Collection Contents:

Ohrstrom Library has two large collections of digitized reference books.

To search an eReference collection, please select one of the eReference collections. The eReference collections are both available below and are listed again in the Library’s web site within the database menu. Searching within the eReference collection allows a researcher to search the entire contents of all the texts within a given collection. For assistance, please contact Lura Sanborn, lsanborn at sps dot edu.

• Credo Reference: Provides access to 550+ digitized reference books. Titles cover a variety of disciplines including, Humanities, Fine Arts, Foreign Language, Math and Science. Some subjects, when searched in Credo Reference, will deliver a Topic Page in addition to relevant reference articles. A Topic Page will include a reference article as well as links to related material in other digital collections purchased by the library (i.e., JSTOR, Newspaper databases, the online catalog, eBook collections).
• Gale Virtual Reference: This digital collection is built title-by-title by Ohrstrom Library, very similar to the method in which the printed reference collection has been developed. Expected to expand over time, the Gale Virtual Reference collection currently searches the digitized versions of 230+ reference titles including long-standing reference classics such as:The Encyclopedia of Religion, The Encyclopedia of Bioethics, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia.

Other eReference Collections:

The library also subscribes to several additional reference titles and specialized collections:

• AccessScience: Digitized version of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology.
• Biography Resource Center: Over 500,000 biographies compiled from a variety of reference texts.
• Britannica Online: Digitized version of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
• CQ Researcher: Analytical reports from 1923 to the present. Reports are written by journalists and focus on current domestic and international issues of public concern including: economics, politics, technology, health and the environment.
• Oxford Art Online: Digitized version of The Grove Dictionary of Art and The Oxford Companion to Western Art, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms and The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics.
• Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online: Digitized version of the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language.
• Oxford Islamic Studies Online: Contains key English language articles from Islam-focused digitized reference sets, including: Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Islamic World: Past and Present, and The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Also includes translations of the Qur'an as well as Hanna Kassis' Concordance of the Qur'an. A timeline of Islamic events and a date converter for Christian and Islamic calendars are incorporated.
• Oxford Music Online: Digitized version of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The Oxford Dictionary of Music and The Oxford Companion to Music. Also includes archived content from The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.
• Scribners Writers Series: Includes multi-page, in-depth biographies of over 1,400 authors. Biographies include historical, contemporary and global writers. Essays about literary topics and literary forms are also included.