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.

The Department contracts with five vendors (EBSCO, ProQuest,Thomson Gale, NewspaperARCHIVE, and TeachingBooks) to provide access to articles from thousands of newspaper and periodical titles, image files, and other specialized reference materials and websites. Users can find access to over 11,000 periodical titles and over 700 newspapers (including Wisconsin newspapers), children’s and adult literature, business, medical, and education sources, and many other specialized resources not available through regular internet 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, access to library digitized 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

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

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

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

ProQuest provides access to abstracts and full text of over 800 newspaper and magazine titles. Of particular interest is the Wisconsin Newsstand, which contains the full text of 12 Wisconsin newspapers. A quick reference guide to using ProQuest can be found at: http://www.il.proquest.com/products_pq/proquest/previews/pqnext_quick_start_guide.pdf.

If your child is a budding historian, NewspaperARCHIVES contains millions of searchable newspaper pages, dating as far back as the 1700s, in their original format. A reference guide to using NewspaperARCHIVES 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. LitFinder contains a Kids' Korner which provides access to full text poems and stories organized into categories appealing to children.