Research Tools

AtoZ Food America™ is a single-source digital library reference that covers regional (6), state (50), and ethnic (35) cuisines for the entire country. AtoZ Food America™ also contains large-scale historical, ingredient, and reference modules of great use to cooks, culinary students, and historians.

AtoZ World Food is a comprehensive database of recipes and food culture articles for 174 countries. Think of it as a world cookbook for 147 countries, although it’s much more. Country information since 1993.

A unified search platform for two ABC-Clio databases on American History and the African American Experience.

A resource exclusively devoted to African American family history research.

Indexes thousands of articles, reports, and other documents pertaining to agriculture around the world. From the National Agricultural Library.

Provides full-text titles from around the world, including scholarly journals, trade and industry journals, magazines, technical reports, conference proceedings, and government publications.

New and expanded. Access World News Research Collection. Now featuring a wider variety of news including USA Today, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Pine Bluff Commercial, Times Record (Fort Smith) and many others from around the world.

APS publishes journals that embody the society’s mission to advance the knowledge of physics.

Research family history by looking for obituaries, burial notices, church records, immigration files, and census data. Includes historical maps and many other genealogy resources. Covers the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and other regions. In-Library access only.

The complete list of over 100,000 Accelerated Reader titles.

Combines all formats of the newspaper including full-text, online-only articles and page images into one simple search.

This archive collection contains searchable image edition issues of the Arkansas Gazette from 1867-1991, the Arkansas Democrat from 1947-1992, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from 1992-1994.

The official web site for the Arkansas Supreme Court provides information about cases, oral arguments, opinions, orders, dockets, history and technology services that improve public access by supporting Arkansas’s courts and criminal justice agencies.

ASLdeafined is for everyone! Whether you know someone who is deaf, are deaf yourself, or just want to learn ASL language, this content is for you.

Banco de Contenidos aulaPlaneta (classroomPlanet Content Bank) is World Book’s new comprehensive Spanish database with more than 170,000 articles, images, and videos designed for native Spanish-speaking researchers and advanced bilingual and ESL students.

Includes a comprehensive run of this acclaimed television series from 2009-2023. The BBC Horizon television program makes science accessible and engaging to students and reveals the science behind a broad range of topics including astronomy, physics, math, and the environment.

Includes access to ground-breaking HD nature series such as Planet Earth, Blue Planet, and Big Cats, and Dynasties.

Wide range of research in biomedicine, biotechnology, zoology and ecology, and some aspects of agriculture and veterinary science.

Provided by ProQuest. This collection features expertly selected open primary source documents. Visitors will find historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence and more from specific time periods in U.S. history marked by the opposition African Americans have faced on the road to freedom.

Provides expanded coverage of the achievements and contributions of African American women.

An online literacy resource that pairs classic video storybooks from Weston Woods with related nonfiction eBooks from Scholastic to build a love of reading and learning. Intended for use by PreK to 3rd grade students.

Brainfuse CollegeNow offers expert resources for college admissions success. Get help with applications, financial aid, and admissions interviews.

Brainfuse HelpNow provides on demand, anytime, anywhere eLearning for all ages and levels. HelpNow offers personalized homework help in core subjects (math, reading, writing, science and social studies) including SAT preparation.

JobNow, powered by Brainfuse, provides live interactive online help combined with online resources to guide you through the necessary tasks to get a job.

Brainfuse VetNow offers tailored support for veterans and their families.

Includes repair and maintenance information for many popular vehicles.

A collection of historical newspapers containing extensive local and national coverage of American culture, politics, and society from the Antebellum through the Reconstruction periods. In-Library access only.

Full text research on subjects such as database design, software development, web commerce, LANs, WANs, Intranets, and the Internet.

Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit member organization that works side by side with consumers for truth, transparency, and fairness in the marketplace.

Thousands of award-winning art & craft video classes taught by recognized design experts and artists.

Provides access to cultural reports, statistics, and primary source material for countries across the globe, including the United States and Canadian provinces.

Cypress Resume is perfect for people who do not have a typewriter or word processor but do just need to type and print or save decent basic resumes and cover letters.

Data Axle includes directory listings for over 12 million businesses and 120 million households in the United States. A great resource for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and start-ups.

Revised and expanded Dictionary of American Family Names contains more than 80,000 of the most commonly occurring surnames in the United States.

The Central Arkansas Library System has partnered with Driving-Tests.org to provide access to manuals and practice tests for the Arkansas Driver’s Test.

Collection from ProQuest providing access to authoritative ebooks from the world’s top publishers on a range of subjects: arts, business management, education, general knowledge, health & medicine, history & political science, law, literature & language, religion & philosophy, science & technology, and social science.

Access to over 1,090 top educational publications, including more than 800 titles in full text.

General reference collection of periodical and digital media content specifically tailored for K-12 schools and libraries of all kinds, covering a variety of subjects including business, education, general interest, health, language arts, sciences, social sciences, and many other curriculum-specific subject areas.

Provides access to eLibrary’s periodical and digital media collection through a user interface specifically designed for student researchers.

Documents the African American experience from the arrival of the first slave ship to the death of Frederick Douglass-and shows how American culture, history, and national identity have been influenced by the experience of African Americans.

Traces the transition from the Reconstruction Era to the age of Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, up to and including the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States.

A free, authoritative source of information about the rich history, geography, and culture of Arkansas. The Encyclopedia contains more than 7,000 entries and 11,000 pieces of media related to Arkansas with new material being added weekly.

Covering the “long” Enlightenment, from the rise of Descartes’ disciples in 1670 to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1815, these 700 articles by leading scholars range from discussions of mercantilism and democracy to the battlefield to the dissemination of ideas in salons and coffeehouses.

A collaborative work of over 600 scholars from more than forty countries, the Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages provides 3,000 concise and detailed articles on all aspects of the period from the fifth to the fifteenth century.

The Educational Resources Information Center database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to education-related literature.

Includes current journals, magazines, and newspapers from ethnic and independent presses.

Fiero Code is an award winning learn-to-code platform that’s designed to be used in after-school programs at libraries, Boys & Girls Clubs, YMCAs, community non-profits as well as public, private, charter, and home school settings. You don’t have to know how to code to use Fiero in your after-school or in-class program.

An online digital collection of color fire insurance maps, real estate atlases, and similar land use maps for the state of Arkansas. Includes publications by Sanborn, Perris, Hexamer, Whipple, Baist, Bromley, Hopkins, and others.

Flipster is a next-generation digital magazine solution that makes it easy for you to read your favorite magazines on your computer or mobile device. Download the app to read digital magazines on your mobile device.

A collection of over 60 million pages of historical documents and personal histories, including millions of records available from the National Archives and other institutions.

As an affiliate of Candid.org in New York, CALS provides access to a powerful database of hundreds of thousands of grantmakers and grant recipients. Find the information your nonprofit organization needs to make an impact. In-Library access only.

Freegal is a completely free and legal way to access a collection of almost 7 million songs. Freegal offers many of today’s top artists, a fantastic retrospective collection, and music from around the world.

Gale Business: Plan Builder is a step-by-step online planning tool for starting, managing, and optimizing a business or nonprofit. The program’s intuitive dashboard walks users through five areas of exploration to develop a business plan focused on long-term success.

Gale eBooks (formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library) is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. These reference materials once were available only in the library, but now you can access them online from the library or remotely 24/7.

The complete collections of Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, and Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism in one easily searchable resource.

When Bryan Garner published the first edition in 1999, the book quickly became one of the most influential style guides ever written for the English language. Garner explains nuances of grammar and vocabulary and blunders to which modern writers and speakers are prone, whether in word choice, syntax, phrasing, punctuation, or pronunciation.

GetSetUp is a powerful learning platform designed specifically for older adults. It offers thousands of live and on-demand classes that promote digital literacy, wellness, creativity, and social connection taught by older adults, for older adults. Classes are paced and designed specifically for learners 55+.

The Great Courses: Library Collection gives you access to the best college and university courses from around the world. Learn new skills; build your knowledge of history, philosophy, and science; and improve your life.

This resource provides fascinating and authoritative art, historical, and cultural information about art forms, artists, rulers, philosophers, architecture, renowned works of art, archaeological sites and stylistic developments.

The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts contains over 3,000 entries covering thousands of years of decorative arts production throughout western and non-western cultures.

As an affiliate of Candid.org in New York, CALS provides access to GuideStar, a searchable directory that provides detailed information on more than 850,000 nonprofit organizations. The database covers IRS-registered 501 nonprofit organizations that may accept tax-deductible contributions. In-Library access only.

Includes searchable images of U.S. Federal Census records, digitized family and local history books, an index to genealogical and local history periodicals, and other genealogy resources.

Explore your family history with a collection of U.S. obituaries and funeral home notices for genealogical research from 1704-present. HeritageHub helps you identify relatives and uncover new information about your family tree.

Collection of primary and secondary sources on global history from ancient times to the present.

A browser-based resource for movement, mindfulness, fitness and keeping active for all ages. Includes over 2000 two-minute videos covering details of many sports and physical activities.

Borrow audiobooks, eBooks, comics, movies, TV, magazines, or music everywhere you have a screen. hoopla syncs across all your devices, so you can stream titles immediately or whenever you’re in the mood.

An index to articles and other information published in county history journals as well as selected statewide magazines, newspapers and books.

With nearly 2,000 articles written by scholars from fifty countries, the Encyclopedia covers the full spectrum of dance—theatrical, ritual, dance-drama, folk, traditional, ethnic, and social dance.

The Encyclopedia encompasses the full range of topics in linguistics, including such areas as historical, comparative, formal, mathematical, functional, philosophical, and sociolinguistics.

iVOX Books is a children’s book app which uses storytelling technology to delight and engage curious young minds. Ages 3 through 8 can follow along with a story while interacting with its characters and scenes, immersing them in narrative like never before.

Kanopy is a video-streaming platform dedicated to thoughtful and thought-provoking films. Founded in 2008, Kanopy was established to provide academic institutions with essential films that foster learning and conversation.

An interactive database with practice tests and tutorials for many standardized academic and licensing tests, such as the GED, SAT, Nursing, Real Estate, etc.

Borrow from thousands of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, and more for free. Explore the collection through catalog guides, subjects, featured titles, and curated lists. Libby is great for users of all ages.

Learn technology, business, and creative skills with LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com). LinkedIn Learning offers over 16,000 video courses and tutorials taught by industry experts.

This database currently abstracts and indexes over 440 periodicals from more than 68 countries and in more than 20 different languages. Subject coverage includes all aspects of librarianship, library users, information retrieval and more.

A daily newspaper serving Conway and Faulkner County and some surrounding areas.

Provides access to over 1,400 essential publications in full text covering topics across all areas of the medical sciences. The content is diverse enough to support the needs of medical students, faculty, and clinicians.

Abstracts of authoritative information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and more from the National Library of Medicine.

Full-text access to a comprehensive collection covering military subjects including defense, aeronautics and space flight, civil engineering, political science, and more.

Go beyond the ABCs when preparing for kindergarten proficiency with 100s of guided lessons using videos, music, eBooks, tutorials, and more. Online/offline curriculum is balanced 60/40 to help make the move from gross to fine motor skills (e.g., using scissors).

Discover the daily state of the markets at the Morningstar Investing Center home page. Move on to their research tools and screeners to locate and compare various stocks, mutual funds, ETFs and 529 College Savings Plans.

Public library access to The New York Times offers many key features including breaking news coverage, video and multimedia access, international news coverage, mobile phone and tablet apps and of course the book review that you can access any day of the week without waiting until Sunday for the print copy.

Newspaper Archive is the world’s best resource for historical and genealogical information. Our unique archive spans more than 400 years of family history, small-town events, world news and more. Archived newspaper access is only for Arkansas newspapers.

CALS provides access to digital page images from the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat and other regional newspapers from the 1800s up to 1923 on Newspapers.com.

Are you looking for a few good books to read? Sign up for our e-newsletters and get great book suggestions by email. We’ll deliver reading lists right to your inbox along with new gems, bestsellers, and related titles.

Includes subject headings, reviews, summaries and more for over 135,000 fiction titles. Use NovelList Plus to find other books by a favorite author, or similar books to a title you’ve already read.

Includes information on many titles popular with students in grades K-8, arranged by instructional unit, theme or topic. Teachers can find appropriate fiction to complement classroom instruction.

The first major reference work to investigate the history and vast scope of beer, The Oxford Companion to Beer features A-Z entries written by 166 of the world’s most prominent beer experts.

More than fourteen hundred named cheeses from around the world are examined — on the farm, under the microscope, in the shop, and on the plate.

Combines serious food history, culinary expertise, and an entertaining and exhaustive catalogue of food and food culture.

With entries ranging from Manhattan and mixology to sloe gin and stills, the Companion combines coverage of the range of spirit-based drinks around the world with clear explanations of production processes, and the history and culture of their consumption.

A collection of entries on all things sweet, written by 265 expert contributors, its coverage begins with the human proclivity for sweetness and continues across many thousands of years and around the globe, affording glimpses deep into the brain as well as stratospheric flights into the world of sugar-crafted fantasies.

A uniquely comprehensive and in-depth A-Z reference book on every aspect of wine, covering topics from history through geography, geology, soil science, viticulture, winemaking, packaging, labelling, academia, technology, and regulations to people and places, tasting, writing, and the language of wine.

From Antarctica to the North Pole, The Oxford Companion to World Exploration offers information on all topics of exploration worldwide, including advances in navigation, the discovery of the New World, polar expeditions, and the space age.

With more than 5,000 entries by an international group of eminent historians, this is the standard research tool on 1,100 years of Byzantine history.

This dictionary provides rich detail on all aspects of the Renaissance in 14th to 17th century Europe.

This volume contains over 2,000 biographical profiles of important American authors (with information regarding their style, subjects, and major works) and influential foreign writers as well as other figures who have been important in the nation’s social and cultural history.

Featuring 600 original articles written by leading scholars, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt goes far beyond the records of archaeology to make available what we know about the full social, political, religious, cultural and artistic legacy of this 5,000-year civilization.

The Encyclopedia provides comprehensive coverage of literature from the Abbey Theatre to Israel Zangwill, covering the entire history of literature in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in the major literary languages (Anglo-Saxon, English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, and Latin).

Written by an international roster of more than 300 authors, the Encyclopedia comprehensively documents and interprets the books read by children throughout the world.

International in scope and spanning all time periods of human history, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History includes 900 original articles by noted scholars from more than thirty-five countries.

A comprehensive guide to the essentials of evolutionary biology, these entries by leading experts survey essential concepts and theories, present methods, models and findings, and discuss both the history of the field and current controversies.

In 700 original, intriguing articles—from “Apple Pie” to “Zombie”— The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America covers the significant events, inventions, and social movements in American history that have affected the way Americans view, prepare, and consume food and drink.

Encompassing tsunamis, elephant conservation, ocean pollution, mining regulation, and permafrost melt, the 300 authoritative articles in this unique and wide-ranging encyclopedia investigate all types of phenomena that change life on Earth.

This landmark scholarly work offers comprehensive, reliable, and accessible information about the fastest growing minority population in the United States. With an unprecedented scope and cutting-edge scholarship, the Encyclopedia draws together the diverse historical and contemporary experiences in the United States of Latinos and Latinas from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

The Encyclopedia covers the entire history of seafaring, from ancient Egyptian shipbuilders to the nuclear submarines and supertankers of today.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Culture is the first comprehensive reference source to chronicle Pre-Hispanic, colonial, and modern Mesoamerica, defined as the lands stretching from Mexico to the southern tip of Central America.

The Encyclopedia of Rhetoric is a comprehensive survey of one of the Western world’s oldest disciplines. Its 150 entries, written by leading scholars, bring together expertise in classical studies, philosophy, literature, literary theory, cultural studies, speech, and communications in a comprehensive treatment of the art of persuasion.

Provides information about major world developments from 1750 to the present, with close attention to social, economic, cultural, and political topics.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation is the definitive source for information about the entire range of religious and social changes that altered the face of Europe in the sixteenth century, encompassing not only issues of church polity and theology but also developments in politics, economics, demographics, art and literature.

This encyclopedia provides authoritative and up-to-date information about theatre and performance from ancient Greek theatre to the latest developments in London, Paris, New York, and around the globe.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, edited by Bonnie G. Smith, captures the experiences of women throughout history in a far-reaching, four-volume work. Although there has been extensive research on women in history by region, no other text or reference work has comprehensively covered the role women have played throughout world history.

Oxford Essential Quotations ensures coverage of the most popular and widely used quotations by combining the text of the acclaimed Oxford Dictionary of Quotations with the Oxford English Corpus and enhances these with a selection of equally memorable contemporary sayings.

Pronunciator provides language learning experiences with step-by-step lesson plans for 163 languages, ESL courses for 146 native languages, American Sign Language courses, and classes for children.

A large general research database featuring a diverse mix of content including scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, books, newspapers, reports and videos.

ProQuest Family Health covers subjects from sports injuries to women’s health, from food and nutrition to midwifery, from eye care to dentistry. It includes important general medical journals such as The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine as well as a strong selection of consumer and news magazines.

Students can find author biographies, contemporary criticism, reviews, and multimedia resources from medieval times to the present.

This newly upgraded platform combines several ProQuest products, such as Entrepreneurship and Business Market Research collections, and adds JPMorgan, Business eBooks, and Business Video. One Business is designed to support the unique needs of business professionals including entrepreneurs, accountants, tax professionals, and academic faculty and students.

Primary and critical text database for literary research at all levels. Provides full text access to more than 500,000 works of poetry, drama and prose stretching from the 8th century through the present day, including primary resource collections from diverse and modern authors.

Developed to help students do more effective research and to assist educators in teaching the basics of the core information literacy principles of finding, evaluating, and using information.

Full text and images for the leading periodicals in science and technology, covering computers, engineering, physics, telecommunications, transportation and more.

General reference database for elementary and middle school learners, researchers, and educators covering curriculum areas and content sets such as reading, language arts, current events, science, social studies, history, health, and technology.

Composed of more than 500 full-text scholarly journals and popular science magazines covering research and instruction in earth, life, physical, medical and applied sciences; and technology, engineering, and math.

Provides the most recent premium U.S. news content, including archives as far back as the 1980s featuring newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full-text format. For academic and public libraries, US Newsstream offers exclusive access to the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and co-exclusive access (with Factiva) to The Wall Street Journal.

30,000 printable educational materials for grades pre-K through 8 (ages 4-13). Supplement any subject or skill. Learning activities, quizzes, and more. Build skills at home or in school with printable activity sheets for kids, parents and teachers.

The Watch and Learn Library is an early literacy program in English and Spanish for ages 4 to 8. It includes over 230 videos with real-world footage about science and social studies with closed captioning to support beginning readers and ELL. There are also short, fun quizzes to gauge comprehension and a vocabulary builder too.

Provides expertly researched content on core science subjects and in-depth overview essays on key science topic. Includes more than 1600 resources including images, videos, experiments and self-paced learning objects.

Background and analysis on 350+ leading issues, providing pros and cons on social, scientific, health, historic, economic, political, and global issues.

The complete run of Gale’s Something About the Author reference set, including thousands of illustrated biographical profiles of children’s authors and illustrators.

Includes thousands of original articles written by scientists covering important advances in biology, chemistry, environmental science, space, physics, and technology. Bridges the gap between the science taught in the classroom and the science students read and hear about in the news.

The Traveler Statewide Resources are a collection of digital resources provided by the Arkansas State Library to all Arkansas residents, schools, libraries and universities.

¡Disfruta este gran viaje por el mundo de la imaginación! Enjoy this great journey through the world of imagination!

Provides the most recent premium U.S. news content, including archives as far back as the 1980s featuring newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full-text format.

Access more than 500 lifelong learning courses in over 30 subject areas, many of which offer continuing education units (CEUs). All classes are designed and led by professional instructors and include videos, assignments, quizzes, tests, and options for social media interaction with other learners.

USA Today is America’s nationwide Monday through Friday newspaper.

Value Line Library Elite is a research tool with searchable stocks, investment research, and investment education. Value Line Library Elite provides access to approximately 3,400 stocks, data, expert analysis, and unbiased commentary with a time-tested and performance-proven Ranking System. Reports are updated weekly.

The Wall Street Journal delivers breaking business news, investment insight, and original market analysis that people rely on to make smarter professional and personal financial decisions.

Banco de Contenidos aulaPlaneta, Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos, World Book Advanced (grade 9+),World Book Discover (grade 5+), World Book Early Learning (preK+), World Book eBooks (all ages), Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos (grade K+), World Book Kids (grade K+), World Book Student (grade 5+), and World Book Timelines (grade 5+).

Search the collections of libraries in this community and around the country to find books, music, movies, etc.