Monday, November 29, 2010

EBSCO... it's useful, not useless!

Recently I've shown some of our secondary school classes how to use databases that the school subscribes to. If you are a Harrow student or parent, you can use these resources from anywhere you have internet access. To get the login details, just visit the library.

You can find a link to the login page on the Harrow website electronic resources page.

What is this EBSCO database anyway?
Well, it is a service that we subscribe to, filled with useful and authoratitive* information. Lots of it is full text (that means you get to read the whole piece) but you may also find abstracts (you only get a blurb describing the content of an article).

The database contains items from magazines, journals and newspapers.
Most of the content is assessed by real people and assigned appropriate subjects so that it will come up when you search for it.

*What is authoritative? This means that you can trust the information inside to come from sources which have been verified and are more likely to provide accurate information. Please make sure you assess any information you find before you use it.
I'll write more about how to do that another day...

While you can use Google to find things, it's only one tool in your choice of many!
Using EBSCO will give you the edge over other students who don't. And you'll need to use other tools like this when you're at University, so it's great practice!

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