Get "Inspired" for your essay!
Are you looking for inspiration for your Black History Month Essay Contest entry? Indiana’s online research library can help!
If you put Black History Month in Google, you’ll get 2.75 to 6 million results.
Oddly, even after millions of results, Google is missing a LOT! What are you missing? The surprising answer is newspaper and magazine articles!
It’s missing because you have to pay for them! You and I alone cannot afford it either. However, as a whole state we can! The answer is Inspire.net!
What’s Inspire.net
The state of Indiana subscribes to services that allows us read hundreds of magazines, newspapers and academic publications for free! This is everything from Sports Illustrated and Ranger Rick to the Seattle Times and Black History Bulletin. There’s also maps, encyclopaedias, biographies and more!
Here’s how to get good stuff from Inspire.net in 10 easy steps! Follow along in another window :)
Go to Inspire.net…
1) Go to Inspire.net and click “Search Inspire Databases”! You might have to sign up for a password, but it is free for all Indiana residents!
2) Once you get in, click on “Student Research Center” on the left side of the page.
The Search…
3) Type “black history month” (or any other words) into the “find” box. You can click search now or you can fine tune your search to look for certain things such as…
4) Source types: You can search just for magazines or newspapers if you want. Under “Include when searching” choose what kind of articles you want by check (or unchecking) the boxes below the source types (magazines, newspapers, etc.)
5) By date: If you want articles from a certain time period you can do this under “Limit your Results” by enter dates.
6) Click the Search button: Yea! Here come the results!
The Results…
7) The List: You now have a numbered list of articles about Black History Month with title, author and when and where the article appeared. Above and below this list you’ll see a light blue bar where you can click for the “next” page of articles.
8) Keep the ones you want! Next to each article you’ll see a folder icon that says “add.” When you find an article you like, click on that add folder. I’d suggest going through 5 to 10 pages of results, clicking on all the articles that sound like they would help you with the essay.
9) The folder: So you’ve picked maybe 5 to 10 articles. Way up at the top of the page in the dark blue bar, click on the gold folder icon. This is where all your saved articles are kept! You can now click on the titles to read the articles.
10) Email, save or print: From the “folder” you can also email, save or print the articles. Click on the boxes next to the articles you want to email and click on the email link. Fill in your address and the articles are emailed to you. You can also click the print or save links!
You can click on the Student Research Center logo or New Search to start over again.
This is just a quick outline. There is a lot more that Student Research Center can do. If you’d like to learn more or if you have any questions at all, email me at information@mjcpl.org, call me at (812) 265-2744 or leave a comment below! There’s no such thing as a dumb question and it may be that I just didn’t explain it well so ask away!
That’s it my friends! Good luck on the essay contest!
best,
Jerry the reference-tech librarian.
3 Comments
i tried inspire.com and got a health care website
ps this is kyle but i am at my grandmas so the name chang is at my grandma’s i am still the king of cheese poems
— Super Sauley/ Senor Happy Jan 21, 03:46 PM #
i have my cover(not sure if i need one)planned it will be awsome just wait to see
— Kyle Sauley (king of cheese poems) Jan 24, 04:04 PM #
Essay Contest 2008 for Black History Month Series Poll and Reminders