Today at the American Library Association's 2008 Midwinter Meeting, ABC-CLIO launched a new era in historical inquiry with release 2.0 of its eight online history, issues and geography databases. Enhancements to the new versions of these award-winning databases include an "Analyze" section that helps students examine key dilemmas in history, grapple with issues and build historical inquiry skills. Now even easier to use, the eight online databases have a common interface, cross-database searching capabilities and a new filtered search option for refining searches. Developed in collaboration with leading historians, librarians and educators, these resources are targeted to middle and high school students served by school and public libraries.
"When students study history, they develop a deeper understanding of their place in the world and learn how to analyze and interpret events and issues," said Becky Snyder, president, ABC-CLIO. "For example, the perspectives essays included in the new 'Analyze' section of the databases model historical thinking and inquiry and give students the sense of interacting with renowned historians and scholars."
The eight online databases all include the new "Analyze" section that helps students examine key dilemmas in history and modern issues, presents multiple viewpoints or interpretations from respected academics and provides study questions to help students think about the issues from differing perspectives. With the databases' new common interface, students and faculty will find the same easy-to-use features and functionality no matter what collection they are using. Plus, now students and educators can search for resources across all of the databases to which they subscribe, rather than being limited to one at a time. The redesigned results page tells them from which databases their results came. They can also use the advanced search option to find resources by place, time/era, broad subject and entry category. The new filtered search option allows students to quickly narrow or broaden a search results list.
The ABC-CLIO online databases continue to offer schools the authoritative information and access to the work of historians and scholars for which they are renowned. In addition, they offer thousands of primary sources, including images, video clips, maps and charts to make history come alive for students and time-saving tools for educators, such as correlations to state and national standards and to widely used textbooks.
Highlights of the eight ABC-CLIO online databases include:
American History: covers American history from 1350 to the present with 15,000 primary and secondary sources.
American Government: comprehensive coverage of the three branches of government, rights and liberties, and local, state and national government systems with nearly 12,000 primary and secondary sources including 1,000 documents, 4,000 images, 200 maps and 200 audio/video recordings.
World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras: coverage from the dawn of prehistory and the great ancient empires to the beginning of the Renaissance with more than 6,600 primary and secondary resources, 1,200 biographies of important figures and 70 in-depth topic explorations of time periods.
World History: The Modern Era: in-depth coverage of world history from 1500 to the present, aligned with curriculum guidelines, using over 14,000 primary and secondary sources, 76 explorations of eras and more than 3,500 biographies.
World Geography: Understanding a Changing World: 15,000 primary and secondary sources with almost 500 maps and 200 country overviews as well as 1,500 biographies and expanded cultural content, including new sections on ethnicity, language, religion, traditions and etiquette, and the arts.
United States Geography: highly visual overviews of all 50 states and nearly 10,000 primary and secondary sources, state flags, and seals, 2,600 images and 150 maps as well as Clioview, an online statistical tool that allows students to compare state data.
United States at War: Understanding Conflict and Society: complete overviews of 14 U.S.-fought wars, over 4,000 authoritative reference entries and over 7,500 primary sources.
Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society: coverage of 150 of the most studied controversial issues with new issues added each year, including 11,000 diverse entries from scholars and researchers and thousands of images and multimedia files. Eleven thousand diverse entries provide background and context for today's most pressing debates. They include 300 comprehensive essays, 1,000 documents and more than 2,000 reference entries.
Pricing for ABC-CLIO's online databases ranges from $399 to $599 per school site for an individual database, with special package pricing for multi-database subscriptions. Multi-site and multi-year discounts are also available. For more information, visit www.abc-clio.com or call 800-368-6868.
About ABC-CLIO:
ABC-CLIO provides history teachers and students with authoritative reference information and teacher resources that help students hone the skills of history inquiry and inquiry-based discussion as they master historical content and develop a deeper understanding of history's major themes and lessons. ABC-CLIO's award-winning subscription databases provide a comprehensive collection of references, curriculum and current events that together simplify historical research and help students make sense of world events as they unfold. A premier history publisher for more than 50 years, ABC-CLIO is based in Santa Barbara, Calif. For more information or a list of available titles, visit www.abc-clio.com.