Reference Sources on the Internet
General Reference Sources from the Gale Virtual Reference Library -- Accessible from DOI Locations Only
- American Men and Women of Science
- Dictionary of American History
- Encyclopedia of World Biography
- Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History: Government and Politics
- Gale Encyclopedia of Science
- Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary
- Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States
There are too many reference sources on the Internet for all to be listed on our pages. For more complete lists of sources, try IPL2, which is the result of a merger of the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians' Internet Index (LII).
Below, we've listed some web sites we've found especially useful. They are arranged by type of reference work, or by subject.
ALMANACS
ASSOCIATIONS
BIOGRAPHIES
- Biography Center
- Find A Grave
- In the First Person: An Index to Letters, Diaries, Oral Histories, and Other Personal Narratives
- National
Academy of Science: Biographical Memoirs
Biographical Memoirs are brief biographies of deceased National Academy of Sciences members, written by those who knew them or their work. These biographies provide a personal and scholarly view of the lives and work of America's most distinguished scientists and a biographical history of science in the United States. - National Inventors Hall of Fame
- Nobel Foundation
- POTUS: Presidents of the United States
BOOKS, JOURNALS and PUBLISHING
- Acqweb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors on the Web
- Bartleby.com
"Great books online." - Electronic
Texts & Digital Libraries
Links to the full text of books and other texts on the Web. - Law and Politics Book Review
- Nancy
Pearl
Librarian and author of Book Lust and More Book Lust, Nancy Pearl is a regular commentator about books on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" and NPR affiliate stations KUOW in Seattle and KWGS in Tulsa. - National Outdoor Book Awards
- New
York Times Books on the Web
Contains more than 50,000 book reviews, author interviews, and book news articles that appeared in the newspaper and the New York Times Book Review since 1980. Free registration is required. - Pulitzer Prizes
- University
Press Catalogs
available on the Internet, compiled by the Association of American University Presses.
BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC INFORMATION
- American FactFinder
Economic and population statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau - Beige Book
Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions by Federal Reserve District. - Bureau of Economic Analysis
and its publication, the Survey of Current Business. - Business
Research
Produced by Justia, Virtual Chase. - County Business
Patterns
The County Business Patterns database provides county, state, and national level business data from 1977 to the most recent year available. - Economic Census Data, U.S. Census Bureau
The Economic Census profiles American business every 5 years, from the national to the local level. - Economic Indicators
Available from April 1995 forward, this monthly compilation is prepared for the Joint Economic Committee by the Council of Economic Advisors and provides economic information on prices, wages, production, business activity, purchasing power, credit, money and Federal finance. - Electronic Data Gathering Analysis and Retrieval (EDGAR)
Provides 10-K, 20-F, proxy statements, some annual reports, and other financial statements of public companies filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. - FedBizOpps.gov
FedBizOpps.gov (Federal Business Opportunities) is the single government point-of-entry for Federal government procurement opportunities over $25,000. Government buyers are able to publicize their business opportunities by posting information directly to FedBizOpps. - Fortune Magazine
- Public Register's
Annual Report Service
Order annual reports of over 3,600 publicly held companies. - Survey of Income and Program Participation, U.S. Census Bureau
- Thomas
Register on the Internet
A database of 170,000 U.S. and Canadian companies classified under more than 72,000 product and service headings.
CAREERS
- Career OneStop
- O*Net Online
O*NET Online provides hundreds of occupation-specific entries for job seekers, employment professionals, and those interested in exploring different career tracks. It is created for the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration. - Occupational Outlook Handbook
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- USAJOBS
Search for a job with the U.S. Federal Government
CITATION and STYLE MANUALS
- Citation
Style for Research Papers
Contains a quick guide for citing printed sources using the major manuals, including APA, Turabian, MLA, Chicago and AMA - Introduction to Basic Legal
Citation
Bby Peter W. Martin (Cornell Law School) - Research and Documentation
Online
Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age, 5th ed., by Diana Hacker and Barbara Fister
COLLEGES and UNIVERSITIES
CONSUMER INFORMATION
- E-how
This site provides instructions on how to do (just about) anything. - Epinions.com
"Unbiased reviews by real people." - How Products Are Made
- Recall Warnings
- Recalls.gov
Produced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. - U.S. Consumer Gateway
COPYRIGHT and PATENTS
- Copyright Web Site
- Crash Course in Copyright
- Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials
- Patent Information Users Group
- Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center
- U.S. Copyright Office
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
DICTIONARIES and THESAURI
- Acronym Database
- Acronym Finder
- American Heritage Dictionary
- Logos Multilingual E-Translation Portal
- Merriam-Webster Online
- OneLook Dictionaries
- Roget's II: The New Thesaurus
- Thesaurus.com
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
- The
Able Writer: A Rhetoric Handbook
By John P. Broderick - American Heritage Book of English Usage
- Common
Errors in English
By Paul Brians - The
Elements of Style
By William Strunk, Jr. - Eleven Rules of Writing
- Guide to Grammar and Style
- Online
Technical Writing: Online Textbook
FOREIGN COUNTRIES
- C.I.A. World Factbook
- Country Studies
(Library of Congress) - Currency Exchange Rates
- EmbassyWorld.com
Directory & Search Engine of the World's Embassies & Consulates - globalEDGE
A portal produced by the Center for International Business Education and Research, Michigan State University - U.S. State Dept. Foreign Country Background Notes
GOVERNMENT
- The
Avalon Project at the Yale Law School
Major U.S. and international documents in law, history and diplomacy, from ancient times to the present. - Core Documents of U.S. Democracy
Via Government Printing Office. - FedBizOpps: Federal Business Opportunities
- USA.gov
The U.S. Government's official web portal. - General Services Administration
Links to policies such as the Federal Acquisition Regulation, Federal Management Regulation, Mail Management, Travel Management and Per Diem Rates. - The Plum Book
United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions, 2008 Edition - The
Presidential Timeline of the Twentieth Century
A gateway to the holdings of 12 presidential collections of the National Archives via Government Printing Office. - The United States Government Manual
HEALTH INFORMATION
- AMA Physician Select
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- familydoctor.org
- FDA Bulletin Board
- Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body
- Healthfinder
Sponsored by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. - Health News Review.org
Health News Review provides objective reviews of media stories covering therapeutic claims. - Mayo Clinic
- MEDLINE plus
- MedPedia
In association with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other leading organizations, Medpedia is a repository of up-to-date unbiased medical information, contributed and maintained by health experts around the world. - Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy
- Merck Manual of Geriatrics
- Merck Manual of Medical Information-Home edition
- Net Wellness
This site provides high quality information created and evaluated by medical and health professional faculty at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio State University, and the University of Cincinnati. - Oncolink
Cancer information sponsored by the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. - QuackWatch
- RxList: Internet Drug Index
- Travelers' Health
Sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this site assists travelers and their health-care providers in deciding the vaccines, medications, and other measures necessary to prevent illness and injury during international travel. - WebMDHealth
- WomensHealth.gov
Sponsored by the National Women's Health Information Center (NWHIC), Office on Women's Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
MAILING INFORMATION
- U.S. Postal Service
- ZIP Code Lookup
(United States Postal Service)
MAPS and GAZETTEERS
- Color
Landform Atlas of the United States
Color relief maps. - David Rumsey Map Collection
An extensive digitized gallery of maps, globes, atlases, charts, school geographies, and material in other formats. The site focuses on "cartography of the Americas from the 18th and 19th centuries," but has offerings from all over the world. - Geographic Names Information System
Information about names of geographic features in the United States and Antarctica. - GEONet Names Server
Information about foreign geographic feature names. - Map History / History of Cartography
Old maps, early maps - non-current maps in general - are the subject of this site. - MapQuest
Maps, driving directions, live traffic reports, directories, and travel guide. - National Atlas of the United States
- National Geographic Map Machine
- U.S. Gazetteer Files: 2000 and 1990
(U.S. Census Bureau)
QUOTATIONS
SPEECHES
- American Rhetoric
Includes the Online Speech Bank, a database of and index to 5000+ full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, and other recorded media events.
STANDARDS
- American National Standards Institute
- International Organization for Standardization
- National Institute of Standards and Technology
- NSSN: A Resource
for Global Standards
STATISTICS
- Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Census 2000
- Census Atlas of the United States
- CensusScope
CensusScope is an easy-to-use tool for investigating U.S. demographic trends, brought to you by the Social Science Data Analysis Network at the University of Michigan. - County and City Data Book
Latest edition produced by the U.S. Census Bureau. - EconData.net
"Your guide to regional economic data on the web" - FEDSTATS
Contains links to Federal agencies that produce statistical information. - Guide
to State Statistical Abstracts
(U.S. Census Bureau) - International Database
(Population statistics, U.S. Census Bureau) - OFFStats,
Official Statistics
Offers a collection of links to official statistics worldwide. It arranges statistics sources alphabetically in three sections--by country, region, and subject--with pull-down boxes for easy selection. - Population
Reference Bureau Data Finder
This database contains data on 137 population, health, and environment variables for more than 220 countries, 28 world regions and sub-regions, and the world as a whole. Not all countries have data on all variables. - Statistical Abstract of the United States
- UNdata: A World of Information
UNdata pools major UN databases and those of several international organizations into a single entry point for easy access. - U.S. Census Bureau
TELEPHONE and EMAIL DIRECTORIES
- AnyWho Directories
- Directory
of Toll Free Numbers
Via Internet 800 Directory - Federal Government Telephone Directories
- Federal Toll-Free Telephone Numbers
- Internet Address Finder
- SuperPages.com
(Bigbook)
Search U.S. Yellow Pages - Yahoo People
Finder
Telephone and e-mail address finder
WEATHER
