Electronic Resources
Digital Media Download Center
Wisconsin's Digital Library is a catalog of downloadable ebooks, videos, music and audiobooks available to Wisconsin residents. To get started, Sign-in by choosing your library and entering your library card number. Visit the "Help" resources for more information on using the database.
Step-by-step Guides for Downloading eBooks and Audiobooks
Overdrive Help Videos
Wisconsin's Digital Library is a catalog of downloadable ebooks, videos, music and audiobooks available to Wisconsin residents. To get started, Sign-in by choosing your library and entering your library card number. Visit the "Help" resources for more information on using the database.
Step-by-step Guides for Downloading eBooks and Audiobooks
Overdrive Help Videos
Databases
The following online databases provide a wealth of information in a variety of formats. Some of the databases may require a password, available at your local library, or access may be limited to in-library use.
Genealogy
Ancestry Library Edition is an extensive library genealogy research tool. Access is limited to in-library use at any NWLS library. Promotional bookmarks and training materials are available.
Library Database Center
The BadgerLink database portal offers Wisconsin residents access to business, health, literature, magazine and newspaper resources, many available in full-text. For more information about the EBSCO databases in BadgerLink, visit the online support center. If you are unable to access any BadgerLink database, log in using the Library Card Access page. The following databases are among the many resources available through BadgerLink:
Auto Repair Reference Center~Repair manuals for most major manufacturers of domestic and imported vehicles, with repair information for most vintage makes starting as far back as 1954.
Consumer Health Complete~Includes more than 200 health and wellness reference books and encyclopedias, thousands of health reports, drug evaluation sheets, videos, pamphlets and other documents.
HeritageQuest~Research ancestors and historical sources dating back to the 1700s.
MasterFILE Premier~A general reference database with nearly 1,700 publications with full text information dating as far back as 1975. Accessing in BagerLink's Database List.
NoveList~A readers' advisory database with over 150,000 fiction titles, and over 4,000 custom created articles and lists. Access Feature Articles, BookTalks, and Book Discussion Guides along with Author Read-alikes, Readers' Advisory training content and a variety of other reader materials.
NoveList K-8~A readers' advisory database for grades K-8 with collection of titles, BookTalks, Recommended Reads book lists and more.
TeachingBooks.net~Thousands of resources for K-12 multimedia fiction and nonfiction reading activities for educators, librarians, students and families supporting language arts, book clubs, art educators, social studies and much more.
EBSCOhost~A rich eBook collection of books, journals, and database content. Select the EBSCO Database List, then select the eBook Collection. Sign in at the top of the page.
LearningExpress Library~A learning center for people of all ages and education levels interested in acquiring skills for school or work.
BadgerLink is a project of the Department of Public Instruction's Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning for the citizens of Wisconsin. Funding is provided through the Public Service Commission Universal Service Fund.
Reference Links
Adaptive Resources | Almanacs | Automotive | Biographies | Books | Calculation and Measurement | Calendars/Time Zone | Countries | Dictionaries/Language | Encyclopedias | Etiquette | Genealogy | General Reference | GED/Education | Health Care | History | Jobs/Careers | Law/Legal | Maps and Locators | Music | Science | States and Cities | Statistics and Profiles | Stock Quotes | Translators | Weather
Adaptive Resources
Internet Archive: Includes texts, audio, movie images, and software as well as archived web pages and provides specialized services for adaptive reading and information access for the blind and other persons with disabilities.
Almanacs
Information Please Almanac: Brief facts on may topics, searchable by subject or keyword.
InfoPlease-This Day in History: Significant events by date, searchable by month, date, and year.
Directory of Best Online Almanacs: RefSeek: RefSeek is a web search engine for students and researchers that aims to make academic information easily accessible to everyone. RefSeek searches more than one billion documents, including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers.
Automotive
Auto Repair Reference Center: Step by step, procedures, photos, wiring diagrams, troubleshooting guides and spec tables can be accessed. A Badgerlink resource.
Biographies
Biography.com:
Historical Figures in Wisconsin: Learn about the lives of your favorite Wisconsin historical figures, from the famous to infamous, and their contributions to our state's history.
Biographical Dictionary: This biographical dictionary covering 28,000+ personalities has advanced search capabilities.
Presidents of the United States: Research your favorite President on the Internet.
Books
The Free Library: The Free Library has free, full-text versions of classic literary works. Recently, the Free Library has been expanded to include publications covering Business and Industry, Communications, Entertainment, Health, Humanities, Law, Government, Politics, Recreation and Leisure, Science and Technology, and Social Sciences. This collection includes millions of articles dating back to 1984 as well as newly published articles that are added to the site daily.
Google Book Search: Google's Library project. Books in the public domain are available in "full view" and free for download. For in-print books where permission has been granted, the number of viewable pages is limited to a "preview" set.
Hathi Trust: is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries to create full-text digital copies of items in the public domain.
Project Gutenberg: offers over 38,000 free ebooks.
Calculation and Measurement
Fast Food Nutrition Facts: For fast food products.
Financial Calculators: Calculators for loan rates, mortgages, refinancing comparisons, amortization, debt consolidation, and more.
The Inflation Calculator:
What is a Dollar Worth?:
MegaConverter2: Convert Anything: Length, time, distance, weights & measures, and more
OANDA Currency Converter: Easily convert between any of the 164 currencies.
Calendars/Time Zones
Calendar Zone: Links to hundreds of calendars, including celestial, event, cultural, daily, and interactive.
TimeandDate.com: Offers a variety of calendars and clocks for reference or personal use.
World Time Server: See current time and deviation from GMT for all countries and many large cities.
Countries
Library of Congress Country Profiles: The profiles offer brief, summarized information on a country's historical background, geography, society, economy, transportation and telecommuncations, government and politics, and national security.
Flags of the World: Each country's flag is pictured in color, with a description of the significance of the colors and symbols, and a brief history.
Nationmaster.com: NationMster is a central data source to graphically compare facts about nations.
Nations of the World: Provides links to each country's constitution and selected legal guides along with access to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.
World Factbook: U.S. government files on countries, complete with small map and picture of flag.
American History: Unites States history and historical documents. Learn more about the history of the U.S.
Dictionaries/Languages
FSI Language Courses: This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely available in an electronic format. These courses were developed by the Unites States government and are in the public domain.
BBC Language Courses: Audio and video courses for beginners and intermediates in 36 languages.
Acronym Finder: With more than 1,000,000 human-edited definitions, Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialism.
Quotations at Bartleby.com: The 120,000 most authoritative quotations on the web, with 50,000 other short selections.
Merriam Webster's Dictionary: This easy-to-use dictionary includes multiple meanings (including British usage), as well as etymology and pronunciation of words.
The American Heritage Medical Dictionary: New treatments, new tests, and new insights into health and disease have resulted in an unprecedented explosion in medical terminology. The American Heritage Medical Dictionary provides students, health care professionals, and general consumers interested in medical vocabulary with a comprehensive reference that reflects the most recent developments in medicine and health care delivery.
Quotations: "Key word, author, title and subject access to a number of major quotation sources in the public domain, including Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the King James Bible, Roget's Thesaurus and others."
Thesaurus.com: Find similar words.
Wordsmyth: A dictionary/thesaurus with exceptional searching capabilities for hard-to-spell or frequently misspelled words and over 50,000 entries.
YourDictionary.com: Links to 1,500 dictionaries covering 230 separate languages, from Afrikaans to Xhosa, plus specialized dictionaries, multilingual dictionaries, verb conjugators, translators, thesauri, synonyms and homonyms, quotations, etymology, and more.
American Rhectoric: This site is a valuable resource for finding some of the most famous--and infamous--speeches ever made.
Banished Word List: Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.
Encyclopedias
Encyclopedia Britannica: Links to Encyclopedia Britannica articles and similar web sites, by general category or specific search topic.
Encyberpedia: The Living Encyclopedia: A voluminous listing of online encyclopedias.
Etiquette
A-Z of Manners and Etiquette: The simple, straight forward easy to read guide to community matters, manners and etiquette will hep us to learn the basic.
Workplace Etiquette: Tips for the workplace.
Genealogy
Newspaper Archive.com: (BadgerLink Resource) From home, search for newspaper and magazine articles. Try our ancestor's hometown as a search term!
HeritageQuest: (BadgerLink Resource)
Ancestor Library Edition: An extensive library genealogy research tool. In library use only or by accessing the library's wireless network.
RootsWeb.com: The oldest and largest free genealogy site.
Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet: Categorized and cross-referenced links and more!
Find A Grave: Find A Grave is a resource for anyone in finding the final disposition of family, friends, and 'famous' individuals. Search 132 million grave records.
Family Search: Search for family on the LDS website.
Ellis Island Historic records: Records from the historic New York immigration portal are now available. View images of ship documents indicating where an individual came from, whom they were with at time of entry and who was meeting them at their destination.
Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR): DAR members came from a variety of backgrounds and interests, but all share a common bond of having an ancestor who helped contribute to securing the independence of the Unites States of America. Any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution is eligible to join.
USGenWeb Project: Search by state.
GED/Education
High School Equivalency Center: (Badgerlink - Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Resource)
MyCareerTools- Online Tools To Upgrade Your Skills: Take advantage of our free Career Tools that will help you to upgrade your skills by preparing you for the tests, get a better job or negotiate the better salary. Whether you are just leaving school, searching for new opportunities or facing unemployment, this may be the right time to consider upgrading your skills.
Khan Academy: Reach your learning potential. For free.
Open Yale Courses: Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.
History
National Archives: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever. Those valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family’s history, need to prove a veteran’s military service, or are researching an historical topic that interests you.
Wisconsin Historical Society: This organization preserves and promotes the cultural heritage of Wisconsin.
Historic Preservation: This is the primary state agency with knowledge and expertise in historic preservation, providing assistance in identifying and protecting historic properties, archaeological sites, burial places, and other cultural sites in the state. The staff includes preservation specialists (including historians, architectural historians, historic architects, and archaeologists).
Chronicling America: The Library of Congress: Historic American Newspapers. Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1822 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Jobs/Careers
Learning Express Career Center: Prepare for a career exam, explore occupations, and improve your workplace skills here.
Job Seeker Website: Wisconsin libraries and the Department of Public Instruction are very pleased to announce the new Job Seeker website, tailored to Wisconsin residents, businesses and communities. Users can browse one list to see the 100+ resources selected for inclusion in the site. They can choose specific types of job postings or resources on building job-related skills. If you would like additional information on the site, have feedback or questions to share, please contact Martha Berninger-martha.berninger@dpi.wi.gov
Law/Legal
Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ): This resource is designed to assist you with information covering all aspects of the role of the Department – from legal services to consumer help for seniors to crime prevention and law enforcement services, victims rights and environmental enforcement.
Wisconsin Court System for the Public: Wisconsin Court System designed this web site for use by people representing themselves in divorce/separation, complaints against judges, complaints against interpreters, lawyer regulation, and more.
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Created in 1972, is a federally funded resource offering justice and substance abuse information to further support research, policy, and program development worldwide.
Maps & Locators
Google Street Maps: Physical and geographic country maps.
Microsoft Live Maps-Bing Maps: Search for business, people, collections and places. Get directions. Add your own information about a place.
Atlapedia Online: Physical and geographic country maps, complete with statistics and factoids.
Distance Calculator-How Far Is It?:The Distance Calculator can find distance between any two cities or locations available in The World Clock. The distance is calculated in kilometers, miles and nautical miles, and the initial compass bearing/heading from the origin to the destination. It will also display local time in each of the locations.
MapQuest!: Interactive street atlases of the continental United States gives you mileage, door-to-door or city-to-city, and street maps with driving directions.
The National Map: The National Map is now offering a collection of small-scale datasets that can be downloaded for free.
Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection: Historical, countries and world.
US Topo: US Topo maps are a graphic representation of The National Map digital data, presented in the familiar USGS quadrangle format.
US Topo Symbols: Help in interpreting the maps.
United States Geography: USGS geographers monitor the changes on the land surface by observing the Earth with remote sensing satellites, studying the connections between people and those changes with careful geographic analysis, and providing society with relevant science information they can use to manage the consequences of those changes.
Google Earth: Google Earth puts a planet's worth of imagery and other geographic information. Free program that must be downloaded but worth the effort. High speed internet access and a monitor resolution of at least 1024 by 768 is needed.
Medical
On-line Medical Dictionary Use this free online medical dictionary search engine to research and learn about medical terminology, pharmaceutical drugs, healthcare equipment, health conditions, medical devices, medical abbreviations and more.
Health Finder: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sponsored source for reliable health information.
Kids Health: If you're looking for information you can trust about kids and teens that's free of "doctor speak," you've come to the right place. KidsHealth is the most-visited site on the Web for information about health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years.
Mayo Clinic: More than 3,300 physicians, scientists and researchers from Mayo Clinic share their expertise to empower you to manage your health.
Medline Plus: Trusted health information sponsored by U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health.
Medscape Medical Search: Articles, News, Conference coverage, Clinical overviews and drug reference.
Drugs.com: Prescription Drug Information, Interactions, and Side Effects.
Clinical Trials: ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry of federally and privately supported clinical trials conducted in the United States and around the world. ClinicalTrials.gov gives you information about a trial's purpose, who may participate, locations, and phone numbers for more details. This information should be used in conjunction with advice from health care professionals. Sponsored by U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Marshfield Clinic Health Information Center: Marshfield Clinic's Health Information Center supports individuals in developing an approach to life that includes educated decisions and actions to create a balanced and fulfilling lifestyle. There is a great deal of health and wellness information, including articles on nutrition, fitness, patient education, and mental and sexual health.
Elder Planning/Long Term Care: Comprehensive resource for Eldercare, Senior Services and Care Planning.
Music
International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) Portal The Petrucci Music Library contains freely available music scores and recordings of compositions in the public domain.
National Jukebox-The Library of Congress The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives.
Science
Science Daily: ScienceDaily is one of the Internet's leading online magazines and Web portals devoted to science, technology, and medicine.
Directory of Open Access Journals Free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages.
PubMed Central PMC is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).
States and Cities
Wisconsin State Government: Links to Wisconsin State offices, public services, state facts and more.
50 States and Capitals: Information for all fifty states and seven territories, including state flags (picture and description), state symbols, political and geographical information, and a direct link to the state's official web page.
Official City Sites: Links to official state and city web pages in the U.S. and several European countries.
Sperling's Best Places: Compare over 3,000 U.S. cities in housing, costs of living, crime, education, economy, health and climate.
Townhunter: Compare over facts about U.S. cities.
United States Gazetteer: Locate a city, township or county by name or zip code. Brief data includes 1990 population, as well as an interactive map of the area.
Statistics and Profiles
Consumer Price Index: Get the most current CPI press release, or look at an overview of CPIs from 1913-present.
Demographic Services Center: (WI Dept. of Administration) Links to Wisconsin demographics, including WisStat.
Wisconsin Labor Market Information: Access statistics about the Wisconsin work force, including the county snapshots, County Workforce Profiles of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Office of Economic Advisors: The Office assists economic data users to better understand the relationships between labor markets and other economic and demographic specifics.
U.S. Data and Statistics: Find data about the U.S., such as maps and population, demographic, and economic data.
Nationmaster.com: NationMaster is a central data source to graphically compare facts about nations.
United States Census Bureau: Searchable site with many statistics for the U.S., including the State and Metropolitan Data Book which is designed to serve as a statistical reference and guide to other statistical publications and sources.
U.S. States Fact Sheet: Basic and agricultural statistics on every state in the U.S., compiled by the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
University of Michigan Documents Center's Statistical Resources on the Web: Provides links to many of the same sources as the U.S. Census Bureau and FedStats.
Wisconsin Blue Book: The Blue Book contains facts and statistics on Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Health Statistics: A-Z listing to find the data or statistics-related information that you are looking for. Included is information on Births, Deaths, Health Insurance Status, Marriages, Divorces and etc.
Stock Quotes
Big Charts: Provides interactive charts for stocks and mutual funds, as well as current and historical quotes.
Reuters.com: Thorough and detailed quote coverage.