Prince William Public Libraries: Your Digital Partner in Education

Your public library is a civic institution that serves as many different purposes as patrons. In support of our mission to bring people, information, and ideas together in a welcoming, inclusive environment, Prince William Public Libraries (PWPL) collaborates formally and informally with various organizations and institutions.

PWPL has long worked with local schools and homeschoolers to support students and educators alike, including the ongoing support through the online resources we offer. We just acquired two new resources on our Digital Library, pwcva.gov/digitallibrary, to help students with their homework and research.

“AtoZ the USA” and “AtoZ World Cultures” both provide social, political, demographic, cultural, and economic information in easy-to-read, short entries which are professionally written and with citation information included. “AtoZ the USA” includes information on the United States of America as a whole, individual articles on all 50 states, and the five territories and the District of Columbia.

“AtoZ World Cultures” has entries on 174 other countries that introduce learners to sharable images, maps and graphs, language phrases, and much more. Teachers will appreciate the lesson plans, and any student working on a report will find plenty of information that’s reliable and vetted. Every article and entry also has a citation tool covering all three major citation styles.

Finally, we recently enhanced the “TumbleBooks” read-along database with a new capability—schools now have access to the database on their own computers, and teachers are allowed to create their own accounts. “TumbleBooks” has long been popular with teachers and young readers, but previously access could not be shared with schools. We are happy to now extend direct access to both Prince William County Public Schools and Manassas City Public Schools.

We are proud to continue supporting area schools and educators, and we hope students and their families will discover all the resources our Digital Library has to offer.

About Prince William Public Libraries

Prince William Public Libraries has 12 branches throughout Prince William County and the City of Manassas, providing free access to books, e-books, e-audio, print and digital magazines, Digital Library, and CDs/DVDs. PWPL also offers free educational and entertaining programs for all ages.

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Written by Kirk Johnson, PWPL Materials Services Division