Britannica Library

Series: Our favourite State Library eresources.

People often ask us what our most loved eresources are. Admittedly we all have a favourite, or two, or three. It’s hard to pick as there are so many wonderful State Library eresources available. In this series our Librarians and Library Technicians share with you their most favourite eresources and how they’ve been used to solve research queries. 

To kick off the series we are starting with Britannica Library, a big favourite of Library Technician Jennie Nicholl.

So why is Britannica Library so fabulous?

It’s a great starting point for any information search. It has comprehensive coverage for any topic you can possibly think of. 

Best of all, you can access Britannica Library online from home with your free State Library membership.

Britannica Library  is my go-to eresource and the one I recommend when I’m assisting students with their assignment questions. It’s a fantastic reference database that provides great background information and explanations for often difficult topics and concepts.

I also absolutely love that Britannica Library  has three separate sections; kids, teens and adults. And for each of these sections the content is age appropriate and in line with Australian curriculum.

• Kids 
  The Kids level is bright, colourful and engaging, with interactive features that allow children to explore, learn and have fun all at once.
   
• Teens 
  The Teens level is fun and factual, with questions and daily buzzwords. It has a strong focus on primary sources, designed for teen users to experience firsthand accounts of events and historical periods.
   
• Adults
  The Adults level caters for senior school users and above. Additional features include flash facts and live news feeds from ABC, BBC and New York Times, so users can stay on top of current issues.

Apart from being really easy to navigate, the Britannica Library  database includes trusted sources with accurate information and authoritative references. For any search it provides results across its various formats; dictionary entries, images, videos, articles, magazines, recommended websites, audio clips, primary sources and ebooks. 

Here are some of the ways you can discover content in Britannica Library 

• Search by word or phrase
• Explore Topic to learn more about people, places, past and the present 
• Browse Subject such as plants and history
• Animal Kingdom explores animals by groups, by habitat, or by name
• Biography Browse to learn more about people and access full biography, images and more
• World Atlas search for maps and country profiles

Many a time I have helped our visitors use Britannica Library with adaptive technology devices and software (e.g. OpenBook software that transforms scanned text into speech). The database works beautifully with the accessibility read aloud option within all levels.

In a nutshell, this database makes research and learning more enjoyable for all ages and abilities. Join now, start searching Britannica Library  and let your research topic unfold. You can even create a user account within the database to save your favourites and organise your topic.

Look out for the next blog in this series #FavouriteEresources

More Information

eResources - /research-collections/information-collections/eresources

Reference databases

Databases - http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/primo-explore/dbsearch?vid=SLQ&lang=en_US

Library membership - /get-involved/become-member

Ask Us - /plan-my-visit/services/ask-us

Library from home - /libraryfromhome