Spence School Library: Middle School History Resources: Home

General Research Databases

Britannica School
The online provides access to articles, photographs, maps and links to related Web sites, as well as to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the world atlas, a timeline and Britannica’s annual “Year in Review.”
NOVELNY databases are provided free to the public by the New York State Library. The databases can only be accessed within the geographical boundaries of New York State. When logging in you will see a NOVELNY screen requesting your location information. If you are in New York State, you can proceed to the database by selecting the "Use My Location" button or waiting five seconds.
Daily Life Through History
The database explores the daily lives of ordinary people through time and across the globe, providing details about family life, work, food, clothing, sports, language, literature, romance, education, gender roles, social customs, and more that cannot be found elsewhere and are an asset to student research. This database includes more than 9,000 primary and secondary sources including newspapers, magazines, narratives, and letters of correspondence and images.
Gale in Context: Middle School
Gale in Context: Middle School is a cross-disciplinary database aimed at middle school students that includes literature, science, social studies, and U.S. and world history. A visual interface design and navigation preferred by younger users is combined with user-focused tool set needed to support middle school assignments and coursework. Gale's reference content includes age-appropriate videos, newspapers, magazines, primary sources, and more.
Explora Ebsco Host (Middle School)
Magazines, encyclopedias and ebooks great for middle school research.
SIRS Discoverer
General Reference Database Designed for Young Researchers
Gale In Context: Global Issues
Integrating news, global viewpoints, reference materials, country information, primary source documents, videos, statistics, and more, Global Issues is updated daily and offers 250 country pages and more than 400 issue pages.
Proquest Comprehensive
Comprehensive: cross-search all our ProQuest databases at once. It contains access to historical and current newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journal articles. Subject Areas: Arts & Humanities, Business, General Research, Health Sciences & Nursing, Literature, News & Issues, Science & Technology, Social Sciences
Issues & Controversies in History
Presented in a pro/con format that clearly explains both sides of the historical dispute, each article is supported by a timeline and a wealth of primary sources.

Notes & Citations

Always keep track of the sources you use! Why?

It's the honest thing to do! You must always give credit where credit is due. The author worked hard to create the source you have chose to incorporate into your project!
It helps you know exactly where your information came from. When you cite, you leave "information breadcrumbs" for yourself and for your teacher. By recording the right information about your source, you and your teacher will be to follow your trail and locate your sources.
You definitely want to avoid plagiarism. Don't take credit for knowledge or ideas that you did not develop on your own.
A good works cited list keeps your organized. If you record relevant information about each source as you go, you won't have to scramble to track down information later.

You should keep track of each and every source that gives you ideas and information for your project!

In Middle School, we use the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines for citing our sources. And we use Noodle Tools to record the sources that we use. You will use NoodleTools to create your citations, and NoodleTools will help you properly format using MLA style, but if you'd like to get a better understanding of MLA style, please see: the OWL (Online Writing Lab).

You can create your own NoodleTools account if you don't already have one! The school name is Spence and the school password is sabers. Ms. Crow recommends using your standard Spence username and password when your register!

Spence Library Catalogs - Find Books!

Middle and Upper School Library Online Catalog

ProQuest Ebook Central
Best for 8th grade and older. A wide selection of authoritative, scholarly electronic books available through a easy to use platform with a variety of online and offline reading options

History Databases

Ancient and Medieval History Online
This resource explores the pre-modern world with in-depth focus on Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia.
World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras
This database explores ancient civilizations, dynasties, and empires and profiles city-states, countries, and regions of the ancient and medieval world, providing a information that encompasses intellectual developments, wars and cooperation, religion, cultural practices, and more from prehistory through to the beginning of the Renaissance.
Gale in Context: World History
Explores world history though primary source documents, reference articles, journal and magazine articles, images, video and audio and maps. This resource includes information on the history of Europe, Asia, Africa, India, and Latin America.
World History: The Modern Era
World History: The Modern Era provides information on the emergence of the modern world, covering the history of the world from 1500 to the present. Students will learn about the evolution of modern Europe since the Renaissance; concurrent developments in Asia, Africa, and the Islamic world; the global impact of the Industrial Revolution; revolutions in France and Latin America; imperialism; nationalism; World Wars I and II; and growing global powers. It includes 70 "era explorations," 7300 primary sources, almost 300 video learning modules that provide topic overviews.
Modern World History Online
This resource covers the people, places and events in world history from the mid-15th century to the present. It contains primary sources and reference articles.
World Religions
World Religions explores religion and spirituality in an objective manner, from the ceremonies of the first practitioners to the elaborate rituals of today.

American History
A rich source of information on American history. The database includes more than 16,000 primary and secondary sources, including government and court documents, photos, maps, audio and video recordings.
American History Online
Reference Resource. Spans more than 500 years of political, military, social, and cultural history to cover the American experience.
American Indian History
American Indian History offers fast access to more than 15,000 years of culture and history, covering more than 600 Native American groups, through biographies of key people, event and topic entries, primary sources, maps and graphs, and timelines.
African-American History
Covering more than 500 years of the African-American experience, African-American History offers a fresh way to explore the full spectrum of African-American history and culture.
Users can start their investigation of a topic with a video or slideshow overview, use the key content called out on the home page to find an entryway into the database, or dig deep into a subject or era through the Topic Centers. Read about key figures and events, examine famous speeches and other primary sources, and get context from the in-depth timelines.
American Mosaic: The African-American Experience
The African American Experience supports research and scholarship in the field of African American Studies with a library of works analyzing the contributions and challenges of African Americans throughout history, including the complete WPA Slave Narratives collection. This comprehensive database of more than 8,000 articles, biographies, primary documents, and media.
American Mosaic: The Latino-American Experience
This database documents the rich heritage and current culture of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans, Cubans, Dominicans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, and other Hispanic groups in the United States. Their stories are detailed through a robust collection of primary and secondary sources, beginning with pre-16th century Mayan, Incan, and Aztec empires and continuing through to the present day, with treatment also given to cultural themes including coming-of-age rituals, music, literature, and cuisine. It includes more than 2,500 primary documents and media, including speeches, maps, songs, audio clips, interviews, and vivid historical photographs.
US Government Online
This resource presents in-depth information on the structure and function of the U.S. government.

Culture Grams
CultureGrams is a leading reference for concise and reliable cultural information on the countries of the world, including all 50 states. CultureGrams provides country reports that go include both facts and figures as well as information on daily life and culture, including the background, customs, and lifestyles of the world's people.
United States Geography
United States Geography profiles all 50 U.S. states, providing information on the government, economy, history, and issues of each. This database includes primary and secondary sources, including images, maps, audio and video recordings, profiles of indigenous peoples and important organizations, acts and laws, and state flags and animals. It also includes a graphing tool!

Historical Newspapers & Magazines

America's Historical Newspapers (1690 - 2000)
Find news articles covering topics in government, politics, social issues, culture, literature discoveries, inventions and more from hundreds of primary sources. Search using either the timeline or topic search to easily find news and eyewitness accounts and pro/con articles of events, issues and daily life.
American Periodicals Series, 1740-1940
This database contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
ProQuest News & Issues
This database includes full-text historical newspapers from the 19th century to the early 21st century as well as current news feeds.

Current Events

Access World News
A comprehensive news collection ideal for exploring issues and events at the local, regional, national and international level. Provides over 13,000 primary sources from 200 countries in 21 different languages, including Spanish and French.
Proquest Comprehensive
Comprehensive: cross-search all our ProQuest databases at once. It contains access to historical and current newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journal articles. Subject Areas: Arts & Humanities, Business, General Research, Health Sciences & Nursing, Literature, News & Issues, Science & Technology, Social Sciences
Gale In Context: Global Issues
Integrating news, global viewpoints, reference materials, country information, primary source documents, videos, statistics, and more, Global Issues is updated daily and offers 250 country pages and more than 400 issue pages.

Search Builder

Search Strategy Builder

This tool is designed to teach you how to create a search string. While it is not a database and is not designed to input a search, you should be able to cut and paste the results into the standard database search boxes.

Now copy and paste the above Search Strategy into a database search box.

The Search Strategy Builder was developed by the University of Arizona Libraries(CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US).