alabama by APLS (the State Library of
Alabama) and your local Public Library with a Library Services and
Technology Act grant from the Institute of Museum and Library
Services.
Image Collection via MasterFILE Premier an Image Collection
of 592,000 photos, maps & flags
¡Informe! (Revistas en Español)
Spanish magazine articles. Searchable in Spanish. Some articles in
English. Current events, business, health, technology, culture, etc.
Jefferson County
Probate Court, Loose Records (1852-1936) An Index for Boxes
1-637 (Birmingham) and Bessemer - 1916-1936. The microfilmed "loose
records" are located in the Jefferson County Courthouse. Records
that were not filmed can be accessed only through the Records Room
of the Probate Court in Birmingham, AL. The Birmingham Public
Library does not have this set of microfilm.
Kids Search This new interface is designed to offer elementary
school students an easy-to-use and graphically appealing search
experience, including improved functionality over Searchasaurus and
Primary Search. It features better relevancy ranking, topic
searching and access to a wide variety of source types. The Basic
Search screen highlights Topics rather than Source Types, and
includes the ability to search Images or Images/Videos, from the
toolbar.
LearningExpressLibrary Skill-building and test preparation
materials for standardized tests. Interactive practice exams based
on official exams. Scoring and analysis of practice test responses.
Basic skills, college preparatory, civil service, GED, and some
specific careers.
Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA)
indexes more than 600 periodicals, plus books, research reports and
proceedings.
Literary Sources Users will be able to cross-search
Literature Resource Center, LitFinder, Contemporary Authors,
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Literature Criticism, Twayne's
Authors, and Scribner Writers.
Literature Resource Center Includes Contemporary Authors
--Scribner's Writers Series --Twayne's Authors Series Biographies,
bibliographies, and critical analysis of more than 120,000 literary
figures from all time periods in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama,
history, journalism, etc. Full-text, excerpted, and commissioned
essays. Explanations and overviews of prominent literary works.
Links to about 5,000 Web sites on major authors and their works.
Timeline placing literature within historical context. 2,300 author
portraits. Search by author, title, genre, literary movement or
theme.
Live
Homework Help Alabama's Free Live Online Homework Help Service:
HomeworkAlabama.org. This service offers free homework help from
subject specialists. Available Everyday from 3 p.m. until Midnight!
Free Tutoring - Math - Science - Social Studies - English, Grades
4-12 and College Intro. HomeworkAlabama.org is provided free of
charge to all residents of Alabama by APLS (the State Library of
Alabama) and your local Public Library with a Library Services and
Technology Act grant from the Institute of Museum and Library
Services.
Magazines Enjoy magazines, ebooks, and audiobooks all in one place; OverDrive is excited to offer OverDrive Magazines, over 4,000 popular titles supplied in partnership with ZINIO and available to read in Libby!
OverDrive Magazines have no circulation cap and allow unlimited simultaneous use, so patrons can enjoy every issue of every magazine. With smart tags in Libby, patrons can be notified when each new issue is released.
MasterFILE Premier Supports the general reference questions of
public library users; indexes 2,780 journals, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal; full text for over 1,840 journals,
including Consumer Reports and Business Week nearly 5,000 Magill's
Book Reviews, and Essential Documents in American History.
MedlinePlus Extensive
information from the National Institutes of Health and other trusted
sources on over 650 diseases and conditions.
Merck Manuals First
published in 1899 as a small reference book for physicians and
pharmacists, the Manual grew in size and scope to become one of the most
widely used comprehensive medical resources for professionals and
consumers. As the Manual evolved, it continually expanded the reach and
depth of its offerings to reflect the mission of providing the best
medical information of the day to a wide cross-section of users,
including medical professionals and students, veterinarians and
veterinary students, and consumers.
Merriam-Webster Online For more
than 150 years, in print and now online, Merriam-Webster has been
America's leading and most-trusted provider of language information.
Military & Government Collection Full text from over 330
military and general interest publications; current news for all
branches of the military; includes Military Review, Parameters, Army
Times, and Defense.
Newspaper Source Selected full text for over 200 regional U.S.
newspapers, international newspapers, newswires, newspaper columns
and other sources as well as indexing and abstracts for national
newspapers. This database is updated daily. Audience: middle school
through college, general public.
Oak Hill Memorial
Cemetery Interments In 1871 the City of Birmingham purchased
from the Elyton Land Company 21.5 acres of land for a city cemetery
(later named Oak Hill). The deed was issued December 29, 1873. As
the first city cemetery, Oak Hill became the resting place for
virtually all of the Birmingham pioneers. Although the majority of
burials at Oak Hill Cemetery date back before the 1930's, it remains
an active cemetery, averaging fifteen burials per year.
Obituary Index
: Birmingham Area Newspapers Ongoing project of the Government
Documents Department of the Birmingham Public Library. Obituaries
from three Birmingham area newspapers are included: Birmingham News
Birmingham World Methodist Christian Advocate.
Occupational Outlook Handbook
The premier source for career information! The profiles featured
here cover hundreds of occupations and describe What They Do, Work
Environment, How to Become One, Pay, and more. Each profile also
includes BLS employment projections for the 2010–20 decade.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context Draws on the acclaimed social
issues series published by Greenhaven Press, as well as core
reference content from other Gale and Macmillan Reference USA
sources to provide a complete one-stop source for information on
social issues. Access viewpoint articles, topic overviews,
statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text
magazine and newspaper articles.
Oxford
English Dictionary Accepted authority on the evolution of the
English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed
guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a
million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words
through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international
English language sources, from classic literature and specialist
periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. The OED covers words
from across the English-speaking world, from North America to South
Africa, from Australia and New Zealand to the Caribbean. It also
offers the best in etymological analysis and in listing of variant
spellings, and it shows pronunciation using the International
Phonetic Alphabet.
Oxford Reference Brings together language and subject reference
works from one of the world's biggest reference publishers into a
single cross-searchable resource. The Core Collection contains over
100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works
published by Oxford University Press. It is a fully-indexed,
cross-searchable database of these books, giving subscribers
unprecedented access to a comprehensive information resource. The
Premium Collection offers all of the above, plus added functionality
and more detailed information across a broad subject range from
titles in the world-renowned Oxford Companions Series, to enhance
the coverage already provided by the award-winning Core Collection.
Pebble Go PebbleGo Animals & Science from Capstone
includes more than 200 animal articles, correlated to
science standards, educational games, audio and video,
and has read-aloud capabilities
Points of View Reference Source Provides students and schools
with a series of controversial essays presents multiple sides of a
current issue designed to provide students and schools with a series
of controversial essays. Essays provide questions and materials for
further thought and study.
Power Search (Thomson Gale) A super-powered search engine
featuring innovative cross-searching capabilities, users can access
all the Thomson Gale content in the library's collection by
exploring one, several or all available databases simultaneously.
Pronunciator is a fun and free way to learn any of 87 languages with self-directed lessons, live teachers, movies, music, and more.
Professional Development Collection
Designed for professional educators, this database provides a highly
specialized collection of nearly 520 high quality education
journals, including more than 350 peer-reviewed titles. This
database also contains more than 200 educational reports. It is the
most comprehensive collection of full text education journals in the
world.
PubMed
comprises more than 26 million citations for biomedical
literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central
and publisher web sites.
Red
Mountain Cemetery, Records of Interments, 1888-1906 Red Mountain
Cemetery, sometimes called Southside Cemetery, was used by the City
of Birmingham from 1888 to 1906 as a place to bury the indigent
dead. The cemetery contains 4,711 burials and was located south of
the city on the site that is now Lane Park and the Birmingham Zoo.
The graves were not removed, but decades after the cemetery ceased
to be used, the park and zoo were built over the graves.
Reference USA Leading provider in business and consumer
research. It helps users create marketing plans, conduct competitive
analysis, raise funds and location people. Its quality information
helps researchers, students and job seekers answer a wide variety of
questions and saves them valuable time and money.
Regional Business News Provides comprehensive full text coverage
for regional business publications. Regional Business News
incorporates coverage of 75 business journals, newspapers and
newswires from all metropolitan and rural areas within the United
States. This database is updated on a daily basis.
Sanborn
Maps The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Online Checklist from the
Library of Congress provides a searchable database of the fire
insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company housed in the
collections of the Geography and Map Division. The online checklist
is based upon the Library of Congress' 1981 publication Fire
Insurance Maps and will be continually updated to reflect new
acquisitions.
Shadow Lawn
Memorial Gardens Cemetery Interments The Birmingham Public Library Archives, in cooperation with the Shadow Lawn Memorial Gardens Maintenance and Perpetual Care Association, and supported by funds from the Association and a generous donation from CSX Corporation, has made this database available to help family members and other researchers locate and verify grave sites at Shadow Lawn.
The cemetery is located at 1600 12th Street Southwest in Birmingham, Alabama. Shadow Lawn was originally deeded in 1889 as a "colored" burial ground and is the largest African American cemetery in Birmingham. The original records of the cemetery, dating from the late 1930s, are preserved in the BPL Archives and are available for research. The whereabouts of the earlier cemetery records is not known.
Student Edition Magazines, newspapers and reference books (most
are full-text). Information on current events, the arts, science,
popular culture, health, people, government, history, sports, etc.
High school.
TeachingBooks for Libraries
strives to joyfully enrich everyone's experience reading children's
and young adult books.
TeachingBooks for Schools An engaging collection of resources
that brings books to life.
Tuition Funding Sources A private website designed to help
students find scholarships, college and career information. TFS
offers students the largest scholarship database in the world with
over $41 Billion in scholarship awards along with a career
personality test and detailed college and career information.
Tutor.com Alabama's Free Live Online Homework Help Service:
HomeworkAlabama.org. This service offers free homework help from
subject specialists. Available Everyday from 3 p.m. until Midnight!
Free Tutoring - Math - Science - Social Studies - English Grades,
4-12 and College Intro. HomeworkAlabama.org is provided free of
charge to all residents of Alabama by APLS (the State Library of
Alabama) and your local Public Library with a Library Services and
Technology Act grant from the Institute of Museum and Library
Services.
Vocational and career collection Part of EBSCOhost Web. Full
text of articles in over 360 trade and industry related periodicals.
Weiss Financial
Ratings this website gives you powerful new tools to protect your finances, invest wisely, grow your wealth, and learn more about your finances.
WorldCat Discovery Worldwide library catalog identifies
libraries that own items searched. Comprehensive reference service
available only though libraries. Databases, links to the World Wide
Web, over 10 million online full-text articles, full-image articles
from over 4,000 Children.
WPA Index to
Alabama Biography A Works Progress Administration project begun
in the 1930’s then abandoned when funding for the WPA was curtailed.
Although the index was never completed, over 97 titles such as Who's
Who in America, other biographical dictionaries, and local histories
were indexed by the workers. It is an invaluable tool for
researching Alabama biographical sources.