Electronic Resources for Kids

A rich research database for school and public libraries. It contains informative abstracts and searchable full text for 3,089 popular nonfiction books. The database includes high interest titles on careers, health, ethnicity, disabilities, technology, biographies, history, science, women, civics and more.

Britannica Online School Edition K12 offers encyclopedias, dictionary, thesaurus, illustrations, maps, biographies, educational activities, exercises, study guides, and related material for students and teachers (Kindergarten through 12th grade). Included are the Wisconsin state curriculum standards with links to supporting articles and learning materials. There are separate interfaces for elementary, middle, and high school, as well as for teachers.

Access sub-groups of this resource through the following links

• Encyclopædia Britannica School Edition
  • Learning Zone - activities and games for young children
  • Elementary School Edition
  • Middle School Edition
  • High School Edition
  • Learning Materials - study guides, activities, and exercises that make learning more fun for high school students.
• Spanish Reference Center
  • Enciclopedia Juvenil - a Spanish language student encyclopedia with articles, images, videos, and learning materials specifically designed for students.
  • Enciclopedia Universal en Español - for high school ages and up.

Digital library of local history. Contains text and images, as well as links to other local history
resources. (managed by APL and the Outagamie County Historical Society)

Partial index to photos from books in the Wisconsin Collection, generally scenes from Appleton history. The photos may be viewed in the library or requested as photocopies. Photos are not available online. Other historic photos are in Fox Valley Memory.

Designed for high school and college teachers and students of U.S. history survey courses, this site serves as a gateway to web resources and offers unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents, and guides to analyzing historical evidence.

We emphasize materials that focus on the lives of ordinary Americans and actively involve students in analyzing and interpreting evidence. We welcome your participation in expanding and improving the site.

For a guide to over 2600 sites on the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, visit ECHO Science and Technology Virtual Center.

History Reference Center offers full text from more than 2,500 reference books, encyclopedias and non-fiction books, cover to cover full text for nearly 170 leading history periodicals, more than 112,000 historical documents, 113,000 biographies of historical figures, more than 112,000 historical photos and maps, and more than 80 hours of historical video.

Kids Search is designed especially for youth in grades K-8, offering an easy-to-use search screen that finds information in several Databases funded by BadgerLink and housed in EBSCO: Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, Middle Search Plus, Primary Search, Newspaper Source Plus, History Reference Center, Book Collection Nonfiction: Middle School Edition, and Science Reference Center.

Mango Languages is an easy to use and effective language learning tool focusing on everyday conversation. This program provides step by step lesson plans for many different languages (including English). Mango is easy to use and can work on any operating system and with any web browser.

Foreign Languages for English Speakers

1. Arabic (Levantine)
2. Chinese (Cantonese)
3. Chinese (Mandarin)
4. Croatian
5. Czech
6. Danish
7. Dari
8. Dutch
9. Farsi (Persian)
10. Finnish
11. French
12. French (Canadian)
13. German
14. Greek
15. Greek (Ancient)
16. Greek (Koine)
17. Haitian Creole
18. Hawaiian
19. Hebrew
20. Biblical Hebrew
21. Hindi
22. Icelandic
23. Indonesian
24. Irish
25. Italian
26. Japanese
27. Korean
28. Latin
29. Norwegian
30. Pashto
31. Pirate
32. Polish
33. Portuguese (Brazil)
34. Russian
35. Slovak
36. Spanish (Latin America)
37. Spanish (Spain)
38. Swedish
39. Tagalog
40. Tamil
41. Thai
42. Turkish
43. Ukrainian
44. Urdu
45. Vietnamese

English as a Second Language

Mango currently has 15 ESL programs for learning English.

1. English for Arabic (Egyptian) speakers
2. English for Chinese (Cantonese) speakers
3. English for Chinese (Mandarin) speakers
4. English for French speakers
5. English for German speakers
6. English for Greek speakers
7. English for Italian speakers
8. English for Japanese speakers
9. English for Korean speakers
10. English for Polish speakers
11. English for Portuguese (Brazil) speakers
12. English for Russian speakers
13. English for Spanish (Latin America) speakers
14. English for Turkish speakers
15. English for Vietnamese speakers

Designed specifically for high school libraries, this database contains full text for more than 500 popular, high school magazines. MAS Ultra – School Edition also provides more than 360 full text reference books, 85,670 biographies, 105,786 primary source documents, and an Image Collection of 341,655 photos, maps & flags, color PDFs and expanded full text backfiles (back to 1975) for key magazines.

Middle Search Plus provides full text for more than 140 popular, middle school magazines. All full text articles included in the database are assigned a reading level indicator (Lexiles). Full text
is also available for thousands of biographies and historical essays. Middle Search Plus also contains 84,774 biographies, 105,786 primary source documents, and an Image Collection of 341,655 photos, maps and flags.

Designed especially for elementary and middle school students, NoveList K-8 is an online database with fiction and nonfiction titles chosen specifically to support the school curriculum as well as the pleasure reading needs of students.

OneClickdigital is a new audiobook download service offered to InfoSoup library card holders, providing access to more than 3400 audiobook titles published by Recorded Books.

Covers social issues, such as Gun Control, Genetic Engineering, Censorship, Endangered
Species, and Terrorism. Consists of viewpoint articles, contextual topic overviews, government
and organizational statistics, biographies of social activists, court cases, profiles of government
agencies and special interest groups, newspaper and magazines articles, as well as links to more
than 1,800 reviewed and subject-indexed web sites.

Browse and search for hundreds of downloadable audiobooks, music, eBooks, and videos. A total of 10 items may be checked out and 10 additional items placed on hold for a single account. (The Overdrive URL will contain '10/355' for the regular site; to force yourself to the Mobile Overdrive site, replace those numbers with '40/20'.)

 HELP with Overdrive

• See InfoSoup's informational/search page on using eBooks in Overdrive.
• Overdrive Help: includes MyHelp, customized help for your computer or device in the form of a step-by-step wizard/tutorial to get you going with Overdrive Digital Download Center. The Device Resource Center will let you know if yours is compatible with Overdrive's ebooks, audiobooks, music, or videos. You can also take a look at some of the helpful videos in the Digital Books Tour.
• WI Digital Book Center FAQ (WPLC)... very frequently updated, includes extensive info with screen shots.
• APL has handouts to help you with your eReader, with specific instructions for a Kindle. (See links at bottom of this content area.)
• Transfer Overdrive holds to your new library card number. In the “describe your problem” section put in NEW card number (labeled as new) and old card number (labeled as OLD).
• Still having trouble with Overdrive? You can contact Support with a description of your situation.

Primary Search provides full text for more than 70 popular, magazines for elementary school research. All full text articles included in the database are assigned a reading level indicator (Lexiles), and full text information dates as far back as 1990.

Science Reference Center is a comprehensive research database that provides easy access to a multitude of full text science-oriented content. This database contains full text for nearly 640 science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, etc. Topics covered include: biology, chemistry, earth & space science, environmental science, health & medicine, history of science, life science, physics, science & society, science as inquiry, scientists, technology and wildlife.

A collection of resources designed for kids of all ages, including an encyclopedia of animals, a general encyclopedia, and two magazine databases, Middle Search Plus and Primary Search. (A kids' search interface for selected EBSCOhost databases)

Royalty free music library that meets all the licensing and technology requirements needed for education. Offers a wide variety of music, audio themes and sound effects for grades K -12 and universities that ensures your copyright safety. Perfect for podcasts, PowerPoint™, videos, news shows, video yearbooks, digital storytelling, presentations, TV broadcasts, web design and more! Part of the ECB.

An easy-to-use search screen for secondary students to find information in the following BadgerLink funded database found within EBSCO: Health Source - Consumer Edition, MAS Ultra - School Edition, Middle Search Plus, Newspaper Source Plus, History Reference Center, Book Collection Nonfiction: High School Edition, and Science Reference Center.

Original, in-studio movies of authors and illustrators, audio excerpts of professional book readings, guides to thousands of titles, and a wealth of multimedia resources on children's and young adult literature.