People of the Past: Home

Use these great databases to find facts about your person!

In the search box for World Book and the other databases, search for your person.

People of the Past

People of the Past Research Guide

The following tips will help you in your research project:

1) Card Catalog: check the library card catalog for your person. Note the call number and check to see if it is available.  (The card catalog is found on the middle school library page: database link.)

Search tips: Use keywords

• ·Search by person’s name
• ·Search by using keywords: scientists NOT fiction  or Baseball players NOT fiction
• Most books about people will be in the 921 Biography section followed by the first 3 letters of that person’s last name—they are not shelved by author. 

               George Washington would be 921 Was; Abraham Lincoln would be 921 Lin, etc.  Sometimes books are shelved in a different area: sports figures might be shelved in the 790 section, historical figures might be in the 973 section. It is best to check the card catalog.

               920 section: collections of biographies are found in the 920 section. These books may contain short biographies of your person. Some of these titles may not show up in the card catalog by the person; you will need to look in the index or table of contents to find your person.

Citing a Book:  Use the title page (not the cover) to find the title, author, publisher, place, and copyright or use Noodle Tools

Reference Books: We have some reference books such as biographical dictionaries that may contain information about your person. Again, use the table of contents or index to help you.

Magazines:  Look through issues of Cobblestone, Kids Discoverer

2) Databases: you will need a bookmark with the passwords to use at home.  The databases are found on the library website.

Sirs Discoverer:

• Search Sirs by keyword or subject.  Keyword is broader and you will get more results but some may not be useful.
• Sort by date or relevance.  You can also sort by type: magazines, newspapers, pictures.
• Each article is color coded for easy, moderate, challenging, general.

• You can print out the article or send to an email address. 

• MLA Citation: The information you need is at the bottom of the page or click CITE -- this can be copied into Noodle Tools

World Book: 

• Use the student edition for middle school.  On the left the results are divided into categories including websites, pictures, articles, maps, etc.

• The tools box is at the top: you can save, email, print article

• Citation is at the bottom of the article

Middle Search Plus