Library

Stratford Library Information

Your library is a great place to learn and explore. Visit the library catalog and the Limitless Libraries page to search for books, DVDs, digital resources, Playaways and more. You can request these be delivered to school classrooms.

We teach the national standards from the American Association of School Librarians, including their shared foundations (Engage, Include, Curate, Inquire, Create and Explore) and learning domains (Think, Create, Share and Grow). These standards help us develop a curriculum that is integrated and tailored to the needs of Stratford STEM Magnet students.

Families can email the librarian to request a Teams call or technology support.

MackinVIA eBooks

Prefer reading an eBook? We have nearly 700 eBooks available now through MackinVIA. Students can place holds on these using their student ID number beginning with 190. The student's 4-digit pin is their birthday in mm/dd format.

To log in to MackinVIA:

Visit the MNPS MackinVIA site
Select your school
Use your Limitless Libraries username and 4-digit pin (birthday in mm/dd format)

Who Are Our Librarians?

Ms. Williams is the librarian for Stratford STEM Magnet Middle School, and Ms. Chen is the librarian for Stratford STEM Magnet High School. Both librarians are here to help students, teachers and families.

Library Newsletter

If you would like to keep up with library happenings, visit our Smore site and subscribe to our newsletter!

Clubs & Activities

The library sponsors several extracurricular clubs and activities. To learn more, visit our Clubs page.

Battle of the Books

Finding Books

Young Adult Library Services Association Book & Media Lists: Take a look at the Quick Picks and other lists.
What Should I Read Next?: Book recommendations from readers like you.
Order Of Books: Reading a book series? View a complete list of books in order.
Young Adult Book Central: YABC has a huge number of reviews for tween and teen readers. You can read book reviews or write your own, join discussions about your favorite books, enter to win monthly giveaways and interact with authors.
Mrs. Readerpants: A comprehensive resource with reviews, new release spotlights and more.
Goodreads: The world's largest site for readers and book recommendations. Track your own reading, see what your friends are reading and receive personalized book recommendations. Geared toward adults or older readers.
Scholastic's Top Picks: Scholastic has many different lists to choose from. Parents can help view lists of books to see if their favorites growing up resonate today.

Research

The Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) offers access to thousands of resources including magazines, scholarly journals, homework help and more.
Limitless Libraries provides an online catalog of all materials in the Stratford STEM Middle library.
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world and an example of a good website for research. It contains millions of books, films, videos, photographs, maps and other important primary source materials. The purpose of the Library of Congress is to preserve these materials and provide equitable access to them.
Refseek is an academic search engine which aims to make academic information more accessible. Once a user has submitted a specific keyword, RefSeek then searches the Internet for relevant material. During every search, the engine reviews more than five billion documents at a time! Essentially, this extra filter helps to weed out commercial content and provide more credible websites for research.
Virtual Learning Resources Center is a search engine that indexes thousands of academic sources. By searching a keyword, the database browses thousands of webpages. The results then produce more relevant material. Most of the shown results include webpages from research portals and public libraries.
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) immediately filters results to show only peer-reviewed results. Additionally, students can search for results which offer full text for free. After the results appear, users can filter by even more specific qualifications, including publication date, source, publication type and even education level. Plus, results can also be filtered by audience type and location (country).
BASE stands for Bielefeld Academic Search Engine. Upon a user search, the database searches millions of citations from over eleven thousand sources to provide the most relevant and accurate results. Users can also utilize the Advanced Search option to find more specific materials. Filters in the Advanced Search option include the ability to look for certain components of a title or URL, document type, and access.
Infotopia After users search, results can be filtered by specific topic, like Health, Science, Technology, and Math, and by primary sources. This search engine is powered by Google but does offer more specific filters for research.
JSTOR is a digital library which helps users easily search for and find academic resources. The database comprises of journal articles, books, images, and other primary sources. To date, the database contains millions of source materials across a wide variety of academic disciplines. Within the search feature, users can filter the results to receive the most relevant results to their needs. Articles on JSTOR are peer-reviewed publications, making the archives a trusted source for academic research. Material from this database is considered scholarly content.
Digital Commons Network is a database powered by universities. The site has compiled free, full-text scholarly articles from over 700 institutions.
WorldCat is a catalog of library materials. Because the database is connected to thousands of libraries and collections, it’s a great tool for research. Results can be filtered by the type of source material, including books, videos, and more. Plus, searches yield both scholarly articles and other digital materials.
Connected Papers allows users to enter a keyword or title to begin their search. Interestingly, results on this site appear in a line graph format. The research is formatted visually. This system is employed to help users see how their papers relate to other articles and to track visual trends in real-time.
Science.gov provides users with millions of scientific articles. Search results can be filtered by author, topic (or subtopic) and publication date. Additionally, users can filter to toggle between text-based results, relevant data and multimedia results. The website is free to use and is produced by the U.S. Federal Government. Material compiled on the site are from trusted scientific organizations.
PubMed, a search engine dedicated to compiling biomedical literature, provides users with results from scientific journal publications and online books. There are more than 30 million citations to search from, and users can filter results by availability of the text, including if the full text is provided for free.
Research Gate is a credible website for research that allows users to both find relevant publications and connect with their scientific community. With over 160 million citations, the database is free to join. This website may also be particularly useful for students looking to engage with others in their field. Research Gate features the opportunity for collaboration between scientists and can be used as a professional networking tool.
WorldWideScience is a global tool allowing users to access information from more than 20 participating countries around the globe. Users can not only access scientific databases but also multilingual translations of the work. What makes this database unique is its ability to filter results by specific country and language. Additionally, academic papers, multimedia, data/software, and public access filters are available.
Wolfram Alpha utilizes a different approach. Their goal is to collect, curate, and compute data to build upon existing scientific achievements. The website accepts input from users to build upon its knowledge as a search engine. Users can have “conversations” with Wolfram Alpha about any topic. While there is an emphasis on computation, mathematics, science and technology, users can also ask questions about other topics.
Science Direct is a database that allows users to search for peer-reviewed sources. Results yield articles and book chapters from relevant publications. There are more than five thousand journals and 35 thousand books available through the database.
CiteSeerX, a digital scientific library, is home to thousands of articles, academic papers, and research. This is an essential resource for users primarily researching computer and information science.