For Parents: An Introduction to BadgerLink

Welcome to BadgerLink, an exciting online information tool for students, parents, and families to continue learning at home, office, public library, or school.

BadgerLink is an online resource free to Wisconsin citizens that offers a host of great reading and reference materials for kids pre-kindergarten through high school. Use it from your home computer or a public library computer to help your child access resources for school assignments, personal interests, or to keep kids reading and learning outside of school. Access BadgerLink at http://www.badgerlink.net 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

BadgerLink is a safe Internet environment that connects your family to databases with thousands of magazines, newspapers, and books online not available through regular Internet search engines. Wisconsin residents access them at no charge through a special program of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

BadgerLink materials have been selected so that parents can be confident that only quality information from recognized publishers or sources is available. When users search BadgerLink, they can be assured that the responses are reliable and current. Children will not be subjected to results with thousands of irrelevant and possibly inappropriate responses that a Google-type search may produce. Parents should still provide guidance to be sure that the subject being investigated is suitable to the age and maturity of the child searcher. BadgerLink provides access to materials not available through Google or other public search engines.

TThe Department of Public Instruction currently contracts with eight vendors (EBSCO, Encyclopćdia Britannica, Inc., Gale/Cengage Learning, Heritage Microfilm, Inc., LearningExpress, LLC, ProQuest, TeachingBooks.net, LLC and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association) to provide access to a large volume of full-text information. Users can search approximately 20,000 full-text magazines, journals, newspapers, reference materials and other specialized information sources. Included are over 8,000 full text magazines and journals, over 1,500 newspapers and newswires, and approximately 6,800 full text books. Full text articles are taken from 2,900 historical newspaper titles. In addition the BadgerLink vendors provide access to automobile repair manuals, company profiles, country economic reports, industrial reports and yearbooks, biographies, primary historical documents, charts, images, schematics, maps, poems, essays, speeches, plays, short stories, author audio programs and book readings, author video programs, book reviews or discussion guides, and many other full text resources not available through regular internet search engines. When these resources are available through search engines such as Google, it is because Wisconsin has licensed the content to appear when searched through these search engines. BadgerLink also connects users to WISCAT (the online catalog of Wisconsin library holdings), OCLC WorldCat (an international database of library holdings), directories of libraries, digitized library collections, and other information.

Have questions about how to use BadgerLink? Try using the Hunt Cards for students and parents for step-by-step directions to finding your favorite resources. Contact your local librarian with questions about how to access or use BadgerLink. Funding is provided through the Public Service Commission Universal Service Fund.

Elementary Schoolchildren

NoveList K-8, a fiction database, is designed with a bright, appealing layout, designed especially for elementary and middle schools. The database contains enhanced subject access for over 60,000 fiction titles aimed at the K-8 population. Full-text reviews from sources like School Library Journal and Booklist are available for many titles. A tutorial on how to use NoveList K-8 can be found at: http://support.ebsco.com/training/flash_videos/K8TourFiles/NovK8Tour.htm.

Searchasaurus is designed specifically for elementary school children and contains the full text of nearly 70 popular, elementary school magazines and abstracts for nearly 100 magazines. Publications include: Appleseeds, Boys’ Life, Cobblestone, Cricket, Highlights for Children, Hopscotch, Jack & Jill, Ladybug, Ranger Rick, Science World, Spider, SuperScience, Time for Kids, Turtle, and many more. This database also provides the American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, 3rd Edition from Houghton Mifflin, and an Image Collection of over 235,000 photos, maps and flags. A tutorial on how to use Searchasaurus can be found at: http://support.ebsco.com/training/flash_videos/Searchasaurus.html.

Middle Schoolchildren

Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia is designed for students and adults alike. The Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia database indexes over 25,000 records, covering an array of topics. The database contains various images, offers brief biographies as well as information in a variety of subject areas.

Kids Search is a database that contains full text for 140 popular, middle school magazines and for thousands of biographies and historical essays. Many primary source documents are also available, including Essential Documents in American History, reference books including the Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia and American Heritage Dictionary, the Encyclopedia of Animals, and an Image Collection of over 235,000 photos, maps and flags. A tutorial on how to use Kids Search can be found at http://support.ebsco.com/training/flash_videos/KidsSearchInterface.html.

High School students

Science Reference Center is a comprehensive research database that provides easy access to a multitude of full text science-oriented content. This database contains full text for nearly 640 science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, etc. Topics covered include: biology, chemistry, earth & space science, environmental science, health & medicine, history of science, life science, physics, science & society, science as inquiry, scientists, technology and wildlife.

Student Resource Center is designed specifically for high school students and contains full text for nearly 500 popular, high school magazines including America’s Civil War, American Heritage, American History, Archaeology, Astronomy, Bioscience, Careers & Colleges, Civil War Times, Congressional Digest, Discover, Economist, History Today, Nation, National Review, New Republic, New Scientist, Popular Science, Science News, Scientific American, Smithsonian, World War II. Full text is also available for more than 80 thousand biographies and over 100,000 primary source documents. Additionally, this database contains more than 350 reference books including the Columbia Encyclopedia, the CIA World Fact Book and World Almanac & Book of Facts, and an Image Collection of 235,186 photos, maps, and flags. A tutorial on how to use Student Resource Center can be found at: http://support.ebsco.com/training/flash_videos/SRCInterface.html.

Other Databases on BadgerLink

If your child is a budding historian, Access NewspaperARCHIVE contains millions of searchable newspaper pages, dating as far back as the 1700s, in their original format. A reference guide to using Access NewspaperARCHIVE can be found at: http://www.badgerlink.net/NArchRef.doc.

TeachingBooks.net is a diverse and constantly growing online collection of multimedia K-12 book and author resources. Its collection of original, in-studio movies and interviews is a wonderful way for children to meet the authors and illustrators of the books they are reading! Individual training resources for using TeachingBooks.net can be found at: http://www.teachingbooks.net/show.cgi?f=training#ITR.

The LitFinder database contains a wealth of primary literature content covering all time periods. It includes poems, short stories, essays, speeches, plays and author biographies, photographs and work summaries.