What is it for?
This database indexes newspaper and journal articles and covers a wide variety of current topics. It is a good place to start for most research questions.

How do I get to it?
1. Start at the Grafton Public Library homepage. Click Online and Digital Resources from the list on the left.
2. Scroll down to "General Reference Center Gold".
3. Click on General Reference Center Gold.
4. If you are asked for a login or password, type in your library barcode number.

How does it work?
The first screen is the keyword search. Type your term or terms into the box and click Search. Try IRAQ. Articles appear by source type, with options on the left. You can search again, either in the current results or not; or you can narrow the results by source type, publication title, or subject. The subject subdivisions can be helpful in narrowing a broad topic, such as child abuse.

If you select “Subject” before running your search, you will see articles with your term(s) in their subject headings.

Newest articles appear at the top. You can look for articles that say Full-text, or you can check the box to limit your results to only those with full text. When you follow the article link you will get the actual article. Sometimes pictures or graphics are included, but this is mainly a textual database, not a graphical one. On the left of the screen of many articles is a list of subject headings, which are links. Click on them and get related articles.

From the article page you have three retrieval choices. You can print the article, you can download the article, or you can email it to read and print later. Printouts cost 10¢ per page from library computers. If you email articles, they should be in your mailbox within minutes.

Marking articles
When you find articles you like you can mark them. Put a check in the box next to the title on the article list page or on the individual article page. In order to see which ones you’ve marked, click Marked items at the top right on the tab bar.

You can also save searches and results by clicking the yellow Bookmark star. You will be presented with options to copy and paste a URL into another document or email the URL.

Other searches
From the top left, you can also search by subject or publication. Try searching for IRAQ again, this time by subject. You will get a list of subjects that include your term, and under the main entry you should also see options for “Subdivisions” and “Related subjects.” This is a way to narrow a broad topic before seeing any article results.

The publication search is handy to see whether a particular source is indexed and whether it is available in full text. You may either type the source name or see a list of all titles. Once you find the source you are interested in, click the name in order to browse the issues by date.

Advanced search
The advanced search allows you to combine terms from a variety of fields from a pull-down menu.

Use the Search History tab to redo searches or to modify searches already run.