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Go Where the Experts Go

Margaret Mohundro, Director of Communications and INSPIRE
INCOLSA
MLIS, University of Illinois 1996

When you're doing research, you probably turn first to search engines. But did you know that, while you may be getting a lot of information, you are only scratching the surface? You may get thousands of results, but you are searching only a small subset of available literature. Do you know what you're missing?

Next time go where the experts go — INSPIRE.

INSPIRE puts the power of an online research library, with verifiable, reliable, accurate information, on your desktop. Its 26 commercial databases are designed to meet the information needs of all the citizens of Indiana. Through INSPIRE, you have access to 10,000 magazines, encyclopedias, almanacs, and other materials for research, business planning, and lifelong learning.

INSPIRE was developed in 1998 with financial support from the Indiana General Assembly. Indiana was the first state to provide this kind of groundbreaking and innovative service directly to all Indiana residents — via the Internet delivered to your desktop at your library, school, home, or office.

As the importance of databases like those available through INSPIRE continues to grow, it becomes increasingly crucial for researchers and students to gain an understanding of the value of these commercial resources. At IUPUI University Library you have access to hundreds of online resources, including databases found through INSPIRE. Link to the library or link to INSPIRE directly: www.inspire.net.

Academic Search Elite

  • Information from a wide range of academic areas including social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural studies.
  • Full text for over 2,000 journals with many dating back to 1985.
  • Abstracts and indexing for over 3,000 scholarly journals.

Biography Resource Center

  • 400,000 biographies on more than 300,000 people with in-depth coverage of current and historic people from almost every field of endeavor.
  • Search by name, nationality, place, date, occupation, gender, or ethnicity.
  • Full-text articles from over 250 periodicals, 7,000 portraits.

Business Source Premier

  • Includes topics such as management, economics, finance, accounting, and international business.
  • Full text for over 7,500 publications; full-text back files are available as far back as 1922.

Company Profiles

  • Extremely detailed company profiles for the 10,000 largest companies in the world.

Corporate ResourceNet

  • Designed to meet the diverse needs of today's companies.
  • Full text articles from over 1,300 magazines and journals; full text information dates as far back as 1985.

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition

  • Provides access to over 550 full-text journals, and 800 indexed journals
  • Nursing, allied health and medicine journals are included

Knight Ridder Collection

  • 90-day archive of approximately 100 newspapers form the Knight Ridder wire service.
  • Titles include: The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The Orlando Sentinel, and The Sacramento Bee.

Lit Finder

  • Includes Poems, Stories, Essays, Speeches, and Plays.
  • 125,000 full-text poems; 850,000 poem citations and excerpts.
  • Thousands of full-text classic and contemporary short stories.
  • Full text essays and discursive writing based on books published in the 20th century.
  • The best and best-known speeches of the past 2,500 years categorized into easily searchable genres.
  • Over 1,000 plays complete covering the range of dramatic expression.

Military & Government Collection

  • Designed to offer current news pertaining to all branches of the military.
  • Cover-to-cover full text for nearly 400 journals and periodicals.
  • Indexing and abstracting of over 500 titles.

Newspaper Source

  • Provides selected full text for 200 U.S. and 20 international newspapers, 21 newswires and newspaper columns, and 26 TV and radio news transcripts.
  • Full text includes the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, and the Washington Post plus indexing and abstracting for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

    Professional Development Collection

    • A highly specialized collection of electronic information especially for professional educators.
    • Information on everything from children's health and development to cutting-edge pedagogical theory and practice.
    • Abstract and index coverage for over 800 well-known professional development titles; full text for over 750 journals.

    Regional Business News

    • Provides comprehensive full text for regional U.S. business publications (including titles from Crain Communications)

    WorldCat

    • Includes millions of records built from the bibliographic and ownership information of contributing libraries worldwide.
    • Records for everything from stone tablets to electronic books, wax recordings to MP3's, DVDs and Websites.
    • Many records are enriched with cover art, tables of contents, reviews, excerpts, and other descriptive information.

    If you need help using INSPIRE or other online databases, as your University Library Staff.

    Or, try one of the INSPIRE Pathfinders developed by students at IUPUI School of Library and Information Science. There are more than 40 Pathfinders available covering topics including Cells and Heredity, Economics in Europe and the Americas, Bone Cancer Treatment, Harlem Renaissance, Beat Generation, Indiana Native Americans, Opera, Sudan, Nanoscience/Nanotechnology, Unites States Civil War, and more. INSPIRE Pathfinders are available on the INSPIRE Clearinghouse:
    http://www.inspire.net/pathfinders.html.

    INSPIRE, The Virtual Indiana Library, is a service of INCOLSA and the libraries of Indiana. INSPIRE databases are funding in part by the Indiana General Assembly. INSPIRE service is supported by the Institute of Museums and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Indiana State Library.

    Article reprinted with permission from the author and Indiana Insight, a publication of IUPUI.