About the EBSCO Science Reference Center

Access Options:

This database can be accessed from any of Thrall Library's public Internet or research computers.

Concerning access outside the library:

This database is licensed through the NYS NOVEL program and is available to all New York State residents through the NYS NOVEL website.

Members of libraries which are part of the Ramapo Catskill Library System (RCLS) may log in using their library barcode.

Some helpful hints:

Among the top of the database search screen you will see a menu bar with options including: Keyword, Publications, Subjects, Images/Videos, and More. Each of these changes the search mode. The database starts out in Keyword mode. If you choose Publications or the other search modes just mentioned, you can limit your searches that way. For example, if you were looking for images of galaxies, you could click "Images/Videos" and type galaxy as your search term. Results would hen includes images of galaxies along with any articles that go with them.

You can use the sliders at the right side of the page (or type the dates in the Year input boxes) to limit results to a certain date range.

Ebsco also offers a "Visual Search" option under the main search box at the top of the database page. A "Visual Search" attempts to portray your search results in visual groupings on the screen. Contrary to other "visual" searches you might have used, there is nothing graphical about this: this is simply another way to view text results and to work with those results in columns. Clicking on any box in the "Visual Search" window updates article information on the right side panel, which you can then click to get to the main article.

Since "Visual Searches" can take a while to display and sort through (since only so many can fit on the screen at once), you might feel more comfortable using the default standard search; however, if you have time to explore this option, perhaps give it a try to see if it works better for you.

For more information...

See also these related resources:

Technical Considerations:

This "Visual Search" feature of this database requires the Adobe Flash Plugin (version 7 or higher), which, if you are at home, you can freely download from Adobe's website by clicking here.

Adobe PDF documents can be viewed if your computer has the free Adobe Reader software installed.

Before printing, be sure to click the Printer icon located at the top of any article. This will reformat the page in a "printer friendly" format, enabling you to print more on fewer pages.

Printing at the library costs $ .20 per page. Please inquire at the Reference Department if you are not sure how to print.

This database also allows you to e-mail articles you find to your own e-mail account. To do so, look for the e-mail icon at the top of an article page, click the icon, and carefully enter your e-mail address on the next web page that appears.

There is no cost for e-mailing articles, and you may e-mail as many articles to yourself as you like!