Databases

A great place to find background information to begin your research. Authoritative reference titles covering a wide variety of subjects, including the humanities and social sciences.

A collection of fully searchable reference ebooks from Salem Press relating to literature, American history and culture, science, and health. Helpful for topic generation and background information.

Provides access to digitized Sanborn fire insurance maps to over 500 cities and towns in Illinois. Color versions of maps available from the Library of Congress Collection. Coverage: 1867-1970.

The Saskia Art Images Collections contain 30,000 digital images of paintings, sculpture and architecture, as well as archaeological sites.

Elsevier's Science Direct College Edition provides access to books and journals in the area of health and life science, including nursing, medicine, dentistry, biology, biochemistry, environmental sciences, toxicology, pharmacology, immunology, neuroscience and more.

A research tool that provides access to references, substances and reactions in chemistry, biomedical sciences, engineering, materials science, agricultural science, and more. Information assembled by the American Chemistry Society. Users must create a free registration to access.

Full-image primary source materials focused on the history of slavery, including the abolitionist movement, the anti- and pro-slavery arguments of the period, and the debates on the subject of colonization. Materials indexed include books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, and manuscripts for a multinational perspective. This resource can also be searched, along other historical resources, within Gale Primary Sources. Coverage: 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. 

A biographical and critical source on the lives and works of authors and illustrators of children's and young adult books. Searched within the large ebook database Gale Literature. Coverage: v.1 (1971) - v. 356 (2020).

SportDiscus is the most comprehensive source for sports & sports medicine journals, providing full text for 550 journals.  Coverage dates back to 1930.

A visual statistics portal that integrates data from over 18,000 sources, including market research, business, and government sources.