General Reference

Atlases and Maps | Biographies | Bilingual Dictionaries | English Dictionaries | ESL Dictionaries | Medical Dictionaries | Specialized Dictionaries | Encyclopedias | Quotations | Thesaurus | Best Quick-Reference Sites | Almanacs | Government | Statistics | Evaluating Websites

The Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org/
A virtual library! Check out their section devoted entirely to Teens !

American Library Association Great Websites for Kids
http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/greatwebsites/greatwebsiteskids.htm
Websites for children recommended by the ALA, covering such categories as animals, arts, history and biography, literature and languages, math and computers, sciences, and social sciences.

The High School Hub
http://www.highschoolhub.org/hub/hub.cfm
The online learning center for high school students.

Librarians’ Index to the Internet
http://lii.org/
Information you can trust.

Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/
The largest library in the world, with more than 120 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 18 million books, 2.5 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.5 million maps, and 54 million manuscripts.

The Library Spot
http://www.libraryspot.com/
Library and reference resources, including top dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, maps, quotations and more.

 

Atlases and Maps
WorldAtlas.com
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/world.htm
World Atlas of maps, flags, and geography facts.

Atlapedia Online
http://www.atlapedia.com/
Contains full color physical maps, political maps as well as key facts and statistics on countries of the world.

World Time
http://www.worldtime.com/
Interactive world atlas and information on local time as well as sunrise and sunset times in several hundred cities worldwide.

Outline Maps
http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/index.html
Various types of outline maps of the US focusing on history, physical characteristics, capitals, and climate; also continent and hemisphere maps.

Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html
Enormous collection of online maps, including historical maps.

MapQuest
http://www.mapquest.com
Type an address and get a map.

Zip Code Lookup
http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp
Type in an address, to find a zip code.

 

Biographies
Biography.com
http://www.biography.com/
Features a searchable biographical database of 25,000 famous names, Born On This Day, Top 10 lists, TV listings, Biography Magazine features and crossword puzzle, discussion boards, trivia quizzes; and the Who Am I? game.

Presidents of the United States
http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/
Includes background information, election results, cabinet members, notable events, and some points of interest on each of the presidents. Links to biographies, historical documents, audio and video files, and other presidential sites are also included.

Biography Dictionary
http://www.s9.com/biography/
Covers more than 28,000 notable men and women who have shaped our world from ancient times to the present day.

Bilingual Dictionaries
DictSearch
http://www.foreignword.com/Tools/dictsrch.htm
Search tool for bilingual translation from and into dozens of languages.

French-English Dictionary
http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/dictionary/
Only French to English (no English to French). This site provides not only definitions but usage examples.

English Dictionaries
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
http://www.bartleby.com/61/
Fourth edition of this dictionary.

Merriam Webster Online
http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm
The online versions of the well-known Collegiate dictionary and thesaurus. Also has links to Word of the Day and Word Games.

World Central
http://www.wordcentral.com/
Easy student dictionary. You can also increase your vocabulary with the daily buzzword.

 

ESL Dictionaries
Cambridge Dictionaries Online
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
Search beginning, intermediate, and advanced dictionaries, as well as dictionaries of idioms and phrasal verbs (get on, get off, get around, etc).

Medical Dictionaries
MedicineNet.com
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/hp.asp
Contains easy-to-understand explanations of over 15,000 medical terms and quick access to hard-to-spell medical definitions through an extensive alphabetical listing.

Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body
http://www.bartleby.com/107/
Features 1,247 vibrant engravings-many in color-from the classic 1918 publication, as well as a subject index with 13,000 entries.

Specialized Dictionaries
Acronym Search
http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/acronym
Search for what the acronyms OPEC, NASA, UNICEF and thousands of others mean. From University College Cork, Ireland

A Glossary of Literary Terms
http://www.virtualsalt.com/litterms.htm
Can't find your term in the handbook of rhetorical devices? Look here.

Handbook of Rhetorical Devices
http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm
Look up terms such as alliteration, personification, etc.

Latin Phrases Used in English
http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/englatin.htm
An alphabetical listing of phrases in Latin, with definitions in English.

Whatis?.com
http://whatis.techtarget.com/
Definitions for thousands of computer and technology-related words and phrases

 

Encyclopedias
Britannica
http://www.britannica.com/

Encyclopedia.com
http://www.encyclopedia.com/
Free encyclopedia that provides more than 57,000 articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Each article is enhanced with links to newspaper and magazine articles as well as pictures and maps - provided by HighBeam Research.

InfoPlease
http://www.infoplease.com/
The world’s largest free reference site where you can find facts on thousands of subjects including sports, entertainment, technology, business, education, and health.

 

Quotations
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
http://www.bartleby.com/100/
Online version of the 10th edition of Bartlett's. (Note: this is an old edition of Bartlett's and will not have many quotations from the 20th century).

Columbia World of Quotations
http://www.bartleby.com/66/
Search over 65,000 quotations by author or category. Includes historical quotes as well as quotes through the last decade of the 20th century.

Cliche Finder
http://www.westegg.com/cliche/
Type in a word to get a list of cliches containing that word, e.g., "cat" - cat got your tongue?, look what the cat dragged in. You'll have to look somewhere else, however, for an explanation of what the cliche means.

The Quotations Page
http://www.quotationspage.com/
Over 21,000 quotations from over 2,500 authors, and more are added daily. Search by word, phrase, or author. Includes forums for answers to questions about quotations.

 

Synonyms & Antonyms (Thesaurus)
Roget's Thesaurus Search Form
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/ROGET.html
Searchable version of Roget's Thesaurus.

Merriam Webster Online
http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm
The online version of the Merriam Webster thesaurus. Also has links to the dictionary, Word of the Day and Word Games.

Best Quick-Reference Sites
BJ Pinchbeck's Homework Helper
http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/bjpinchbeck/
BJ Pinchbeck says: "'I'm BJ. My friends call me Beege. I just turned 15 on March 16th. My site contains over 700 links to sites that will help you with your homework."

ProQuest K-12
http://www.researchpaper.com
Large collection of topics, ideas, and assistance for school related research projects.

Fact Monster
http://www.factmonster.com
From Information Please, an atlas, almanac, dictionary, and encyclopedia. Includes Homework Help section.

Information Please Almanac
http://www.infoplease.com
Information Please has been providing authoritative answers to all kinds of factual questions.

Homework Help
http://school.discovery.com/students/
Tools to help you study, games to challenge your mind, and tons of great clip art to use. In addition, there are nearly a dozen learning adventures that let you explore everything from Ancient Egypt to the Space Station.

Topics for Writing Papers
http://library.sau.edu/bestinfo/hot/hotindex.htm
Papers on hot topics of our day from O’Keefe Library at St. Ambrose University in Iowa.

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Homework Help
http://www.carnegielibrary.org/subject/homework/
Homework help in art, English and literature, foreign languages, health, math, science, music, and social sciences.

 

Almanacs
Information Please Almanac
http://www.infoplease.com
Online dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas, almanacs, and more

States and Capitals
http://www.50states.com/
Basic facts about every state in the U.S.A.

Today in History
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/today/archive.html
Find out what happened on a particular day.

Government
FirstGov.gov
http://firstgov.gov
The U.S. Government’s official web portal.

Gov Spot
http://www.govspot.com/
Information on U.S. and state governments. Links to government reports, shortcuts to federal agencies and e-mail addresses for legislators; FBI Most Wanted List; resources on hot issues (such as school vouchers, death penalty) and more.

U.S. Blue Pages
http://www.usbluepages.gov/
Online version of the Blue Pages in the phone book; includes telephone numbers and web links to U.S. government offices.

MassGov
http://www.mass.gov/portal/index.jsp?pageID=mg2homepage&L=1&L0=Home&sid=massgov2
The official Website of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

CIA World FactBook
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
The World Factbook 2004 provides a snapshot of the world as of January 1, 2004. Pick a country and learn about its geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.

 

Statistics
American FactFinder
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet
Population, housing, economic and geographic data from the Census Department.

Ameristat
http://www.ameristat.org/
Statistics on the U.S. population, including marriage and family, education, face and ethnicity, income and poverty, immigration, employment and more, presented in text and graphics.

Census Statistics
http://www.census.gov/
The Census Bureau statistics from the 2000 census.

Guinness World Records
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/
Global authority on record-breaking achievements.

NationMaster.com
http://www.nationmaster.com
Choose the countries you want to compare, then generate maps and graphs to illustrate their rankings in dozens of categories. Great for reports.

Statistical Abstracts of the United States
http://www.census.gov/statab/www/
Everything you want to know about the U.S.

 

Evaluating Websites
“The Internet offers the most up-to-date information from anywhere in the world with just a click of the mouse. While we value the immediacy of the Internet, we must also evaluate the information that we obtain, because not all of it is true. Anyone can publish a website on any topic or subject. The facts found on a web page may not be accurate or edited by anyone. Excellent resources reside next to the most dubious.”

The need for evaluation is very important. The following websites will help you acquire the necessary skills to locate and evaluate the information you need on the Internet.

Evaluating Information Found on the Internet
http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/
An excellent series of pages on this subject from the Milton Library at Johns Hopkins University.

Kathy Schrock’s Evaluation Website
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/eval.html
A huge list of websites about evaluating websites by educator Kathy Schrock.

Hutchinson High School Web Evaluation Page
http://www.usd308.com/hhslibrary/Web_Evaluation.html
Great high school site that helps you understand the importance of evaluating Internet web pages.

A WebQuest for Evaluating Websites
http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/evalwebstu.html#back%20to%20top
A WebQuest developed by librarian, Joyce Valenza to strengthen your website evaluating skills.

Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet
http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/index.html
This guide defines the criteria, documents incidents of questionable, false, or fraudulent information as reported in the news or trade literature, provides examples of websites that illustrate good or bad information, and suggests strategies that help you detect bad information.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/eval.html
This site shows examples of sites and explains why it is a good idea to evaluate web sources.

Evaluating Internet Resources
http://www.eduscapes.com/tap/topic32.htm
There is a lot of good information on the Internet, but you will also find opinions, misconceptions, and inaccurate information. How do you judge the quality of Internet resources? Check out this site to find out.

Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html
UC Berkeley’s guide to evaluating websites.

American Library Association Website Evaluation Criteria
http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/greatwebsites/greatwebsitesforkids/greatwebsites.htm
What to look for in a great website.