General E-Reference Tools

Websites, ebooks, and databases chosen as quick reference tools.

For a list of specialized online dictionaries and encyclopedias by subject area, click here. If you have questions, please Ask! a librarian for help.

Abbreviations

• AF: Acronym Finder
• All that JAS: Journal Abbreviation Sources
• Stands4.com: The Source for Acronyms and Abbreviations

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Almanacs and Fast Facts

• Farmers Almanac.com
• Fast Facts: Almanacs/Factbooks/Statistical Reports ...
• The Old Farmer's Almanac
• Infoplease.com
• U.S. Census Bureau, State and County QuickFacts
• World Almanacs
• The World Factbook (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency)

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Associations
  see also Grant Resources, below

• American Council of Learned Societies (links to directory of Constituent Societies)
• Associations on the Net (directory from Internet Public Library)
• The Foundation Center (directory of foundations)
• GuideStar: The National Database of Nonprofit Organizations
• Scholarly Societies Project (information about scholarly societies – University of Waterloo Library)

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Awards and Prizes

• Oscar.com (Academy Awards)
• Grammy.com (Grammy Awards)
• Medal of Honor Citations (U.S. Army Center for Military History)
• Nobel e-Museum
• The Pulitzer Prizes 

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Biography 

• Biographical Dictionary
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (searchable directory of persons who have served in Congress)
• Biography.com
• Distinguished Women of Past and Present (site created by individual)
• WIC Biography Index (Women's International Center)

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Calculators, Weights and Measures

• Martindale's Calculators On-Line Center (collected links to calculators of any kind)
• Measure 4 Measure (collected links that estimate, calculate, evaluate, translate, etc.)

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Calendars, Clocks/Times

• Clocks (collected links from Galaxy web directory)
• Earth Calendar (a book of days for holidays and celebrations around the world)
• The Official U.S. Time (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
• Perpetual Calendar
• Timeticker (shows current time, by time zone)

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Citation/Style Guides
  see also Language and Literature, below

• Compilations of sites, etc
  • Yahoo! Directory, Grammar, Usage, and Style > Internet Citation (collected links from Yahoo! search Directory of the web)
  • RedLightGreen  (choose to format references to identified materials according to various citation/style guides)
     
• American Psychological Association Citation/Style
  • APA Style.org, Electronic References (excerpted from American Psychological Association's Publication Manual, Fifth Edition)
  • Capital Community College, A Guide for Writing Research Papers Based on Styles Recommended by The American Psychological Association
  • APA Style Essentials (written by Vanguard University of Southern California faculty members)
     
• Chicago/Turabian Citation/Style
  • A Brief Citation Guide for Internet Sources in History and the Humanities (based on A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Fifth Edition)
  • Online! a reference guide ..., Using Chicago Style to Cite and Document [Internet] Sources (based on The Chicago Manual of Style, Fourteenth Edition [not current edition])
     
• Modern Language Association Citation/Style
  • A Guide for Writing Research Papers Based on Modern Language Association (MLA) Documentation (Capital Community College)
  • Online! a reference guide ..., Using MLA Style to Cite and Document [Internet] Sources (based on MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 2003)
     
• Other Systems for Citation/Style
  • Columbia University Press, Basic CGOS [Columbia Guide to Online Style] Style
  • NARA, Publications, Citing Records in the National Archives of the United States (General Information Leaflet Number 17)
  • National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation, Supplement: Internet Formats (.PDF document, July 2001)
  • Online! a reference guide ..., Using CBE Style to Cite and Document [Internet] Sources (based on Scientific Style and Format: The CBE [Council of Biology Editors] Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers, Sixth Edition) as used in natural sciences)

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Colleges and Universities
  see also WSU Subject Librarian's General Information for Students and Internet Resources for Educators pages

• College and University Rankings
• collegeboard.com (Scholastic Aptitude Test information)
• CollegeSource (college catalogs) (WSU Only)
• National Center for Education Statistics
• Peterson's Guide to Colleges and Universities
• students.gov: student gateway to the U.S. Government

Consumer Information

• Federal Citizen Information Center (National Contact Center for government related issues)

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Dictionaries, Encyclopedias and Thesauri

• Compilations of sites
  • Bartleby.com: Great Books Online, Reference
  • Google Directory, Dictionaries (collected links from Google Directory of the web)
  • LexiCool: Directory of Bilingual and Multilingual Dictionaries
  • Yahoo! Directory, Dictionaries (collected links from Yahoo! Directory of the web)
  • YourDictionary.com: The Last Word in Words (covers many world languages)
     
• General Encyclopedias
  • Encyclopedia Britannica Online (WSU Only) )
  • Encyclopedia.com (articles from Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition)
  • MSN, Learning and Research: Encyclopedia Center from Encarta (Microsoft's Encarta)
     
• English Language Dictionaries
    see also Language and Literature, below
   
  • Bartleby.com ...The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition, 2002)
  • Merriam-Webster Online: The Language Center
  • The Online Slang Dictionary: A Collaborative Project ("open content," incorporating submissions from public)
  • Symbols.com (online dictionary-like look up for graphic symbols)
  • VOA: Voice of America, Pronunciation Guide (pronunciations of people, places, things in the news)
     
• Thesauri, etc.
  • Merriam-Webster Online: The Language Center
  • Bartleby.com ... Roget's II: The New Thesaurus (Third Edition, 1995, Houghton Mifflin)
  • Getty, Research, Learn About the Getty Vocabularies (structured vocabularies for geographic names, art, etc.)
  • Web Thesaurus Compendium (links to thesauri and classification schemes, collected by a consultant for hire)
     
• English-French Language Dictionaries
  • French-English Dictionary (University of Chicago, project on Treasury of the French Language)
     
• English-German Language Dictionaries
  • German-English Dictionary (Technische Universität Chemnitz)
     

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Directories

• Associations
    see Associations, above
   
• Area Codes, Zip Codes, etc.
  • The Area Decoder (look up for telephone area codes, national and international)
  • United States Postal Service, Zip Code Look-Up and Address Information (includes zip+4 look-up)
     
• Federal Government
    see also WSU Subject Librarian's Government Information page
   
  • Federal Citizen Information Center (National Contact Center for government related issues)
  • Finding Military Personnel
  • U.S. Blue Pages: Your Online Guide to U.S. Government
     
• Finding People, Businesses, etc.
  • SBC, SMARTpages.com: Your Online Yellow Pages and More
  • AT&T, AnyWho Online Directory: Finding People, Places and Businesses (includes toll free, reverse telephone lookup)
  • SearchBug (includes reverse telephone and address lookup)
  • Switchboard.com (Yellow Pages)
  • Infobel.com (includes international telephone directories)
  • Search Systems (collected links to free searchable public records databases)
  • Verizon, SuperPages.com (Yellow Pages) 
  • Yahoo! People Search (White Pages)

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Genealogy

• Family Search (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
• Genealogy.com (basic genealogy glossary, with some how-to information)
• Gengateway.com
• Library of Congress, Other Internet Sources on Local History and Genealogy 
• The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History (in Oxford Reference Online )

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Geography and Maps

• Atlapedia Online (full color physical maps, etc.)
• MapQuest (with driving directions)
• nationalatlas.gov (project of U.S. Geological Survey)
• NationalGeographic.com, Maps and Geography
• Quick Maps (commercial site)
• USGS, Maps of the United States (U.S. Geological Survey)
• University of Virginia Library, Collections, Maps and Geographic Data Collections
• UT Library Online, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (University of Texas at Austin) 
• World Fact Book (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency)

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Government Information
  see also WSU Subject Librarian's Government Information page and Kansas Resources, below

• Catalog of U.S. Government Publications
• GPO Access
• GPO Monthly Catalog 
• THOMAS Legislative 

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Grant Resources
  see also Associations, above

• Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (covers fifteen types of assistance programs)
• Grants and Related Resources (Nonprofit Resource Guide: A Directory of Organizations of Interest to or Serving Nonprofits – Michigan State University Libraries)
• discoveryschool.com, Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators, Business Sources and Grants (from Discovery Channel) 
• U.S. Small Business Administration, Federal Grant Resources 

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Health, Consumer

• Aetna InteliHealth - featuring Harvard Medical School's Consumer Health Information
• American Association for Cancer Research
• American Institute for Cancer Research
• drkoop.com
• Health Central
• Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
• Medscape from WebMD
• MeL: Michigan eLibrary, Health Information Resources
• US Department of Health and Human Services: National Institutes of Health
• WebMD Health

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Kansas Resources
  see also WSU Subject Librarian's Government Information page, and Kansas and Wichita Area Resources

• Compilations of Sites
  • Blue Skyways: A Service of Kansas State Library (links to Kansas communities, libraries, government and education resources)
  • The Official Web Site of the State of Kansas: Kansas.gov (state portal, including links to State agencies, boards and commissions, telephone directory)
  • StateInformation.com, Kansas (unofficial state agency portal)
     
• Government Information
  • 50 state.com, Kansas (basic Kansas information)
  • FindLaw for Legal Professionals, State Resources > Kansas
  • Kansas Legislature (includes searchable full text of bills, state session laws, unannotated statutes)
  • Kansas, Office of the Governor
  • Kansas Supreme Court/Kansas Court of Appeals Opinions (court cooperative project with Washburn University School of Law Library and University of Kansas School of Law Library)
  • LexisOne, The Resource for Small Law Firms, Legal Web Site Directory, Kansas (Kansas legal information)
  • Washlaw, State Information for Kansas (Kansas legal information)
     
• Statistics
  • ERS, Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture (includes for Kansas and other states "State Fact Sheets," which contain information on population, income and various agriculture-related statistics)
  • Kansas Statistical Abstract, 2003, 38th Edition (PRI Policy Research Institute)
  • Kansas Statistical Abstract, 2002, 37th Edition
  • Kansas Statistical Abstract, 2001, 36th Edition
  • PRI Policy Research Institute, The University of Kansas (Census 2000 – Kansas Data, Kansas Quarterly Economic Indicators, etc.)

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Law

  see also Government information, above

• LII: Legal Information Institute (reliable resource for retrieving wide range of legal materials, created by Cornell Law School)
• A Dictionary of Law
• FindLaw (major portal to find sources of law on the web)
• LexisOne, The Resource for Small Law Firms
• HierosGamos (portal to find sources of law on the web)

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Libraries
 

• GPO Access, Locate a Federal Depository Library (Federal government publications are available for free public use in Federal Depository Libraries throughout the United States)
• NARA Presidential Libraries (National Archives and Records Administration)
• Public Libraries.com: Your guide to all public libraries and beyond (with links to national, state and university libraries)
• NCES: National Center for Education Statistics, Library Statistics Programs, Public Library Locator (Institute for Education Studies, U.S. Department of Education)
• The Library of Congress, State Libraries (state-by-state links to libraries, state library agencies, etc.)

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Quotations

• Barleby.com ... Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature, Compiled by John Bartlett (Tenth Edition, 1919)
• Bartleby.com ... Simpson's Contemporary Quotations, The Most Notable Quotations, 1950 -1980, Compiled by James B, Simpson (1988)
   

Statistics

• FedStats: The gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies
• Statistics.com (commercial site)
• University of Michigan Documents Center, Statistical Resources on the Web
• U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder

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Miscellaneous

• StartSpot Network (in-depth web portal for various subject areas, "spots")

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Other Libraries' Virtual Reference Links

• MIT Libraries, Virtual Reference Collection
• Purdue University Libraries, Quick Reference List
  Library of Congress, Main Reading Room, Alcove 9: An Annotated List of Reference Websites
  Librarians' Index to the Internet, lii.org
  refdesk.com

  
   
   

Updated: December 31, 2004    Contact: Reference and Research Services Web Administrator