What is background information?
Background information, or reference information, is the type of information you could get from Wikipedia. These resources will give you trustworthy overviews of a topic and provide you with basic things like dates, events and facts about your topic. Generally, you can think of this information in terms of the who, what, where and when of a topic.
Where to Find Background Information
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Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowThis Complete Core Collection includes over 1200 from major reference works, to multi-volume subject encyclopedias, to field guides, to scholarly handbooks, to animations and countless other award-winning sources – spans across all disciplines with something for libraries of all types. Also included are nearly 2,000 short reference videos, more than 550,000 high-resolution art images, photographs and maps across all subject areas. Credo
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Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowA database of full-text encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Gale
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Integrated Taxonomic Information SystemFind authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world. This government resource is an easily accessible database with reliable information on species names and their hierarchical classification.