General Reference Sites for Middle School Students

Several sites require a password for access outside the library. Registered card holders may obtain the password from any service desk.

Ask Jeeves Kids

Ask Jeeves for Kids is a fast, easy and kid-friendly way for kids to find answers to their questions online. Designed to be a fun destination site focused on learning and "edutainment," Ask Jeeves for Kids uses natural-language technology that allows kids to ask questions, such as "Why is the sky blue?" or "What's it like to live in space?" in the same way they would ask a parent, friend or teacher. The service combines human editorial judgment with filtering technology to enable kids to find both relevant and appropriate answers on the Web.

BJ Pinchbeck's Homework Helper

Over 700 sites, divided by subject, to help middle and high school students with their homework.

Fact Monster

Fact Monster is a reference site for kids ages 8-14 that provides entertainment and educational resources. It combines the contents of an encyclopedia, a dictionary, an atlas, and several almanacs loaded with statistics, facts, and historical records. A single search engine allows you to search all these sources at once.

Funk & Wagnall's Encyclopedia

Full-text online encyclopedia available through NCLive. Password is required to access this database from outside the library.

Grolier Online for Kids

The New Book of Knowledge and other reference sources provided through NCLive. Password is required to access this database from outside the library.

Infotrac Junior Edition

Designed for junior high and middle school students, this database features the titles critical to their libraries and curriculum. With Junior Edition's diverse perspectives and strong full-text coverage, students will find the answers they need to their general reference questions. Password is required to access this database from outside the library.

Kidspace at the Internet Public Library

Here's the place to go for all your general reference needs! There are links to dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, and other sites for homework help or just looking things up.

Kid Info

Kid Info is a homework and research assistant that is uniquely different from other homework and research assistant sites because it is organized according to the specific curriculum covered in elementary, middle, and secondary schools throughout the United States.

Kids Click

KidsClick! was created by a group of librarians at the Ramapo Catskill Library System, as a logical step in addressing concerns about the role of public libraries in guiding their young users to valuable and age appropriate web sites.

Middle Search Plus

Contains full text for more than 150 popular, middle school magazines. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 200 magazines. All full text articles are assigned a reading level indicator (Lexiles). Full text is also available for thousands of biographies, historical essays and student pamphlets. Additionally, Middle Search Plus contains Essential Documents in American History, and other important information resources such as an Image Collection of 107,135 photos, maps and flags, 82,968 biographies, and 90,915 primary source documents. Full text backfiles date as far back as 1989, while indexing and abstract backfiles go as far back as January of 1984.
Password is required to access this site from outside the library.

Start Squad

The very best place to start for children, parents, librarians, and teachers seeking age-appropriate Web sites selected and organized by professionally trained librarians

Yahoo Education

Links to the following reference materials: Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Thesaurus, World Factbook, Spanish Dictionary, Quotations, Shakespeare's Works, Anatomy, and Conversion Calculator