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Online Resources

The Iowa City Public Library offers access to a number of online resources including subscription databases (marked with ) and free web resources on a great variety of subjects.

A-Z list of all Resources

  • Academic Search Elite - Multi-disciplinary database containing full-text articles from over 2,000 journals.
  • All Iowa Reads - Information and discussion questions for past and present All Iowa Reads selections.
  • Allmusic - Biographies of musicians, discographies, reviews, similar artists, and best pics.
  • America’s Obituaries & Death Notices - America’s Obituaries & Death Notices is NewsBank’s large and comprehensive collection of newspaper obituaries and death notices from around the United States.
  • America's Job Bank - Site with over 800,000 job listings.
  • American Hospital Directory - Directory of over 6000 hospitals.
  • American Medical Association - Includes medical information and a doctor finder.
  • American Memory Collection - Library of Congress provides free access to historical documents, photographs, maps, multimedia, and sheet music pertinent to American culture.
  • Ancestry - AVAILABLE ONLY WITHIN THE LIBRARY. Library Edition includes records from the U.S. census; military,court, land, and probate records; vital records; directories; passenger lists, and more. Like information available for the U.K., Canada and some European countries.
  • ArticleFirst - Offers searching and browsing of articles and journal table of contents in one database.
  • Best Hospital Finder - Rankings from U.S.News & World Report.
  • Better Business Bureau - Includes business reliability reports, online complaint forms, and their popular charity reports.
  • Biography Resource Center - Biographies from respected Gale Group sources. Search based birth and death year, nationality, ethnicity, occupation or gender.
  • Chilton Library - Automobile and light truck repair and maintenance.
  • College.gov - U.S. Department of Education website containing information and resources on preparing, applying, and paying for traditional two-four year, vocational, and career colleges.
  • Consumer Price Index - Inflation statistics and price data.
  • Contemporary Authors - Complete biographical and bibliographical information and references on more than 120,000 U.S. and international authors.
  • Contemporary Literary Criticism - Extensive collection of critical essays on contemporary authors.
  • Corridor Careers - Job opportunities in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area.
  • County Business Patterns - Economic statistics on a county level.
  • CQ Weekly - Coverage of the U.S. Congress including the status of bills, votes and amendments, floor and committee activity.
  • Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites - Categorized & cross-referenced index to genealogical resources on the Internet.
  • DocFinder - Information on doctors, including board actions.
  • EbscoHost Magazine Index - Multiple databases that cover a wide range of topics and which contain full-text articles, citations, and abstracts from sources such as newspapers, periodicals and newswires.
  • EbscoHost Mobile - Multiple databases that cover a wide range of topics and which contain full-text articles, citations, and abstracts from sources such as newspapers, periodicals and newswires.
  • ECO - Scholarly journals in a variety of subject areas including education, medicine, psychology, science, and technology.
  • Ellis Island Records - Search immigration records.
  • Encyclopedia of Associations - Detailed information on over 135,000 nonprofit membership organizations worldwide.
  • Encyclopædia Britannica - Includes Encyclopædia Britannica, Britannica Student Encyclopædia, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and a World Atlas.
  • ERIC - Published and unpublished sources on thousands of educational topics.
  • Family Search - Genealogical service provided by The Church of Latter Day Saints containing family histories, family trees, ancestry, and census records.
  • Federal Student Aid - Federal Student Aid Gateway, including the FAFSA online forms.
  • Google Image Search - Component of the popular search engine that solely searches the image content of webpages.
  • Google Scholar - Use as an index to search scholarly literature from a variety of disciplines and sources, including books, abstracts, theses, citations, and peer-reviewed journals.
  • Government Printing Office - The Government Printing Office produces, procures, and disseminates printed and electronic publications of the Congress as well as the executive departments and establishments of the Federal Government.
  • GPO Monthly Catalog - Consists of records published by the GPO since July 1976.
  • Grolier Online - Includes New Book of Knowledge encyclopedia for reference and current events, Lands and Peoples for country information, and America the Beautiful for states’ information.
  • Health Info Iowa - Iowa-focused health information for consumers and providers. Combines national, state, regional, and local resources, including print resources, agencies and organizations.
  • Health Source – Consumer Edition - Consumer information from up to 80 health magazines.
  • Health Source – Nursing/Academic Edition - Scholarly medical information from over 550 journals.
  • HeritageQuest - Census data, family records and local histories and much much more.
  • Historical Quotes - Historical stock prices.
  • ICPL Collection Blog - Iowa City Public Library staff provide reviews and recommendations of items in the collection.
  • Information Please Almanac - A compendium of statistics and up-to-date facts and figures, on everything you need to know.
  • Iowa Department of Education - Home page with links to news, grants, programs, directories, documents, reports, data and statistics.
  • Iowa HealthCare Collaborative - Provides medical data to improve hospital and clinic standards. Contains information on patient safety and statewide healthcare quality.
  • Iowa Legal Aid - Iowa Legal Aid website, a project of Iowa Legal Aid, the Volunteer Lawyer Projects of the Iowa State Bar and Polk County Bar Associations, and HELP Legal Assistance offering general legal information.
  • Iowa Workforce Development - Job Search; select a city or type of job.
  • Kelley Blue Book - Car prices and reviews.
  • LawSource - American Law Sources Online provides a comprehensive uniform and useful compilation of links to all Internet sources of American law that are available without charge.
  • LexisNexis Library Express - Access to over 9,500 news, business, and legal sources.
  • Local News Index - Produced by the Iowa City Public Library, provides indexing for local information in newspapers and magazines. It currently goes back to 1968 and continues retrospectively.
  • Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory - Search the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory by name, firm, geographically, or area of practice.
  • Medline - Covers all areas of medicine, dentistry, nursing, health services, administration, nutrition, and much more.
  • MedlinePlus - Provides access to extensive information about specific diseases and conditions and also has links to consumer health information from the National Institutes of Health, dictionaries, lists of hospitals and physicians, health information in Spanish and other languages, and clinical trials.
  • Merriam-Webster - Online collegiate dictionary and thesaurus.
  • Monster - The leading global online careers website.
  • My Virtual Reference Desk - Megasite contains thousands of reference works.
  • Nation Job Network - Information for both job seekers, employers and more.
  • New Materials at the Library - New materials recently added to the Library collections.
  • New York Times - America’s newspaper of record.
  • New York Times Bestseller - New York Times expanded bestseller lists.
  • NewsBank - The Gazette and a collection of U.S. newspapers and news magazines.
  • One Community One Book: Johnson County Reads - Annual community-wide reading project which invites community residents to discuss the same human rights-related text.
  • Press Citizen CareerBuilder - Iowa City jobs from this daily Iowa City newspaper plus job listings from career sites nationwide.
  • ProceedingsFirst - Provides tables of contents of papers presented at conferences worldwide.
  • Proquest Newspapers - The Iowa City Press Citizen, The Des Moines Register, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, USA TODAY, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Atlanta Journal/Constitution, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and more.
  • Reference USA - Includes Business Database, with information on 12 million U.S. businesses, and Residential Database, with information on 120 million U.S. households.
  • Science Daily - Science news and feature articles seven days a week.
  • Science.gov - A gateway to authoritative selected science information provided by US Government science agencies, including research and development results.
  • Small Business Administration - Lists resources by region, addresses of local offices and calendars of events.
  • Social Security Death Index - Genealogical tool lists birth and death dates, and place of death.
  • Tax Information - Look here for answers to basic tax filing questions and sources for tax assistance.
  • Thomas - Guide to United States Congressional members and staff and legislation.
  • Thomas Register - Search ThomasNet to find manufacturers, distributors and service providers.
  • Title Source 3 - Find information, books, audio cassettes, and videos. Note: You must select Anonymous Login to begin your search (look for the button at the bottom of the page).
  • TopicSearch - Information on a wide variety of topics, from sources such as magazines, newspapers, biographies and book reviews.
  • U.S. News and World Report College Rankings - U.S. News has collected data from more than 1,400 colleges and ranking them in various categories.
  • United States Census - The most authoritative site for economic and demographic information about the U.S.
  • US Department of Education - Info for students, parents, teachers and administrators.
  • US Universities and Colleges - Colleges and universities in the United States.
  • USA.gov - Official information and services from the U.S. government, including forms.
  • Vital Statistics - How to locate birth, death, marriage and divorce records, as well as statistics on these events.
  • Wall Street Journal - Daily newspaper published by the Dow Jones & Company that focuses on business and financial news.
  • Ward's Business Directory of U.S. and Private Companies - Information on small to mid-sized private companies.
  • What's Next? Adult Fiction in Series - Help finding books in series, courtesy of Kent Public Library.
  • World Almanac - Includes World Almanac and Book of Facts,World Almanac of the USA, the World Almanac of US Politics, World Almanac for Kids, and Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia.
  • World Health Organization - Health reports worldwide, including disease outbreaks, statistics, and newsletters.
  • WorldCat - The world’s most comprehensive bibliography.

Access to subscription databases from anywhere but the Iowa City Public Library requires a current Iowa City Public Library card and a password and because of licensing restrictions are available only to residents of Iowa City and of areas covered by contracts for library service: rural Johnson County and the cities of Hills and University Heights.