The children's literature comprehensive database.(www.childrenslit.com)

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Once upon a time librarians could only dream of a resource that brings together multiple review sources, provides powerful search capabilities, allows the user to determine the search options, links the user with curriculum tools and author sites, makes creating bibliographies a simple task, and is easy to use. The Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD: www.childrenslit.com) has turned this dream into a reality. "When I am looking for information on books, I know where to turn--CLCD. A hit every time should be the CLCD motto!" says Brenda Randolph, Library Media Specialist, Silver Spring International Middle School, MD.

One of the first things a user notices is the range of reviews available in the CLCD. The 30-plus respected review sources present multiple viewpoints, enabling librarians and teachers to make more informed decisions. These reviews of children's and young adult media offer both American and international perspectives. Among these are the reviews of children's and young adult books from KLIATT, The ALAN Review, Booklist, The Horn Book Audio Reviews, KIRKUS Reviews, and Science Books & Films. Librarians use these reviews for book selection and booktalks and to create book displays.

Prior to CLCD, preparing booklists was a time-consuming and laborious chore. Thanks to the CLCD report feature, it is now easy to create bibliographies, summer reading lists, and booklists for classroom topics. Because CLCD is full text searchable, the user enters the words or phrases for the search, and every field in the MARC record is searched. This capability makes the search more comprehensive than simply using LC subject headings. The search results can be broadened or narrowed by adding more qualifiers. The report feature allows the librarian to select all the titles or specific titles as the result of a search and sort them in a number of ways--author, title, date, Dewey number, etc. The results can then be copied into the program the user chooses to create the final product.

CLCD includes over one million value-added elements such as awards, curriculum and author links, and reading metrics are part of this trusted resource, too. Since books in audio format have been growing in popularity over the last ...