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 ReferenceThis 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 eBooksA database of full-text encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Gale
Periodic Table of Elements
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EniG. Periodic Table of the Elements, Calculators, and Printable MaterialsPresents the Periodical Table in 6 languages. Also has printer-friendly materials such as blank periodic table worksheets, black and white as well as color verions.
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Periodic Table of VideosChemistry-themed videos produced by University of Nottingham professor Martyn Poliakoff, journalist Brady Haran, and a cast of characters. The videos demonstrate chemical reactions in amusing and sometimes naughty ways - one shows what happens to a cheeseburger after it has been lowered into a beaker of hydrochloric acid.