Ready Reference - A selection of Web resources


	This selection of ready reference Web Sites, picked by the staff of Lakewood Public Library, is far from a complete list of sites for the various subject areas. However, we have tried to select sites which we have found to be useful, accurate and authoritative. Ready Reference uses a subject index based on Dewey Decimal Classification, a numerical classification scheme for breaking down fields of knowledge. We have kept our listing fairly broad by using the primary subdivisions.

000 General Works UFOs, Computers, Encyclopedias/Facts, Directories 100 Philosophy & Psychology Occult, Astrology 200 Religion Mythology 300 Social sciences Economics, Law, Government, True Crime, Education, Costume, Etiquette, Folklore 400 Language Grammar, English & Foreign Language Dictionaries 500 Natural sciences & Mathematics Physics, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Botany, Zoology 600 Technology & Applied Sciences Medicine, Diet & Fitness, Automobiles, Gardening, Cooking, Pets, Business, Home Improvement 700 Arts & Recreation Architecture, Landscaping, Art, Antiques & Collectibles, Crafts, Photography, Music, Entertainment, Sports 800 Literature Writing Guides 900 Geography & History Biography, Genealogy, Baby Names, Travel © Lakewood Public Library. All rights reserved. The Dewey Decimal Classification is © 1996-2001 OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated. DDC, Dewey Decimal Classification, and Dewey are registered trademarks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Used with Permission. Lakewood Public Library Lakewood, Ohio, USA		SYMBOLS.com An encyclopedia of graphic signs and symbols ("western non-pictorial ideograms"). More than 2500 symbols that you can search by word index or, incredibly, by graphic characteristic. The 1600 articles on meanings and histories are interesting and well cross-referenced. SuperPages.com In 2000, BigYellow.com, BigBook.com, and SuperPages.com combined. Virizon presents this new SuperPages.com with over 13 million businesses nationwide, plus Canada. It can be searched by business category, name, city, and state. InfoSpace.com Infospace aggregates content from a number of sources. The result is a large and handy directory for people (including e-mail) and businesses. U.S. and Canadian business data provided by infoUSA; Thomson Directories for the UK; Kapitol for European countries. Data providers for residential are Acxiom (U.S. and Canada), 192.com (U.K.), and Kapitol (other European countries). AnyWho (AT&T) Directory Find telephone number, e-mail, FAX, toll-tree numbers in the U.S. The ability to search by street name, plus the toll-free and reverse look-up make this site especially valuable. The Ultimates With so many search engines out there, it's really great to find a timesaver like The Ultimates. The site consolidates resources for searching white pages, yellow pages, email addresses, plus map and route planners. A wonderful feature of this service is copying your data across fields. No need to re-key your search terms! Search results are displayed in a new browser window. Paid subscription will get you premium service. Infobel World - Telephone Directories A directory of white, yellow and business pages internationally. gethuman database from Paul English For those frustrating customer service phone calls. A list of shortcuts to bypass IVR phone trees when you would prefer to reach a human customer service/support representative sooner than later. See also Gethuman (get2human). Read "about" to see the difference. Also try IVR Hacks. Internet Country Codes A listing of countries and their codes for use on the Internet. The List: The Definitive Internet Services Buyer's Guide This is a very useful listing of Internet Service Providers worldwide. For the U.S., select the area code of your choice for detailed descriptions of service providers. Web and e-mail addresses are provided as well as detailed summaries of accounts available. Another site to check is the Freedomlist ISP Directory (free and cheap Internet service providers). If you are shopping around for an ISP, these are the sites to visit. Free Email Address Directory: Your guide to free email... Over 500 services listed, plus a good collection of e-mail directories, and listing for freebies in other categories, e.g., mailing list hosting. Computing Dictionary A very detailed dictionary of computer language with definitions of just about every computing term one could think of. High-Tech Dictionary This is a really excellent compilation of hundreds of computing terms. The definitions offered here tend to be a bit simpler than those in the Computing Dictionary above. Consequently, this is a friendlier starting point for the computer novice. PC Webopaedia This is a great computer terminology resource. Browse numerous categories such as memory, programming and operating systems, or conduct a search by phrase or keyword. There is also much information concerning the latest pc news in the fields of Internet, software, hardware, multimedia and communications. Netlingo There is Internet jargon everywhere you look! Often, newcomers to the on-line world stumble on without really understanding the terms they are reading. Choose another option by looking at Netlingo where commonly used terms, as well as more specialized ones, are explained succinctly. The well designed home page makes it easy to search for a particular term, to browse an alphabetical listing, or to look up a word by typing it's first letter. Other Collections of Reference Links. If you don't find what you need elsewhere on this list, try one of these. No two contain exactly the same sources. Librarians' Index to the Internet - Berkeley Public Library Purdue Libraries Ready Reference Desk Internet Public Library Reference RefDesk.com DeskRef: Sources for Quick Answers Quick Reference Internet Quick Reference The Fugitive Fact File This is a fascinating example of a library putting the power of the Internet to great use. The Fact File is geared towards the retrieval of answers to tricky questions. Compiled by the staff of Hennepin County Library in Minnesota, it consists of facts drawn from various files maintained at libraries throughout the Hennepin County Library System. It is searchable by keyword or, you can browse an alphabetical index. This is a real gem of a Web page. Librarians, take a look! For other compilations see Ramapo Catskill Library System's Library Fact Files. Price's List of Lists Compiled by librarian Gary Price at George Washington University, starting in 1998; now continued by Trip Wyckoff at Special Issues. This is a collection of lists in the form of rankings. The best this and the top-ten that. A trove of highest, lowest, most, least, fastest growing, and so on. Price also has a fairly large collection of Fast Facts: Almanacs/Factbooks/Statistical Reports & Related Reference Tools. LibDex Directory of 18,000 libraries worldwide: home pages, online catalogs, friend's pages, and affiliate links. Dewey Decimal Numbers A simple, alphabetic subject index that directs you to the appropriate Dewey number. From Appleton Public Library in Wisconsin. Or, for a look at classification from the number side, download Dewey Decimal Summaries. This pdf document of DDC 22 will take you from 000 to 999 with a "hundreds" summary and the "thousands" From OCLC, the copyright owner of the Dewey Decimal Classification. New York Times - Books An absolute must for book lovers. Registration is required, but it's free. Search the archives of the New York Times Book Review back to 1980. Browse through back issues for the current year. Find information on current bestsellers. Read selected first chapters of books. Listen to authors talking at length about their lives and works at the index of audio specials, which is a real gem of a link (You will need to download Real audio to access this part of the site). Finally, take the time to check out the New York Times itself. It is a marvelous site which is meticulously maintained and demonstrates the Web at its best. For other book review sites, visit the library's REaders ADvisor. Publishers Weekly Locate the various PW bestseller lists from the "Bestseller Lists" tab on the landing page. You can also see bestselling books by year to 1996. Check out our REader's ADvisor for other pointers to book information online. Amazon.com - Bookstore Search Amazon by author, title, subject, keyword, ISBN or advanced query to locate just about any book you can think of. However, this is more than just a bookstore. It includes hot titles in numerous different subject categories, articles and interviews and much, much more. So much, so large, it's become a librarian's reference tool! Publishing Organizations in North America This is a listing of publishers in the United States. It provides adresses, phone and fax numbers. Links to the publisher's Web site are provided where available. AcqWeb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors This excellent directory provides access to the Web sites of book publishers and vendors throughout the world. Sites may be accessed alphabetically, geographically, and by subject. There is also an extensive e-mail address directory, as well as a listing of other links to publishers, vendors and books. NewsVoyager.com From the Newspaper Association of America. Provides links to U.S. daily and weekly newspaper home pages and sections, Canadian and international daily newspapers, newspaper groups, associations and other media organizations, and other sites with links to college newspapers and newspaper archives. See also World Newspapers and Magazines - "World newspapers, magazines, and news sites in English." The Internet Public Library also maintains a list of online newspapers from around the world. Guinness World Records Find records for the largest, smallest, longest, oldest, youngest and so on. Free Internet Encyclopedia This "encyclopedic index" serves as a gateway to information available on the Internet. Search the MacroReference index for large areas of knowledge or the MicroReference index for more specific subjects. Encyclopedia.com This excellent free encyclopedia allows you to search for fairly brief, but useful, general articles on a multitude of topics. The articles are hyperlinked to related subject areas. A great feature of this site is that you can forward your search to a number of search engines, and you can also look for related books at Barnes and Noble. Your query will automatically be forwarded to that site. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia A free, multilingual, "open content" encyclopedia with more than 2,700,000 entries (in the English section alone!) composed by its own readers. It allows general public authorship and editing of any page and community content management. Wikipedia describes itself as the first serious general encyclopedia to be developed using this "wiki" system. Check it out. Truly one of the cool aspects of the Internet/Web. Chceck out the "Sister" Wiki projects listed at the bottom of the page, e.g, the Commons for media files. See also h2g2, a guide to "life, the universe and everything," composed by "everyone" and inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Britannica.com Free online version of the classic encyclopedia. Encarta On-line It is always a pleasure to find free and useful information. This abridged version of the premium service is a classic example. A terrific site for homework help and for all kinds of other information needs. Columbia Encyclopedia This is the 6th edition, year 2000 publication of the famous one-volume (print) encyclopedia. It contains over 50,000 article entries, browsable alphabetically or full-text searchable. A nice feature: it gives pronunciations of names. The Old Farmer's Almanac North America's oldest continuously published periodical is on the World Wide Web at this beautiful site. Find weather forecasts, heavenly details, sun & moon rise & set for your area, along with all the details which make the Farmer's Almanac a browser's delight. Pulitzer PrizeWinners Comprehensive information on the winners of the Pulitzer prize from 1995 to the present. The Nobel Foundation The official site of The Nobel Foundation. It includes detailed information about Nobel prize winners in all areas. Associations on the Net Get listings of associations under the headings of Arts, Business, Computers, Entertainment, Health, Industry, Labor, Law, Science and Social Sciences. From the Internet Public Library. Idealist At this site search 43,000 nonprofit and community organizations in 165 countries. It is searchable by keyword or geographic region. Look here for volunteer and career opportunities. A project of Action Without Borders. Guidestar Nonprofit Guide Guidestar describes itself as the 'best reference resource available in American philanthropy.' It contains both financial and program information for over 650,000 charities and nonprofit organizations in the United States. You can search the database by keyword and by various fields such as city, state, and revenue. Free registration is necessary and will get you basic information: "verify a nonprofit's legitimacy, learn whether a contribution will be tax deductible, view a nonprofit's recent Forms 990, or find out more about its mission, programs, and finances." Other levels are available for a fee. Charity Navigator - America's Largest Charity Evaluator Provides analysis and rating of more than 3400 charities. A good quick check to aid in intelligent giving. NIRA's World Directory of Think Tanks Listings by name and country of nearly 500 independent, not-for-profit institutions worldwide. From the National Institute for Research Advancement in Japan.