Free Online Resources Provided By the Racine Public Library

The library will wrap up its second floor re-carpeting and renovation project by the end of November. While library staff have been making great efforts to meet the needs of their patrons, the process has impacted immediate access to materials. To assist you with your possible information needs, the library has provided a valuable collection of information resources available through the website at www.racinelibrary.info.

The Racine Public Library is a member of the SHARE library consortium which allows library card holders to access materials from over 50 different libraries through online catalogs. Desired items may be placed on hold via the catalog and picked up at the Racine Public Library, 75 Seventh St, or at the Mobile Library. Notification of your order's arrival is available via email.

The Racine Public Library also provides access to Badgerlink, an online database project of the the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning. Through Badgerlink, users will find full-text magazines, journals, newspapers, reference materials, text books and other specialized information resources not available through regular internet search engines. BadgerLink also connects users to WISCAT and OCLC WorldCat, databases that provide access to materials from state, national and international libraries.

Here are just few of the resources available from the Racine Public Library's Badgerlink connection:

• EBC Videolink - Provides streaming and downloadable educational video programs for students in grades K-12.
• HeritageQuest - A comprehensive treasury of American genealogical sources and finding aids.
• History, Science, and Literary Reference Centers- Comprehensive research databases that provide easy access to a multitude of full text content in each discipline. Just a few examples include reference books, periodicals, encyclopedias, journals, documents, maps, and photos, among others.
• NoveList - A fiction database for youth and adults that provides reviews, annotations, and much more for over 135,000 fiction titles. It also includes other content of interest to fiction readers, such as Author Read-alikes, What We're Reading, Book Discussion Guides, BookTalks, and Annotated Book Lists.
• Learning Express Library - Provides online practice tests, courses and ebooks for people of all ages to improve test preparation and test-taking skills.
• Searchasaurus, KidsSearch, and Student Research Centers - Provide age-appropriate research tools and databases that make it easy for students to research subjects of interest from appropriately challenging materials.
• Soundzabound - The only royalty free music library that meets all licensing and technology requirements for education. This music library offers a wide variety of copyright safe music, audio themes and sound effects for all ages. Perfect for podcasts, PowerPoint, videos, presentations, web design, and more.
  

In addition to Badgerlink, the Racine Public Library offers several other online information resources. From the library's website, library card holders can access a variety of digital audio options such as Overdrive downloadable audio books, and eBooks, electronic versions of print books. The library also recently added PowerSpeak! foreign language instruction programs to its services. Free language tutorial courses are available in English as a Second Language, Spanish, French, Mandarin, and German.

All of the online information resources mentioned, and many more, are free and available on the Racine Public Library's website at www.racinelibrary.info. For more information or questions about how to access the resources, contact the library at 262.636.9217.