Research

Accel is a microlearning solution that helps individuals build professional and workplace-ready skills through short, engaging videos, book summaries, and articles. Content comes from over 47 leading business thinkers—including members of the Thinkers50—and supports continuous learning and career growth in just minutes a day. Previous shared guest login is retired as of 5/15/2025. Requires creating your own free account with an email and password for a more secure and tailored experience.

To activate 72 hours of full off-site access, you’ll need to log in or register first. After your access expires, you can click on the link again to regain access for another 72 hours.

Accessible through MasterFILE Complete. Contains Consumer Report issues and articles from 1985 to present. In-house public PC users must select unfiltered access.

Provides unique, age-appropriate content for middle and high school students, including articles, essays and primary source documents

Provides access to 4 databases: Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture, and Law; LGBTQ+ Rights; Civil Rights and Social Justice; and Gun Regulation and Legislation in America. In-house public PC users must select unfiltered access and have a Library of Virginia card. (get one here)

The primary resource for information on nearly 2,000 private, corporate and community foundations incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This is only available at the Central Library and at Northside Library. Please check with a librarian to get login information.

Provides access to current, relevant analysis including a variety of international sources, images, statistics, charts, and maps to help students understand and evaluate over 350 complex issues.

Provides high interest relevant non-fiction newspaper and magazine articles as well as graphs, tables and political cartoons that are easily accessible through both search and browse functions. Includes access to Compton's by Britannica Encyclopedia, a dictionary, and thesaurus.

Designed for middle and high school students and adults who have a basic foundation in English grammar and reading but need adapted reading material for a variety of subjects, ReadIt offers resources to help build background knowledge, conduct research and improve study skills.

Readers’ Guide Retrospective™: 1890-1982 provides indexing of over three million articles from more than 550 leading magazines, including full coverage of the original print volumes of Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature™. This important resource offers a wide range of researchers access to information about history, culture and seminal developments across nearly a century.