» Virtual Reference: General Reference
Dictionary/Thesauri
- Wordsmyth: The Educational Dictionary-Thesaurus
- Wordsmyth meshes the functions of a dictionary and a thesaurus with powerful and flexible search capabilities. This database is designed to work the way people think. A spell-like button makes it easy to look up words even if you aren't sure how they are spelled.
- Language Dictionary and Translator
- Offers online dictionaries for a variety of languages.
- Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition
- Offers an online dictionary and thesaurus,and word of the day. Helpful features include the audio pronunciation tool and the spelling help feature.
- The Acronym Finder Website
- A database of more than 47,000 acronyms and their meanings. The index contains acronyms concerning general topics, computers, technology, government, military and telecommunications.
- The World Wide Web Acronym and Abbreviation Server
- Allows you to search by acronym or abbreviation, or by a word to see the related acronyms.
- Bartleby.com
- Offers several collections of famous quotations to search.
- Quoteland
- Offers contemporary quotations to search in several categories: Quotations by Topic, Sports, Literary, Quotations by Author, and Special Occasion Quotes.
- iLoveLanguages
- A comprehensive catalog of language-related Internet resources.
- A Web of Online Dictionaries
- English and foreign language dictionaries (over 130 languages) as well as specialized subject dictionaries.
- The Semantic Rhyming Dictionary
- "Type in a word to find its rhymes, synonyms, definitions, and more!"
- Dictionary.com Translator
- Type in text, and it will translate the text to the language that you choose.
Almanacs/Manuals
- Information Please Almanac
- This website provides ready reference information on a wide range of topics.
- The 50 States of the United States: Capital Cities and Information Links
- Offers a variety of factual information and links regarding each state.
- Physical Reference Data
- From the National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
- A popular medical reference source.
Telephone Directories
- Telephone Directories on the Web
- Telephone Directories on the Web is an index of online phone books comprising "400 links to Yellow Pages, White Pages, Business Directories, Email Addresses and Fax Listings from over 170 countries."
- 555-1212
- E-mail address directories from Four11, WhoWhere, and Internet Address Finder.
- Four11
- The Internet white pages.
- The Global Yellow Pages
- A collection of phone directories from around the world.
- The Internet 800 Directory
- Find toll-free 800 or 888 phone numbers.
- PeopleFind
- From Lycos. Phone numbers, email addresses.
- People Finder
- From Database America, provides names, addresses and telephone numbers from white pages across the U.S. Allows searching by phone number or by name.
- WhoWhere
- Personal and business phone numbers, email addresses, home pages, yellow pages, and more.
Newsgroups and Listservs
- The Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences
- "Screens, evaluates and organizes discussion lists, newsgroups, MUDS, MOO'S, Muck's, Mushes, mailing lists, interactive Web chat groups etc. (e-conferences) on topics of interest to scholars and professionals for use in their scholarly, pedagogical and professional activities."
- Liszt
- Search for listservs from this site.
- Dejanews
- Search for newsgroups from this site.
- CollegeNet
- Searchable directory with links to most post-secondary schools in the U.S. and Canada.
- Community College Web
- "This site contains a searchable index to the web sites for 1251 community colleges in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere around the world. The interface we set up allows you to search alphabetically (by the first letter of the college's name), geographically (by the country/state/province), or by keywords in the college name, location, or web address."
- Gradschools.com
- Allows searching by subject for information on graduate programs, with some links directly to the schools.
- Peterson's Education and Career Center
- Search for information about colleges, degree programs, careers, study abroad, financial aid, and more.
News
- AJR NewsLink: Radio/TV
- Links to radio and television networks and stations.
- Associated Press
- The official website for the Associated Press.
- CNN Interactive
- The official website for CNN.
- The Newsroom
- Provides access to a large number of electronic news sites.
- Voice of America
- Offers world news in 45 different languages.
- Yahoo! Newswires
- Financial News from Dow Jones Newswires.
Biography
- Biography Website
- 15,000 Entries from the Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia.
Schools
- American School Directory
- Patterson's American Education Location: REF L 901 P3 year.
Museums
- Museums Index
- From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, offers the most comprehensive collection of online museums in the world.
Organizations
- Associations on the Net
- A directory of professional and trade associations, cultural and art organizations, political parties and advocacy groups, labor unions, academic societies, think tanks and research institutions.
- The Scholarly Societies Project
- Access to web sites maintained by or for scholarly societies across the world.
- International Organization Web Sites
- A directory of over 5,000 international organizations on the WWW, from the Union of International Associations in Brussels. (Note: the information provided here is selected from the database used to create the Yearbook of International Organizations, a directory of 30,000 organizations).
- World Directory of Think Tanks
- From Japan's National Institute for Research Advancement. Provides information on 268 "influential" think tanks in 68 countries.
- American Council of Learned Societies
- A federation of 61 national scholarly organizations in the humanities and related social sciences.
- National Coalition of Independent Scholars
- "The goal of this site is to provide useful information for our members, other interested independent scholars, institutional scholars, and the public."
General Reference
- Librarian's Index to the Internet
- "A well-organized point of access for reliable, trustworthy, librarian-selected Internet resources."
- INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collection
- A database of research materials selected by academicians from available websites.
- My Virtual Reference Desk
- A large, well-organized, searchable site with links to information by subject, statistical resources, AP news on the hour, current newspapers worldwide, and many quick reference tools (atlases, dictionaries, weights and measures). Features include Ask the Experts, My Facts Page, My Virtual Encyclopedia, My Virtual Newspaper, and more.
- Internet Public Library
- Another good source for general reference.
Miscellaneous Reference
- Measure for Measure
- "A collection of interactive sites on the web that estimate, calculate, translate, etc."
- Zip Code Finder
- Find the zip code that you need, compliments of the U.S. Postal Service.
- Flags of the World
- "Flags of the World (FOTW) is the Internet's largest site devoted to vexillology. Here you can read more than 18,000 pages about flags and view more than 33,000 images of flags."
- E-BOOK Locator
- This site allows you to search for e-books that are available online.
- Kentucky Town Newspapers
- This site offers a directory of links for newspapers in various towns in Kentucky.
- Portals to the World
- This website is a project from the Library of Congress that features a number of links to information regarding countries around the world. All links were chosen by Library of Congress Subject experts.
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- "This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. We aim to cover all subjects and languages."
Citing Sources
- Using APA (American Psychological Association) format
- From the Purdue University Online Writing Lab.
- Using MLA (Modern Language Association Format
- An online guide to using the MLAMLA format, from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab"
- Chicago/Turabian Style
- The Chicago Manual of Style and Turabian's Manual for Writers.
- The Citation Machine
- This website provided by the Landmark Project will give you your citation in MLA or APA format, after you type in your information. A timesaver!!!
updated on 10/02/05