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Welcome to eLibraryUSA, a research resource offered by the Office of International Information Programs of the Department of State.
We will present a brief introduction to the databases available to you.
eLibraryUSA offers you a wealth of electronic resources like those found in public libraries in the United States.
These free resources include IIP publications such as eJournalUSA, as well as 30 databases in English Spanish and Portuguese.
These databases constitute a huge library with eBooks, important publications
and documents that you can read comfortably from any device with an Internet connection. When we use search engines, besides getting millions of results
we can't be sure if the information and statistics we find are based on facts,
opinion or if it was written by your neighborhood prankster. Therefore, a database is a more
efficient approach to find the precise and accurate information
you are seeking.
There are many advantages to using databases:
The information is written by journalists and experts,
You have instant access to information,
You save time and information is peer reviewed and updated regularly
These resources cover general and specific topics that you can check here, topics on art and culture,
business, current issues, education, resources for kids, science and technology, etc.
There are databases in Spanish: Fuente Academica and eLibro, and eLivro, in Portuguese.
You can access the resources from eLibraryUSA's homepage. Enter your e-mail and the password that was assiged to you
Let's click on Resources.
The description of each of the databases help you determine which one would suit your purpose.
We'll click on Academic OneFile, one of the largest databases.
Databases work in similar ways. In some we can change the language of the interface,
showing the fields and filters in your language,
although the publications will be in the original language.
If you just do a basic search you will get a larger number of results than if you use the title or subject filters. For example,
let´s search for *** in the subject field.
As you can see we get a huge number of results.
We can limit them to documents with only full text, type of content, or to those within a range of dates.
It is better to start with an advanced search because it allows you to concentrate the results on your topic.
Databases don´t handle long phrases or sentences too well. For example, do not type a sentence like "The effect of drug abuse in adolescents with AIDS."
Instead, divide the sentence into a phrase in quotation marks such as "drug abuse,"
combining it with the words adolescents and AIDS or ***,
and select a Boolean operator such as: AND, to include all words and phrases; OR, to include any of the words;
NOT— to exclude the terms we don´t want.
Let´s try an advanced search to find out the relationship between drug abuse and ***.
We type *** in the keyword field and, in a second field “drug abuse” in quotes, and select the Boolean AND so that we´ll get articles containing both terms.
Just as with a basic search, we can further refine the results depending on our interests, and if we wish, we can review only
sources which are from magazines, books, news articles, etc.
When you click on an article, you have the option of viewing it in PDF, which is recommended because it
shows the article as it was published, including any graphics and images.
You can also send by email, print or share it on social networks.
This short tutorial is a very basic introduction on how to search databases provided by eLibraryUSA.Use the help and tutorials offered by each of the resources
in order to focus your research on exactly what you´re looking for. These resources are free.
To request access contact the Information Resource Centers (IRC) at the embassy of the United States in your country.