The stock-buying public has been understandably skittish during these past few weeks of economic turmoil, but the librarians who work at the ten branches of the Springfield-Greene County Library District like to think that information from reputable sources can go a long way toward calming fears.

"We have a steady clientele of patrons who come to the library to look at the status of their investments," said business librarian Mike DePue, who, for more than 28 years, has helped patrons find accurate, knowledgeable business information. "For years, we've had Value Line's print version of stock listings, which has been very popular with patrons. We still do, but now we have the more comprehensive online version, too."

Value Line is an investment research database that gives consumers access to information about stocks, mutual funds, options and convertible securities. The site consists of company news, extensive graphing, market updates, portfolio tracking and alerts and analyst supplements in real time.

You can access Value Line from the public computers at any library, or from your home or business computer, if you are a Springfield-Greene County Library cardholder.

It's easy to find. At thelibrary.org, click on Infolink at the top of the page. Use the Find it Fast! search box on the right of the Infolink page to go to All Databases; when you get to the Databases page, scroll down to Value Line.

Value Line, says DePue, is "probably the investment site most known and with the highest degree of acceptance by investors. It's considered authoritative by the public. The electronic version is reasonably easy to use and to understand, and patrons have asked for us to add it to our collection of databases."

Value Line is only one of more than three dozen databases available at thelibrary.org. The databases, selected and purchased by the librarians for their accuracy and reliability from reputable vendors, include more than business topics. "They range from information on how to repair your car to how to find medical information," said Reference Manager Donna Bacon. "We have databases on genealogy, history, law, literature and reference, biography, culture and academic journals."

Bacon adds that the databases are valuable to patrons because "they are robust—they contain information from all kinds of media, reference books, print articles, even broadcast media." And they're all free for library cardholders, and worth a look.