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Have you ever wanted to learn how to say “vampire” in Chinese? Well, now you can, with the addition of an exciting new database to the Overlake Library: the Oxford Language Dictionaries Online.

Students and the Overlake Community now have 24 hour online access to bilingual dictionaries in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish, and may search words in any of those languages for a translation to or from English. In addition, the Oxford Language Web “contains approximately 7,500 of some of the commonest words across 13 languages, including Polish, Arabic, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai.”

Some of the other capabilities (copied from Oxford Language Web):

• Listen to pronunciation
• Choose the right word or phrase using contextual clues and examples
• Insert accented characters (or letters from a different alphabet) using a handy virtual keyboard
• Insert Chinese characters using a helpful pop-up Radical and Character Index
• If you can’t find an exact match, the “Did you mean” feature can help you find the entry you’re looking for
• Print, email, cite, or link all entries

Try it out! Off-campus users will need the username and password, found here. You will need your standard Overlake username and password to see the password list. Get login help here.

Or Link to the Oxford Language Dictionaries from our Library Database by Subject Page .

(By the way, the Chinese word for vampire is吸血鬼, xīxuèguǐ)

This may sounds like we are sending out for an interesting lunch, but Noodle Tools is a software tool to use when doing research. Students can use Noodle Tools to create their citations, take notes, and organize an outline.

The secret to success with creating a citation in Noodle Tools is to correctly identify the type of resource. Noodle Tools will then ask relevant questions and put all the information into the correct format. At a touch of a button the student can then generate their Works Cited, or Bibliography Page. Not only that, when using Noodle Tools there is no more fear of losing a stack of note cards.

So far Noodle Tools has been used extensively by the 7th grade Social Studies Classes and right now the Juniors who are writing their English Research Papers. But it has also been used by the 5th graders, the 12th grade English Lit, and the Psychology Class. Each student can create their own account and can use Noodle Tools for all of their projects to keep up with their research and citations, so as to avoid plagiarism.

You can find the Noodle Tools link on our Database pages.  –Ann Ewel

This month we are highlighting an excellent resource for the Overlake Community that we have available through the library. Teen Health & Wellness is a database that focuses on the medical health and emotional needs of teenagers. It has won several awards in the best educational website category and attempts to provide accurate, and information-rich answers to real life questions, events,  and influences in the lives of adolescents.  Parents and teenagers will find it a good site for information about such topics as family life, peer pressure, eating disorders, dating, stress,  diseases, and many others. It’s a wonderful place to ask questions that teenagers and parents may be too shy or embarrassed to ask of another person. It is easy to use and provides answers in clear, uncomplicated language and especially important, is available 24/7. Hotlines and phone numbers are included for instant help and information in crisis situations. We encourage everyone to become familiar with and use this incredible resource.

To access this database from off campus, you will first need an Overlake username and password to open the Library page that includes database usernames and passwords. Owlnet login instructions here.