Waggoner Library: Master: Library & Information Science: TEL: Tennessee Electronic Library

The Tennessee Electronic Library

Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) is an online library that gives Tennessee residents access to magazines, journals, newspapers, essays, e-books, primary source materials, test preparation, homework help, genealogy records, career search, and more! TEL resources are available free to the public from any computer with Internet access in Tennessee.

TEL- Tennessee Electronic Library
The Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) is a collection of 40+ databases that provide access to over 400,000 magazine, journal, and newspaper articles, essays, podcasts, videos, e-books, primary source materials, and more!

Basic Databases

These databases are multidisciplinary, intended for use by all ages covering many topics.

Academic OneFile (Gale)

A multidisciplinary database covering many subjects with content from journal articles, newspaper resources, magazines, and audio & video files.
Academic Search Ultimate

Academic Search Ultimate (ASU) is a multi-disciplinary database of over 10,000 academic journals, newspapers, magazines, reports, and books available through EBSCOhost. Scholarly content covers a broad range of important areas of academic study, including biology, food science, landscape architecture, urban planning, engineering, animal science, law, and general sciences.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
GVRL is a collection of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. These eBooks are available 24/7 with no checkout. Titles can be browsed, searched and downloaded anytime from any Internet-connected device.

K-12 Databases

These resources can be used by more than one grade group.

HeritageQuest Online

Includes all of the images, and extensive indexing, from the 1790 - 1930 U.S. federal censuses. It offers more than 20,000 book titles, including nearly 8,000 family histories and over 12,000 local histories. Additionally, there are more than 250 primary-source documents such as tax lists, city directories, probate records, and more. Genealogy related resources are found here.
LitFinder (Gale)

LitFinder is a database that provides access to a wide range of literary works and secondary sources, covering a wide range of genres and formats. It offers full-text access to over 150,000 poems and over 800,000 poetry citations, along with other literary forms and related materials. Additionally, the database provides access to literary works and authors throughout history and from around the world. LitFinder includes supplementary materials like biographies, work summaries, photographs, and a glossary to enhance understanding of the literary works.

World Book Online
World Book Online will allow you to navigate easily to all the World Book encyclopedias included in TEL.
World Book Timelines
Allows students to discover and map important events in society and culture. Users can browse more than 400 ready-made, interactive timelines covering various periods in history or create their own timeline on any subject.

Elementary

Kids InfoBits
Covers a broad range of elementary school topics in one accessible resource. It features a modern, graphical interface that improves navigation understanding to offer students an introduction to database searching that is in step with their skill level.
TEL4U
The Tennessee Electronic Library's website for grades Pre-K‐5 provides a safe place for kids to go online for educational and fun websites.
World Book Early World of Learning
Features narrated stories, "print & do" exercises, videos, interactive games, and a visual online encyclopedia to help make learning fun and engaging for preschoolers and children in the early elementary grades. Lexile® levels.
World Book Kids
World Book Kids is a general reference website developed especially for young students. The site offers image-based navigation, easy‐to‐read articles, thousands of illustrations, and a wealth of engaging games, science projects, and activities.

Middle School

Research in Context
Created specifically for middle school students, Research In Context combines the best of Gale's reference content with age-appropriate videos, newspapers, magazines, primary sources, and much more.
Tennessee Blue Book Student Edition
The Tennessee Blue Book: A History of Tennessee- Student Edition is written for students in upper elementary and middle school who are studying the history of our great state. The text aligns with the Tennessee social studies curriculum standards and features helpful terms and definitions as well as primary sources that complement the text.
World Book Student
Features more than 40,000 encyclopedia and reference articles, biographies, videos, images, and activities that support middle school research needs.

Secondary, High School

Student Resources in Context
Covers a broad range of topics, people, places, and events in an engaging online experience to help students with papers, projects, and presentations that reinforce development of academic and 21st-century learning skills like critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context (Gale)

Opposing Viewpoints covers today's hottest social issues, from Fast Fashion to Immigration, Natural Disasters to Vaccines. Opposing Viewpoints helps students research, analyze, and organize a broad variety of data for conducting research, completing writing assignments, preparing for debates, creating presentations, and more.

World Book Advanced
Online encyclopedia, perfect for high school students, that features thousands of reference articles, primary sources, and online books. It also includes up-to-the-minute access to worldwide news publications, government links from numerous countries, and multimedia materials.
The Informant
The Informant is a student created and run organization designed to inform Tennessee students of the bills being introduced, debated and voted on within the Tennessee state legislature. We at The Infomant research the bills being introduced in both houses of the Tennessee state legislature and report on the most salient bills in an easy-to-read format across multiple platforms and social media.

Tennessee Related Databases

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Tennessee
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present including 125 newspapers from Tennessee.
Tennessean: 1812-2002
Digitized pages of The Tennessean (1812-2002) provide unique historical insight into the regional issues and concerns, such as local government, industrialization, prohibition, and racial struggles. This diverse, easily accessible primary source material is an invaluable tool.
Tennessean: 2002 - present
Full-text articles from The Tennessean newspaper. Provides Nashville and Middle Tennessee regional coverage. Dates of coverage: Nov. 7, 2002 to present.
Tennessee Blue Book
The Tennessee Blue Book serves as a manual of useful information on our state and government, both past and present. It contains information on the makeup of Tennessee state government, state history, national and state constitutions, most recent election results, and census data.
Tennessee Encylcopedia of History & Culture
Free, comprehensive reference work featuring over 1,500 entries on the Volunteer State. Cosponsored by the University of Tennessee Press and the Tennessee Historical Society.
Tennessee Records on Ancestry.com
Tennessee records, including birth, death, and tax lists are available online thru a partnership with Ancestry.com. While other Ancestry.com resources require a subscription; these records are free for Tennesseans.
Tennessee State Symbols
List of Tennessee State Symbols, State Holidays, State Songs and Flag Status
Volunteer Voices
Volunteer Voices is a state-wide digitization project that will provide access to primary sources that document Tennessee's rich history and culture.
Volunteer Voices combines the collaborative efforts to Tennessee archives, historical societies, libraries, museums, and schools.

Lesson Plans

Gale Lesson Plans
Curriculum-aligned lesson plans for Gale databases.
Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS)
The Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program at Middle Tennessee State University reaches out to all Tennessee educators: K-12 teachers as well as undergraduate and graduate students in education, faculty and administrators of collegiate departments of education, school and institutional librarians and media specialists, and educators at museums and cultural institutions and heritage organizations. TPS-MTSU serves educators across Tennessee by improving the way primary sources are used to promote critical thinking in the classroom and across the curriculum.
Tennessee Blue Book Lesson Plans
The lesson plans were created by Tennessee teachers from across the state utilizing the Tennessee Blue Book, a great resource for information about state government. These lesson plans link with the current Tennessee social studies curriculum standards using the information provided in the Blue Book to utilize in civics and government classes.
Tennessee State Library & Archives, Education Outreach
Explore primary sources, lesson plans, and other educational tools designed for social studies teachers and students. Content is organized by both historical eras and Tennessee social studies content standards. Educators and students are welcome to utilize our website or visit us in person to access these primary source materials. In addition to primary sources, educators have access to our free and easy-to-download lesson plans. These lesson plans are created by Tennessee teachers utilizing the primary sources available digitally at the Tennessee State Library and Archives website. The activities in the lesson plans correlate to the current Tennessee curriculum standards. New lesson plans and digital collections are added frequently. The Library & Archives hold several teacher workshops throughout the year. More information about current and upcoming workshops is available on our Upcoming Events page.

For Librarians - training and other resources to integrate the TEL into your library.

Librarian Tech Support
TEL Link Generator, tech support for ProQuest, and other practical links to help you find the perfect research tool for your questions.
Librarian Training
Links to specific database training so you can be informed and help students and faculty use these resources well.
TEL Promotional Information
Resources to help you promote TEL in your library and school.
TEL Student Activities
Gale Web and World Book scavenger hunts to familiarize user and to engage students in these resources.
TEL Usage Reports
TEL's usage has been historically tracking searches, sessions, and full text retrivals. Although usage reports tell only part of the story of your library, they do provide some insight about what electronic collections are being used by your patrons. Learn how to capture this data.