Kim Needle, Director of Educational Technology

Amanda Kopick , Media Specialist

The new Upper School Library was planned and designed specifically with both the school's educational goals and our students academic needs in mind.

This 10,000-square-foot state-of-the-art Library houses:

• Over 150 computers
• 4 interactive resource labs, serving to incorporate technology into every upper school classroom
• 12-foot tables, equipped with electric and data ports, for collaborative research and study, as well as similarly equipped, lighted carrels for individual study.

Added features include wireless Internet access, a professionally staffed reference desk for optimum assistance, a separate station to monitor database progress and provide research guidance and a fully-automated circulation desk. The periodical lounge area provides comfortable seating and lighting as well as easy access to more than 50 current magazines; and, the college corner offers access to continually updated college materials, including practice exams, and a television for viewing college videos. Finally, the new Library hours have been extended to 6:00 p.m. for student convenience.

Thomson Gale

• Student Resources in Context Student Resources in Context provides a premium selection of reference material, more than 1,100 full-text periodicals and newspapers, primary sources, creative works, and multimedia, including hours of video and audio clips and podcasts. Premier reference content includes the American Journey Series, American Decades, Career Information Center and the SRC Health Module. – A good resource for all your projects

• Opposing Viewpoints in Context Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center is a one-stop source for information on today's hottest social issues. Drawing on acclaimed series published by Greenhaven Press and other Gale imprints, OVRC features viewpoint articles, topic overviews, full-text magazine, academic journal, and newspaper articles, primary source documents, statistics, images and podcasts, and links to Websites. - An excellent resource for Speeches

• Gale Virtual Reference Library Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. These reference materials once were accessible only in the library, but now you can access them online from the library or remotely 24/7.

• eBooks In addition we have categorized eBooks into sub-collections based on Topics to make it easily accessible for students.

• Science in Context Science in Context delivers delivers integrated content through 150+ comprehensive reference sets from Gale Encyclopedia of Science, Chemical Elements, Science in Dispute and Macmillan Science Library, as well as more than 22,000 topic overviews, 7,000 biographies, 1.5 million periodical articles from noted publications like Science Weekly, Science News and The Science Teacher, 16,000 images and videos, 170+ detailed experiments, 8,100 biographies, two dictionaries- A great resource for all your science projects

• Literature Resource Center (LRC) Find up-to-date biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism and reviews on more than 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world. - An excellent resource for your research papers.

• Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking contains balanced, up-to-date coverage on today’s most controversial topics. It includes vocabulary, definitions and assessments to formulate arguments about and analysis of issues and concepts. Full articles are availabel in both text amd MP3 format.

ProQuest/SIRS

• eLibrary Curriculum – It is a simple easy to use curriculum and reference resource. It delivers one of the largest collections of periodical and digital media content designed specifically for K-12 schools and libraries. The database includes 2,000 full-text magazines, newspapers, reference books, and transcripts-plus thousands of pictures, maps, educator-approved websites from Homework Central®, plus audio/video content.
• SIRS Knowledge Source - A comprehensive portal offering centralized access to all SIRS products which target the needs of students with best-of content selected to support research, study, and homework in key curricula subjects.
• SIRS Researcher®--topical pro/con coverage of current and enduring issues, including over 100 Leading Issues

• SIRS® Government Reporter—resources by and about the U.S. government

• SIRS® Renaissance--current perspectives on the arts and humanities

• SIRS® WebSelect--a collection of more than 20,000 reliable and credible websites covering all SKS topics

• eLibrary Science – A great resource for all your science projects

Offers laser-focused science content and tools along with unique video and dozens of manipulative found in no other online science reference product.

• SIRS Discoverer - General reference resource for young researchers that makes learning fun and intuitive. Helps students in grades 1-9 develop their research, writing, language and computer skills.

• eLibrary Elementary - This is an full-text reference resource -- tailors all the media types and search functionality of eLibrary for the young reader and researcher. It's an easy-to-use general reference database designed specifically to engage and guide younger students. Students of all ages use eLibrary Elementary's powerful, yet engaging and easy-to-use search interface to find the answers they need from more than 140 magazines, newspapers, books, transcripts, maps, images, educator-approved websites.

• CultureGrams - CultureGrams helps students discover the world with concise cultural and statistical snapshots of every country recognized by the United Nations – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. It includes all Kids, States, Provinces, and World Edition material in an engaging interface that users can access anytime, anywhere.

• History Study Center is an online resource providing a vast collection of digitized primary and secondary sources for the study of history. It is suitable high school students looking for quick and reliable facts on a historical topic, primary source texts. It covers global history from ancient times to the present day. Contents include reference books, essays, journal articles, historical newspaper and magazine articles, maps, rare books, government documents, transcripts of historical speeches, images and video clips. The Center provides over 40,000 documents and articles, with over 50 reference works, 3,000 images and links to 2,000 Web sites.

• ProQuest Learning: Literature - Students can research for the latest word on the authors they study in class and read at home!

JSTOR

Exceptional Resource for History, Debate, & English students (7-12^th Grade)

The JSTOR digital archive includes more than 1,500 leading academic journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. It provides scholarly literature for students. Secondary Schools gain access to the Secondary Schools Collection—all Arts & Sciences, Life Sciences Collections content, the 19th Century British Pamphlets Collection, and the Aluka Collections

LexisNexis Library Express

Good Resource for History, Debate, & Pre-Law students (9-12^th Grade)

LexisNexis® Library Express provides access to full-text news, business, and legal publications, using a variety of flexible search options. Access over 6,000 news, business, and legal sources. The outstanding news coverage includes deep back files and up-to-the-minute stories in national and regional newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, international news, and non-English language sources.

Questia

Excellent database for high school students that provides great materials for English and Social Studies projects.

Questia is the world's largest online library of books, with over 72,000 full-text books, 2 million articles, and an entire reference set complete with a dictionary, encyclopedia, and thesaurus. This academic library includes digital productivity tools for highlighting text, taking notes, and generating footnotes and bibliographies in seven different styles.

EbscoHost

• Student Research Center - EBSCO's Student Research Center makes it easy for students to search by keyword or by topic to find the most useful search results. Results can be easily sorted by source type—magazines, reference books, photos, flags, etc.
• Points of View is a full text database designed to provide students and schools with a series of controversial essays that present multiple sides of a current issue. Essays provide questions and materials for further thought and study and are accompanied by thousands of supporting articles from the world’s top political and societal publications.
• Literary Reference Center is full-text database that combines information from major respected reference works, books, literary journals as well as original content from EBSCO Publishing. It contains full text for plot summaries, synopses and work overviews, articles/essays of literary criticisms, author biographies, literary journals, book reviews, classic and contemporary poems, classic and contemporary short stories, author interviews, and classic texts. A good resource for all your literary research projects
• Science Reference Center is a comprehensive research database that provides easy access to a multitude of full-text science-oriented content. Designed to meet every student's science research needs. It contains full text for hundreds of science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, and other sources. A great resource for all your science projects
• English Language Learner Reference Center (ELL) - The English Language Learner Reference Center is a multi-purpose online information resource designed especially for secondary and young adult English language learners (ELLs). It focuses on ELL materials to help ELLs conduct research, build background knowledge and develop study skills, as well as facilitating their future transition to non-ELL materials. The ELL Reference Center will help ELLs succeed in the academic areas required in the school, as well as in everyday life.
• EbscoHost Web – includes: MAS Ultra - School Edition - Designed specifically for high school libraries, this database contains full text for more than 500 popular, high school magazines. Health Source - Consumer Edition - Consumer Edition provides access to nearly 80 full-text, consumer health magazines. Newspaper Source - Newspaper Source provides cover-to-cover full text for 35 national & international newspapers. In addition, full text television & radio news transcripts are also provided. Professional Development Collection - Professional Development Collection is the most comprehensive collection of full text education journals in the world. ERIC - ERIC, the Educational Resource Information Center, contains more than 1,243,000 records and links to more than 224,000 full-text documents from ERIC. TOPICsearch contains full text for over 105,000 articles from 1,622 diverse sources including international and regional newspapers

NetTrekker

An exceptional search engine for all levels of students

NetTrekker is an educational search engine for K-12 students. This search tool includes over 300,000 digital content, organized by grade and reading level and is aligned with state standard. It delivers content appropriate for every child’s individual learning needs with exclusive tools that has read-Aloud Text-to-Speech Support, customized Content for ELL/ESL, Dictionary/Translation Hot Key

NoodleTools

Important tool for citation

NoodleTools provides innovative software that teaches students and supports teachers and librarians throughout the entire research process.

• Search intelligently
• Assess the quality of results
• Record, organize and synthesize information using online note cards
• Format your bibliography in MLA, APA, or Chicago/Turabian style

Turnitin

Originality Checking

Originality Checking allows educators to check students' work for improper citation or potential plagiarism by comparing it against continuously updated databases. Every Originality Report provides instructors with the opportunity to teach their students proper citation methods as well as to safeguard their students' academic integrity.

Quia

Get ready for giving Quizzes on Quia

Quia provides a wide variety of tools, including:

• Templates for creating 16 types of online activities, including flash cards, word search, battleship, challenge board, and cloze exercises.
• Complete online testing tools that allow teachers to create quizzes, grade them with computer assistance, and receive detailed reports on student performance.
• Access to over 3 million online activities and quizzes in 300 categories. Teachers from around the world have created all of the shared activities.
• A class Web page creator that includes a course calendar and an easy way to post Quia activities for students and parents.
• Online surveys for gathering student and teacher feedback.

SATPrep

Practice SAT and improve your scores.

American Heritage is working in conjunction with Teach America and offers a comprehensive SAT prep program for all AHS students.

• Class
• Small group tutoring
• One on one tutoring
• On-line video instruction.

Naviance

Naviance is the leading provider of planning and advising systems for K-12 schools and a powerful resource for college admissions professionals who need to communicate with counselors, students, and parents.