35. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center (Database)

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. (Database). San Francisco Public Library @ www.sfpl.org

Summary
(http://www.gale.cengage.com/InContext/viewpoints.htm)

Opposing Viewpoints in Context is the premier online resource covering today’s hottest social issues, from Offshore Drilling to Climate Change, Health Care to Immigration. Opposing Viewpoints in Context helps students research, analyze and organize a broad variety of data for conducting research, completing writing assignments, preparing for debates, creating presentations and more.

In addition to the engaging, streamlined interface and media-rich topic pages, the product's unprecedented collection of content and curriculum-focused tools that help students explore issues from all perspectives include:

• More than 14,000 pro/con viewpoint essays
• 5,000+ topic overviews
• More than 300 primary source documents
• 300 biographies of social activists and reformers
• More than 775 court-case overviews
• 5 million periodical articles
• Nearly 6,000 statistical tables, charts and graphs
• Nearly 70,000 images and a link to Google Image Search
• Thousands of podcasts, including weekly presidential addresses and premier NPR programs
• A national and state curriculum standards search, correlated to the content that allows educators to quickly identify material by grade and discipline

Critical Evaluation
This database is offered by the San Francisco Public Library. In order to access the database, the user must have a library card. The database can be used for research papers, debates, and presentations. The topics are endless so a student would do best approaching it knowing what he or she is looking for. Once the user clicks on a topic, for example "Cloning", a definition of the word or topic is shown with a history of the topic. There are videos, images, and articles that the user can browse and the bibliographic information also given. The amount of resources may be overwhelming for students who aren't used to doing heavy research. The more intellectually gifted student will most likely find the database exciting and fun to browse.

There is also an easy link that allows the user to browse all the issues and topics available in alphabetical order. Another interesting and useful tool is the link to the curriculum standards in the United States, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales.

The database is an excellent resource for the older teen just finishing high school or in college.

Annotation
Database showing diffferent views on a variety of topics.

About Gale
Gale®, part of Cengage Learning, is a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses. Best known for its accurate and authoritative reference content as well as its intelligent organization of full-text magazine and newspaper articles, the company creates and maintains more than 600 databases that are published online, in print, as eBooks and in microform.

The Gale family of publishing imprints includes such noted reference brands as Macmillan Reference USA™, Charles Scribner's Sons® and Primary Source Media™.

Genre
Database

Curriculum Ties
All

Reading Level/Interest Age
All ages

Challenge Issues
N/A

Why Included in Titles Selected
I wanted to include databases in the blog.