Resources

A to Z World Food is a food culture and traditional recipes database covering 174 countries. Features include recipes, food glossaries, food history timelines and thousands of photos.

AALBC.com maintains a curated and growing collection of over 13,000 titles covering a century of Black writing from around the world.  You’ll find reviews, bestsellers lists, awards, excerpts, publisher information, and more. Readers can discover books grouped by over 1,500 different categories.

With more than 4,000 interactive books, educational games, puzzles, and other learning activities, ABCmouse.com’s award-winning online curriculum is the most comprehensive online educational resource for young learners (ages 2–7+). From Age of Learning, Inc. (In library use only)

This web site is devoted to the advancement of the science of African American Genealogy and genealogical study of other Ethnic Studies by Dr. James M. Rose, alias Dr. Roots.

American Periodicals, from the Center for Research Libraries, comes to the Evanston Public Library through a generous donation by the Malkinson Family.  American Periodicals contains digitized, full text copies of 387 publications spanning the 19th century through the dawn of the 20th century. The collection contains special interest and general magazines, labor and trade publications, scientific and literary journals, and photographic periodicals, as well as other historically significant titles. Key titles include: American Annual of Photography; The Craftsman; Electrical Age; Hampton’s Magazine;The Labor Journal; Popular Science; Woman’s Protest Against Woman Suffrage; and many more.

Because the database contains digitized images of periodical pages, researchers can see all of the original typography, drawings, graphic elements, and article layouts exactly as they were originally published.  For more information, or for help using  American Periodicals, please call the Reference Desk at 847-448-8630, or use the online chat whenever the library is open.

Search U.S. Census records from 1790-1930; Evanston city directories from 1890-93; immigration records; birth, marriage, and death records; and old telephone directories from around the country. Normally, only available in the library.    Remote access link during COVID-19 crisis.  Access to this resource has been temporarily expanded to library cardholders working remotely, courtesy of ProQuest and its partner Ancestry.

Evanston Public Library partners with Illinois Legal Aid Online (ILAO) as a Legal Self-Help Center. Now, patrons can make a free, online appointment with our legal self-help navigator! Learn about the law, your legal rights, and how to go to court.  Our trained ILAO Navigator will help you:

• Search online for answers to your legal questions,
• Refer you to free and low cost legal providers, and
• Show you how to find and prepare court forms

Half-hour appointments are available, via video chat or phone, on Tuesdays 12-2 PM and Thursdays 4-6 PM.  Contact the Reference Desk at 847-448-8630 to book an appointment.

You can also look below for links to lists of local free and low-cost legal organizations that may be able to help you with your legal issues.  The lists are organized by legal category, and there is also a master list of all the legal organizations.

BiblioBoard features books, articles, images, photographs, maps, pamphlets, and documents as well as streaming audio and video content on a wide variety of topics.  Local Author Collection : This collection represents the best independently published titles submitted by local authors to the SELF-e program, as selected by staff at Library Journal magazine. All content is available on an unlimited multi-user basis with no checkouts or returns. You can access BiblioBoard content from the web or various mobile devices (via the BiblioBoard app) using your library card number.

View a tutorial on YouTube: English | Spanish

Scholastic BookFlix is a new online literacy resource that pairs classic video storybooks from Weston Woods with related nonfiction eBooks from Scholastic to build a love of reading and learning.
View a tutorial on YouTube: English | Spanish

Almost three million images from top international collection, rights-cleared for educational use.

Charity Navigator helps charitable givers make intelligent giving decisions by providing information on over thirty-four hundred charities and by evaluating the financial health of each . Includes article and blog on wise and effective charitable giving.

Planning major or minor repairs to your house this summer and need to find someone to do the work?  Looking for a reliable Air Condtiioning contractor?  Need your basement waterproofed? For information about Chicago-area service providers, without the expense of subscribing to Angie’s List, use your Evanston Public Library card to access Chicago Consumers’ Checkbook, and find ratings, comments and advice on services from Accountants to Window Washers and everything in between.  (You can even find ratings on physicians, dentists, acupuncturists, and other health care practitioners.)  Do you want to rate a firm or leave your own comment?  You can do that, too.  Consumers’ CHECKBOOK/The Center for the Study of Services is an independent, nonprofit consumer organization founded in 1974 with the help of funding from the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs.  Their purpose is to provide consumers information to help them get high quality services and products at the best possible prices.

Contains the full text of the Defender from 1989 to the present.

The Evanston Public Library is pleased to announce a new online history resource aimed at expanding the public’s knowledge of local and African American history. The Chicago Defender, one of the most respected and well–known black news sources, chronicles decades of events and stories relevant to Chicago and Evanston’s African American community. Now, Evanston residents have direct access to the early and mid-century Chicago Defender issues online.

The complete full text of this legendary paper, from 1910-1975, including every obituary, photo, advertisement and article, is available to any Evanston resident with a library card.
For any questions, please email hnorborg@cityofevanston.org or call the Reference Desk at 847-448-8630.
Watch a YouTube tutorial: English | Spanish

Read the full text (minus photos and illustrations) of today’s Chicago Tribune, or browse issues back to 1980.

Chicago Tribune Historical Archives are also available.

Select Chicago Daily Tribune in the “Publications” drop-down box to search the Tribune from the 1849-1996. Includes display ads, classified ads, obituaries, and more.

Watch a YouTube tutorial: English | Spanish

The Evanston Public Library has a variety of resources to help answer your questions about child support and child custody. Our books on child support and child custody are located on the second floor, at call number 346.0173.  You can also consult these local free and low-cost resources

Comprehensive, dynamic auto repair support.

The Evanston Public Library now brings you Consumer Reports Online, in addition to thousands of ratings of consumer products, you can find expert reviews and buying advice; product comparisons and video clips, and even user reviews. New and used car ratings and recommendations are also here.  Information is updated frequently, and quick recommendations are provided on most products.  Search for information about specific products and brands, or browse through the site for valuable information on all kinds of consumer goods.

View a tutorial on YouTube: English | Spanish

Get expert product reviews free from Consumer Reports, PC Magazine, and dozens of other sources. Product categories include electronics, sports, office, kitchen, health and beauty, cars, and baby products.

Download ebooks and eaudiobooks to your computer, phone (Libby app) or MP3 player.   Formerly MyMediaMall.  A service of Overdrive.

View a tutorial on YouTube: English | Spanish More tutorials: Reading/Listening in a Web Broser

 If you are new to computers, haven’t used them for a while, are a little unsure and uncomfortable, or just need a bit of a refresher, digitallearn.org has the tools to help you tackle technology at your own pace and gain the confidence you need to succeed.

Evanston Public Library has a wide variety of resources to help you through the divorce process. In addition to our books (available at call number 346.0166), you can consult these local free and low-cost resources.

Search and view the full text of eBooks on a variety of subjects.

Encyclopedia Britannica online gives you three sites in one: Children; Young Adults; and the Reference Center for older students and adults. Choose the age-appropriate level that works best for you or your school age children, and conduct research, complete homework assignments, and work on special projects.  You can even store your research in your own personal “My Britannica” account. Use Britannica at home or in the library, and on any device—PC, laptop, tablet, or smart phone.  And to add colorful, sharp photos to your term paper or project, look no further than Britannica’s Image Quest.  From the aardvark to the zebra, from the abacus to the zither, you’ll find an image here.

You can also search the Spanish-language version of Encyclopedia Britannica created just for students, Britannica Escolar.

Encyclopedia Britannica Spanish Reference Center  le ofrece recursos de referencia en español en dos interfaces exclusivas — cada una con una enciclopedia adaptada a las necesidades del lector: Enciclopedia Moderna para los estudiantes de preparatoria y universidad y Britannica Escolar para estudiantes de primaria y secundaria.

Free online version of the award winning reference work on Chicago’s history and culture.

Evanston Public Library has a wide variety of resources to help you plan your estate and write a will. In addition to a wide variety of books (available at call number 346.052), try these local resources.

More than ever, our community is in need. If you or anyone you know is need of resources related to food, shelter, health care, employment, financial assistance, mental health support, and more, Evanston Care Network provides a one-stop portal for getting help from verified providers. For further assistance using the Evanston Care Network, call the Library at 847-448-8630 or call 311.

Evanston City Directories are located in the Evanstoniana Room in the Reference Department, 3rd floor. These directories list names of residents alphabetically with occupation and names of family members living at the address. Businesses are listed alphabetically and by type of business. Most have reverse listings by street name and number.

• The Evanston Directory 1880-1905 (missing 1885, 1887 and 1889)
• Bumstead’s Evanston City and North Shore Directory 1909-1921
• Polk’s Evanston City and North Shore Directory 1922-1939 (odd years only), 1948, 1962, 1963 (last year printed)
• Directories also available online at the Internet Archive

The Evanston History Center Historic Newspaper Collection consists of digitized and edited images from the microfilm collection of Evanston newspapers at EHC. The images span the dates 1872-1922 and are from three separate newspapers published during those years: the Evanston Index (June 6, 1872 to December 19, 1914), the Evanston Daily News (April 1, 1912 to December 31, 1914), and the Evanston News-Index (January 1, 1915 to December 30, 1922). Though the EHC newspaper collection includes later images (both in hard copy and microfilm) only issues from before 1923 were digitized to avoid any copyright restrictions.

This digitization project was completed during the summers of 2015-2017 by graduate students of Northwestern University (NU) and was sponsored by the Chabraja Center for Historical Studies at NU. Project collaborators were: the Evanston History Center, the Northwestern Library, and the History Department at Northwestern. Substantial technical assistance was provided by the NU library and its staff, with special thanks to Peter Burtch and Josh Honn. NU graduate students who managed the project’s work were Sam Kling (who initiated the project), Bonnie Ernst, and Beth Healey. Users should be aware that a test showed that the search capability of the images is only 40-45% due to the condition of the original newspapers (when microfilmed) and the condition of the microfilm images

Evanston Public Library Master List of Local Free & Low-Cost Legal Resources

The Evanston Women’s History Project research database contains information about women and women’s organizations that the project has researched. It provides basic biographical and historical information, details about the significance of many women and women’s organizations, some information about sites where they lived and worked, and resources for researchers.

The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world. From the Church of Latter Day Saints Family history Library.

Gateway to several periodical databases and library catalogs, including OCLC’s WorldCat catalog of library holdings nationwide.

Use your Evanston Public Library card to check out digital copies of over 35 current magazine titles to read for free using your browser or mobile device. Flipster can be accessed from any internet browser or you can download the Flipster app to read offline on your iOS, Android or Kindle Fire. Magazines in the collection are always available, checkout times vary from 3 days to 1 month, depending on the magazine. There is no limit to the number of magazines you can borrow at a time.

Foundation Directory Online and Foundation Grants to Individuals Online are databases of grant information produced by the Foundation Center. They are available for use only within the Main library at every Internet and Reference workstation, and over the WiFi network on a user’s own laptop or tablet.

Trying to search for grants from home during the crisis? You can access Candid’s (candid.org) Foundation Directory Online through with this link: https://fconline.foundationcenter.org/auth/encoded-login/?fin=A000&hash=e757b2be7e12d363f6eed6ad125a1ab6&username=FIN1559

Foundation Directory Online and Foundation Grants to Individuals Online are databases of grant information produced by the Foundation Center. They are available for use only within the Main library at every Internet and Reference workstation, and over the WiFi network on a user’s own laptop or tablet.

This database provides over 25,000 encyclopedic entries covering a variety of subject areas.

Gale Business: DemographicsNow connects users with a wealth of highly detailed demographic data on more than 24 million U.S. businesses and 206 million consumers

Gale Business: Entrepreneurship is a comprehensive database that covers all aspects of starting and operating a business.

Gale Business: Plan Builder is a step-by-step online planning tool for starting, managing and optimizing a business or nonprofit.

Gale Courses is brought to you by the Evanston Public Library and offers a wide range of highly interactive, instructor led courses that you can take entirely online. As a valued library card holder you are entitled to these courses at no cost. Courses run for six weeks and new sessions begin every month

Search across multiple directories simultaneously. Titles include Gale Directory of Early Stage Investment, Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media, and Encyclopedia of Governmental Advisory Organizations, and many more.

6,000+ Online Video Courses. The top-rated courses offer upskilling in the areas of business, tech, and personal development across 75+ different categories.

Science In Context is a Gale database with hundreds of today’s most significant science topics, showcasing how scientific disciplines relate to real-world issues.

Student Resources In Context is a Gale database that provides students with cross-curricular and authoritative content to empower development critical thinking …

More than 3,600 encyclopedias and reference sources. Topics covered: world history and culture, medicine and health, statistics, literature, business and science.

A broad collection of news articles, magazines, books, academic journals, images and video that support general interest research and exploration.

Guidestar includes information about U.S. nonprofits (including foundations) taken primarily from organization tax returns. Some foundations include links to their most recent tax return, where they are required by law to list grant recipients and the amount of funding given.

Includes family histories, genealogical serials, local histories, the U.S. Federal Census, 1790-1930, and primary sources in full images.

In this unusual time, we know that many families are finding themselves reluctantly home schooling. Evanston Public Library is here to serve and support your family beginning with this list of resources to help! Useful Websites: A2Z Homeschooling The Home School Mom UnSchoolers Online Illinois H.O.U.S.E Evanston Home Educators Illinois State Board of Education Homeschooling […]

Choose from hundreds of thousands of movies, full music albums, ebooks, audiobooks and more.  EPL cardholders can checkout 4 items per month from hoopla. New to hoopla? Read our complete, step-by-step guide to getting started with hoopla.  View a tutorial on YouTube: English | Spanish More tutorials: Finding Children’s Materials | Finding ebooks in different lanugages | Reading/Listening in a Web Broser

Evanston Public Library partners with Illinois Legal Aid Online (ILAO) as a Legal Self-Help Center. A legal self-help center is a place where you can learn about the law, your legal rights, and how to go to court.

Searchable full-text of Illinois Issues, Illinois History, Illinois Municipal Review, Illinois Parks and Recreation, and other magazines published by the State of Illinois.

Evanston Public Library has a wide variety of resources to help you pursue U.S. Citizenship and navigate the immigration system. In addition to our books (many available in our Literacy section, at call number 323.62, or in Spanish in our Spanish section, also at call number 323.62), try these local free and low-cost resources.

Inkie.org has three main audiences – authors, readers, and libraries.

• The authors section has information on how to create an e-book, including the link to the Pressbooks portal. It also includes information on how to submit an e-book to Indie Illinois and/or Indie Author Project Select and/or the Soon to Be Famous Illinois Author Project.
• The readers section has some general information about the content available to read via BiblioBoard. This page focuses on the independently and self-published materials available on the platform.
• The libraries page has general information for ways in which libraries can support their local authors, as well as a suite of marketing and promotional resources

View a tutorial covering BiblioBoard and Self-e on YouTube: English | Spanish View a tutorial on Inkie: English | Spanish

Reference ebooks for middle schoolers.

Kanopy makes available more than 30,000 of the world’s best films to stream on computers, tablets, and other mobile devices. EPL Library card holders can sign up to start streaming films instantly at Kanopy.com. Library users can stream three films per library card per month. Each movie is available for 72 hours (3 days). In addition, EPL cardholders can watch unlimited instructional videos from the Great Courses series and Kanopy Kids! content, including Sesame Street.

Watch a YouTube tutorial: English | Spanish

Gale’s Kids InfoBits provides authoritative, curriculum-aligned, age-appropriate digital content that covers a broad range of educational topics.

Practice tests for real estate, elementary-high school skills practice, citizenship exams, and SAT, ACT, LSAT, MCAT, GED, TOEFL, ASVAB, etc.

Gale Legal Forms offers a wide selection of essential state-specific (and multi-state) legal forms that may be customized for the most common legal procedures.

Libby is the app used to access ebook and eaudiobook content from the Digital Library of Illinois.  A service of Overdrive.

Full text of the Gale 19th Century, 20th Century and Contemporary Literary Criticism volumes. Thousands of essays and commentaries on contemporary and classic literature.

Are you planning a trip abroad?  Will you need to learn some key phrases in a new language?  Do you need to brush up in a language you’ve already studied?  Mango Languages can help.  Mango’s conversational approach teaches practical, relevant content focused on four key areas of language learning: vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and culture.  Choose from more than 50 languages and get started today. You can even download the Mango app to your iPhone, iPad or Android mobile device.

Mango also provides several full-length feature films to help you immerse yourself in a new language.  Use your Evanston Public Library card to access Mango from home, or on the go.  Call the Reference Desk for help, or for more information, at 847-448-8630. View a tutorial on YouTube: English | Spanish

Mergent Archives contains the full, digitized text of Moody’s Manuals, dating back to 1909.  Research is simplified through extensive screening options and linked tables of contents for every manual, allowing you to go right to the information that matters to you.  The Archives also contain annual reports dating back to 1925, and stock analyst  reports provided by Ford Equity Research.

Mergent Intellect is a database providing basic company facts on over 20 million North American companies and over 70 million global companies, including company locations; estimated sales and number of employees; industry analysis; Dun & Bradstreet data including D-U-N-S identifier numbers, credit ratings, and corporate “family tree” details; and executive contacts and biographies.

Everyone is familiar with Morningstar’s expertise in analyzing mutual funds.  But the Morningstar Investment Research Center provides much more than mutual fund information.  You can find analysis of stocks, ETFs, and the markets in general, including market indexes, market sectors, and specific industries.  You can also access all four of Morningstar’s most popular newsletters: Morningstar DividendInvestor; Morningstar FundInvestor; Morningstar StockInvestor; and Morningstar ETFInvestor.  Back issues are available for one year.

In addition to Morningstar’s powerful stock, mutual fund, and ETF screening tools, you can also use the Portfolio tools to learn about asset allocation and goal-based investing, or to assess the amount of risk in your current investment portfolio.

Learn more about your family history and genealogy by searching through more than 4.2 billion records.

Access three academic articles every two weeks thru JSTOR’s Register and Read program.

Download ebooks and eaudiobooks to your computer, phone or MP3 player.  Name changed to Digital Library of Illinois on July 1, 2019.

Read the full text (minus photos and illustrations) of today’s New York Times, or browse issues back to 1980.

Select New York Times from the “Publications” drop-down box to search and print the complete text and images from the American newspaper of record from 1851-2016.

Watch a YouTube tutorial: English | Spanish

Reviews, reading guides and reading lists for all interests, covering fiction and nonfiction titles.

Novelist K-8 Plus allows you to discover fiction and nonfiction titles that are popular with young readers.

Download ebooks and eaudiobooks to your computer, phone (Libby app) or MP3 player.  EPL is a member of the Digital Library of Illinois (formerly MyMediaMall).  View a tutorial on YouTube: English | Spanish

Offers over 800 titles, local, regional, national and international. Included are the full text of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and LA Times, These national titles are highly regarded and cover the nation’s news daily.
ProQuest Newsstand also has full text coverage of the Chicago Defender, Crain’s Chicago Business, and La Raza.

View YouTube Tutorial: Part 1 English | Spanish   Part 2 English | Spanish Part 3: English | Spanish

Create lists of new homeowners, new business licenses, foreclosures and bankruptcies anywhere in the 7 county Chicagoland area.  Outside Library, use this link

ReferenceUSA is an electronic resource that is useful for finding businesses by name, address, city, state, phone number, or type of business. You can also find 120 million residential listings here.  Who can benefit by using ReferenceUSA? Job seekers looking for companies and contact names; salespeople looking for leads or conducting market research; entrepreneurs searching for business opportunities or suppliers; consumers locating out-of-town companies; vacationers finding motels, restaurants and attractions in other cities; and anyone looking for residential or commercial telephone numbers and addresses, will all find information here. Video tutorials and webinars are available from the ReferenceUSA Learning Center.

ReferenceUSA is available from home to Evanston library cardholders, and is available to anyone visiting the library in person.

Online children’s storybooks.

Complete text of the Salem press encyclopedias, Genetics and Psychology and Mental Health.

Includes Salem’s American history series, “The Decades,” from 1940-2000; Great Events from History, from ancient times to the present; and Milestone Documents in American History, a collection of primary source material.

E-books containing the full text of Literary Survey of Long Fiction, by Salem Press.

Complete text of Salem’s Encyclopedia of Global Resources and Encyclopedia of Global Warming.

African-American history on Chicago’s North Shore. Full-text of the only publication devoted to the history of Evanston’s African-American community. Also has a map of Evanston African-American historic sites.

The ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States.

An extensive site with an index to philanthropic literature, basic information for over 50,000 foundations, and links to the home pages of over 900 foundations.

TumbleBooks is an online tool for reading where kids can listen to books, read along, and play games. View a tutorial on YouTube: English | Spanish

Learn the basics of how to enroll in health insurance using healthcare.gov. This course looks at the process of determining eligibility, preparing to enroll, creating an account, and finding local help to successfully enroll in a health insurance plan as a part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare”.

Women’s Magazines Archive comprises the full backfiles of 14 leading women’s interest consumer magazines. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through 2005 and permits the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period.  Titles are scanned from cover to cover in high-resolution color.  Search for subjects, stories and even advertisements, or select a publication and date, and start browsing cover to cover.  Included in this resource are Better Homes and Gardens ; Chatelaine; Cosmopolitan; Essence; Good Housekeeping;  Harper’s Bazaar; Ladies’ Home Journal; Parents;  Redbook;  Seventeen;  Vogue;  WIN News;  Woman’s Day; WWD