The staff of the BTL Reference Department welcome your inquiries in person or by telephone. Visit us upstairs or by calling 908-204-3031 X4 during the library's normal operating hours. The other services provided by this Department include the following:

Electronic Databases (plus remote access)
Internet access and Internet Policy
Interlibrary loans
Word processing workstations
Young Adult Center

Other Libraries' selected websites

Q and A NJ - Free, live reference service over the Web available 24 hours a day. Click on the link and follow the instructions. Q and A NJ is supported by the New Jersey State Library with Federal Library Services and Technology Act funds and administered by the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative.

For a quick, possibly one-stop, Internet index try--
Librarians' Index to the Internet: a reliable and efficient guide to described and evaluated Internet resources.

Electronic Databases

To use these resources from home, click on a link (the underlined name of the database) and type in the barcode number on the back of your library card when prompted. Do not put in spaces, just the numbers, and press enter.

Magazine & Newspapers

EBSCO Masterfile -- Magazines and Newspapers: 2,700 periodicals, 1,000 full text also available remotely, through our website, with library card number

ProQuest Direct -- Citations, abstracts and full text for over 2500 magazines and newspapers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science, Monitor, USA Today, Boston Globe and Atlanta Journal/Constitution.

Custom Newspapers -- includes The Newark Star Ledger (January 2001 to current); New York Times (365 day rolling file), the Bergen Record (January 1996 to current), Times London (January 1997 to current and the Los Angeles Times (January 1996 to current).

INFORME -- Periodicals in Spanish from Infotrac

Star Ledger -- Full text coverage (excluding pictures) beginning May 10, 1989 and updated
daily.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers - New York Times --
The complete full-text of the New York Times from 1851-1999. Coverage will always end 2 years before the current year. This is a fully searchable file that allows users to view articles ( news stories, editorials, photos, graphics, and advertisements) in their original context. Users may choose to display the full page image of any page in any issue or just a particular article. This database is available only within the Library (any MAIN Library) but is well worth a visit.

Research Databases

Gale Virtual Reference Library -- Online access 24/7 to encyclopedias, almanacs and specialized reference sources in eBook format for multidisciplinary research. Just use your library card barcode number to login; you don't have to be in the Library to use these. View and search a single title or search by topic, name, etc. across the whole collection. Includes the ability to print and email articles.
Titles available, all published in late 2004 or 2005, are:

• Arts and Humanities Through the Eras
• Encyclopedia of American Industry 4th ed.
• College Blue Book, 32nd ed.
• Scholarships, Fellowships and Loans, 21st ed.
• Americans at War: Society, Culture and the Homefront
• Dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
• Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine, 2nd ed.
• Weather Almanac
• New Dictionary of the History of Ideas.

American National Biography -- Biographies of 17,400 Deceased Americans from Oxford University Press.

AncestryPlus -- A comprehensive online source of information for conducting genealogy and local history research containing over 1.2 billion records from 3,000 databases. Includes the digitized images of the U.S. Federal Census from 1790 forward, the American Genealogical Biographical Index, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index and much more.

Business & Company Resource Center -- Company profiles, brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, chronologies and periodicals available with library card number.

Contemporary Authors -- An award winning reference resource that provides biographic details on approximately 112,000 modern novelists, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers, journalists and scriptwriters. Current writers, as well as the most studied literary figures of the early 20th century, and authors from around the world are featured.

Discovering Collection -- An interdisciplinary reference source covering literature (e.g. Shakespeare), history, biography (including images of noteworthy individuals), science, social studies (e.g. multiculturalism), and more.

The Facts On File On-Line Database including:
→ Curriculum Resource Center
→ Science On-Line
→ Science Experiments On-Line
→ American Womens History
→ American Historical Images
→ Landmark Documents
→ African American History & Culture
→ World Atlas
→ Career Guidance
→ Government On File
→ Forms On File

Grove Dictionary of Art -- comprehensive reference resource for all aspects of the visual arts.

Grove Dictionary of Music -- A comprehensive reference resource for all aspects of music studies.

MagillOnLiterature -- Provides plot summaries and author biographies

Novelist -- A reader's advisory resource for fiction.

ReferenceUSA -- Now paid for by MAIN.
Includes United States and Canadian businesses, US and Canadian phone listings; and Healthcare listings (physicians and dentists).
Click here for troubleshooting tips for RefUSA.

You can quickly develop a focused group of companies by combining several criteria in one search. A summary list with key company information can be printed out. Individual company links display organization profiles. Click here for troubleshooting tips for RefUSA.

Worldbook Encyclopedia -- Articles, maps, pictures, sounds and video; up-to-date, reliable, authoritative, easy-to-understand information and an array of supplementary search tools and information sources.

Available on the CD-ROM Networked Computers:

Internet Access with Microsoft Internet Explorer
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2000 -- Multimedia history, science, literature, humanities, etc.
Microsoft Encarta Africana 2000 -- Four million years of Black history
IRS Federal Tax Products -- Tax products, taxpayer information, forms, etc.
New Jersey Tax Forms
New York State Tax Forms

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Access to the Internet is available currently at thirteen workstations upstairs and four in the Children's Library. Patrons are asked to limit their use of the Internet to one half hour if others are waiting. Click to view the Bernards Township Library Internet Use Policy.

Interlibrary Loans

Books and other items may be borrowed from other libraries both within and outside of the MAIN library consortia. Requests are made by filling out the green (for books, sound recordings or videorecordings) or yellow ILL form (magazine/newspaper articles)and leaving it at the Reference Center. Please fill out one form for each item and make up to three requests per week.

It is also possible to request items found in the MAIN catalog, or the Other Catalogs linked through the MAIN catalog, directly online by selecting Request this title button in the left hand corner of the title information. At this point the patron must type in the library card number and answer other pertinent questions to complete the process. In addition the Reference staff accepts ILL requests by telephone (908-204-3031 X4).

Normally it takes seven to ten days for requests to be processed and the items to be delivered to Bernards Township Library. When requested items arrive in the library the patron is called to come pick up at the upstairs circulation desk.

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Word Processing Workstations

The library provides four computer workstations with Office 2000 (Word, Powerpoint and Excel) loaded on each. In addition there is Microsoft Step by Step Interactive a tutorial for Office 2000 on two and Microsoft Access and Microsoft Publisher loaded on another. Two of these workstations have internet access as well. Printing is available on a LaserJet printer. Color printing is also available. Sign up to use these workstations at the Reference Center.

Young Adult Center

The Young Adult Center is located on the upper level of the library. The focus of this center is on the interests and needs of middle and high school age patrons. Our Young Adult Services Librarian, with the help of a Teen Advisory Board, plans programs of interest to this age group and purchases books, magazines, videos and music CDs.

Other Libraries' Selected Websites

Morris County Library Reference

Rutgers University Libraries Research Guides

Somerset County Library Web by Subject

New Jersey State Library Cyberdesk

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