Biography
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Biography
Part of the large Infoplease.com site, this boasts over 30,000
biographies of historical and contemporary figures. Search by
name or one of the categories (sports, presidents, vice
presidents, entertainment, people in the news, business leaders,
world leaders, and deaths in the current and previous years).
Information varies from minimal to detailed.
Provider: Pearson Education; Commercial
Biographical
Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present
Provides biographical information on the more than 13,000
persons who have served in the United States Congress, including
those who served in the Continental Congress.
Provider: United States Congress; Government
Business
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Yahoo
Finance
"Yahoo! Finance is a leading financial destination, providing
consumers with a broad range of comprehensive online financial
services and information essential stock information."
Probably the best free business database available on the
Web. Useful for stock info, historical stock prices,
news, reports, profiles, statistics, annual reports, and
industry comparisons.
Provider: Yahoo, Inc.; Commercial
Country Information
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Background
Notes
State Department database that
provides basic country information including people, history,
government, political conditions, economy, foreign relations,
travel, and more. More in-depth than the World Factbook.
Designed for state dept employees when they travel.
Provider: U.S. Department of State.; Government
CIA World Factbook
Categories covered include Geography, People, Government,
Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military and Transnational
Issues.
Provider: Central Intelligence Agency of the United States;
Government
Consumer Information
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Consumer.gov
Provides information on product recalls, advises consumers
on commercial frauds, and even reports on flight delays of
airlines.
Provider: US Government (multiple agencies).
Crime
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FBI's
Uniform Crime Reports
This excellent resource breaks down crime by type, number,
and area (even includes rural towns).
Provider: FBI; Government
Directories
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Doctor
Finder
Provides information on virtually every licensed physician
in the United States and its possessions, including doctors
of medicine (MD) and doctors of osteopathy or osteopathic
medicine (DO).
Provider: American Medical Association; Non-Profit Organization
Martindale.com
Martindale.com is an online directory of lawyers and law firms
around the world. It allows for searching by name, geographic
location, and area of practice.
Provider: Martindale-Hubble, Inc.; Commercial
White
Pages.com
One of the most popular telephone directories on the
Internet, can search white and yellow pages across USA, only
includes people who have listed phone numbers. Largest
of its type. Includes some 1,300 partners.
Downside is lots of ads.
Provider: Whitepages.com; Commercial
E-books
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The
On-line Books Page
A fairly complete listing of various sources for online texts,
including Project Gutenberg, and specialty and foreign language
sites. Recommended because its index is searchable.
Most of the eBooks are older literary works that are in the
public domain in the United States. All may be freely downloaded
and read, and redistributed for non-commercial use
Education
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Teacher
Reference Center (TRC)
This index of over 260 titles from the most popular teacher
and administrator trade journals, periodicals, and books is
offered free via the EBSCOhost platform. This database provides
coverage on key education topics such as Assessment, Continuing
Education, Current Pedagogical Research, Curriculum Development,
Instructional Media, Language Arts, Literacy Standards, Science
& Mathematics, and more for K-12 Teachers & Librarians.
Provider: EBSCO Publishing; Commercial
Elections
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Electoral Vote
Predictor
Tracks the electoral vote (EV) state by state.
Provider: Votemaster; Personal web page
Open
Secrets - Individual Political Contributions
Find out who are the big political contributors in your
community and who they contributed to.
Provider: Center for Responsive Politics; Non-profit org.
Polling
Report
Independent resource that compiles poll results on political
topics from all major polling organizations.
Provider: Polling Report, Inc; Non-profit organization
Genealogy Resources
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AncestorsOnBoard.com
Outward Passenger Lists for long-distance voyages leaving
the British Isles from 1890-1960 (work in progess). View index
for free but you must pay to view information on passenger
lists.
Provider: findmypast.com,
in association with The National Archives of the u.K.
Civil
War Soldiers and Sailors System
Contains basic facts about servicemen who served during the
Civil War. The initial focus of the CWSS is the Names Index
Project, a project to enter names and other basic information
from 6.3 million soldier records in the National Archives.
The facts about the soldiers were entered from records that
are indexed to many millions of other documents about Union
and Confederate Civil War soldiers maintained by the National
Archives and Records Administration.
Provider: National Park Service, Government; Government
Death
Indexes Online
Directory of online death indexes listed by state, including
death certificate indexes, obituaries, cemetery burials &
probate records.
Provider: Joe Beine, Personal
Ellis
Island: American Family Immigration History Center
Covers the period 1892-1924 when 22 million passengers and
crew members entered the Port of New York through Ellis Island.
Search for an immigrant's name and view a digitized page of
the passenger manifest.
Requires free registration to view actual records.
Provider: Ellis Island Foundation in collaboration with
Nat'l Park Service
FamilySearch
Internet Genealogy Service
This Web site, produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, provides access to family history information including
transcriptions of 1880 U.S. and British Censuses and the 1881
Canadian Census, and the Social Security Death index.
Provider: Church of Latter day saints; Church
Vital
Records Information
This site explains how to obtain vital records (such as birth
certificates, death records, marriage licenses) from each
state, territory and county of the United States.
Provider: Ancestry.com; Commercial
Health and Medical
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Ask Dr
Weil
Respected physician who practices integrated medicine e.g.
he integrates the best of alternative and traditional
approaches. Useful site includes info on health
centers, supplements and herbs, healthy lifestyles, etc.
Provider: Weil Lifestyle, LLC; Commercial
CDC
Health Topics
A listing of disease and health topics found on the Centers
for Disease Control web site. Includes morbidity and mortality
statistics for the US.
Provider: Centers for Disease Control; Government
Health Grades
Commercial pay site. Provides basic ratings information of
hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies for free,
comprehensive report is $17.95. Also provides very basic
data on physicians for free. Comprehensive physician
reports cost $29.95. This reviewer did not see any of
the comprehensive reports. The basic info can be found
in other sites for free as well.
Provider: Health Grades, Inc.; Commercial
HealthFinder
Guide to reliable consumer health and human services information.
Provides links to selected online publications, clearinghouses,
databases, Web sites, and support and self-help groups.
Provider: US Government (multiple agencies)
MEDLINEplus
MEDLINEPlus provides access to extensive information about
specific diseases and conditions, has links to consumer health
information from the National Institutes of Health, dictionaries,
lists of hospitals and physicians. Information is provided
in Spanish and other languages. Also provides access to MEDLINE,
PUBMED and other major databases.
Provider: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Whitaker Wellness
Respected physician who practices alternative medicine.
Useful to compare to traditional approaches. Includes
information on major health concerns and compares
conventional approaches to alternative.
Provider: Whitaker Wellness Institute; Commercial
Homeschooling
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A to Z's Home's
Cool Homeschooling Web Site (Ann Zeise)
Includes over 800 pages of homeschooling info. Sections include
Just Beginning; Concerns about Homeschooling; Regional and
World-Wide Support Groups; Study Materials; Homeschool
Laws/Legalities; Lessons/Ideas; Explorations for Kids; Older
Kids (Teens and College-Bound); Methods, Styles, Philosophies;
Religion & Cultural Reasons; Thoughts & Opinions, Research,
Demographics, News; E-Lists, Boards; Jokes; Holiday Directory;
etc.
Provider: Personal site; maintained by Ann Zeise, a homeschooler
Jobs
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Occupational
Outlook Handbook
This source of career information describes working conditions,
salaries, education requirements and job outlook.
Provider: US Dept of Labor Statistics; Government
Career
One Stop
Job resource site that links together state employment offices
from all over the United States.
Provider: US Dept of Labor; Government
Images
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Google
Images
Use the Google search technology to find images on the Internet.
Need to be careful about using them unless for educational
use (then generally just need to give credit).
Provider: Google, Inc.; Commercial
Internet Fraud
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Truth or Fiction
"An email reality
check for e-rumors, viruses, and internet hoaxes."
Provider: Personal site, Rich Buhler
Urban Legends Reference
The definitive Internet reference source for legends,
folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.
Provider: Barbara and David Mikkelson; Personal
Kids
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Ben's
Guide to the United States Government
"Teaches kids from kindergarten through 12th grade about
the Federal Government."
Provider: US GPO; Government
Internet
Public Library Kidspace
Contains links to many free resources for kids, categories
include reference, the world, computer, health, reading, math,
science, etc.
Provider: Univ of Michigan; Academic
Literature and Languages
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Bartleby.com
Great Books Online
Full-text access to a variety of standard reference books,
fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The preeminent Internet publisher
of literature, reference, and verse provides students, researchers,
and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books
and information on the World Wide Web, free of charge. Highlights
of this site include the 18-volume Cambridge History of English
and American Literature, published between 1907 and 1921;
the Oxford Book of English Verse, published in 1900; and the
Yale Book of American Verse, published in 1912.
Bartlett's
Familiar Quotations
Online version of the 1901
edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations may be browsed by
author (chronologically or alphabetically).
Book Rags
Includes over 5.7 million pages of content. A lot of
free content, does link to pay content as well. Pulls
data from a lot of Gale publications. Strongest areas
are literature, biography, and literary criticism. Can
subscribe for access to pay content.
Provider: James Yagmin & David Lieberman, Book Rags;
Commercial.
Maps
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Map
Collection, Perry-Castaneda
The Perry-Castaneda Map Collection
displays selected digitized images from the printed collection
housed at the University of Texas at Austin. Included are
many maps produced by the United States Central Intelligence
Agency, world historical maps, and links to other online map
collections.
Provider: University of Texas, Austin; Academic
MapQuest
Popular mapping tool for locations and directions. Also
try Yahoo Maps for comparison.
Patents
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Patents
Searching
Searchable full text and bibliographic patent databases from
the US Patent and Trademark Office, which covers the period
from 1 January 1976 to the most recent weekly issue date.
The full text database also includes links to full page images.
This site is a resource for application and general information
about patents.
Provider: US Patents Office, Government
Periodical Articles (top)
DOAJ:
Directory of Open Access Journals
Largest and most popular open access journal site. This
service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific
and scholarly journals. Covers all subjects and languages.
There are over 2,800 journals in the directory. Currently
869 journals are searchable at article level. There are 140,000
articles are included in the DOAJ service.
Provider: Lund Library, Sweden; Academic Institutionn
Ingenta
Connect (top)
Document delivery service that allows free access to the searching
bibliographic information. Provides indexing and
abstracts from 20,000 journals. Cost of articles range from
$6 to$100.
Provider: Ingenta (formerly Carl Uncover); Commercial
Philosophy
Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Indepth articles about famous philosopher and philosophical
concepts. Original articles written by professors and
scholars.
Popular Culture
Internet
Movie Database
Huge, fully-searchable database
of film information, including credits, plot summaries, character
names, movie ratings, year of release, running times, soundtracks,
country of production, genres, production companies, distributors,
special effects companies, reference literature, filming locations
and movie trivia. From 1892-present.
Provider: Internet Movie Database Inc., Commercial
Reference
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Bartleby.com
Great Books Online
Full-text access to a variety of standard reference books,
fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Features the Columbia Encyclopedia,
American Heritage Dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, Barlett's
Familiar Quotations, Gray's Anatomy and
more.
Provider: Bartleby.com, Commercial
Information
Please Almanac
Includes full-text of the Information Please Almanac as well
as an online dictionary and an online encyclopedia. Current
news is also included.
Your
Dictionary
YourDictionary.com provides access to language and language-related
products and services on the Web including dictionaries, polyglot
dictionaries, courses, synonyms and antonyms, and other services
that act as a research tool for linguists and non-linguists
alike
English-to-other-Language
Translation Dictionaries
Links to Alta Vista's Translator and other French, German,
Japanese, Russian, and Spanish to English (and vice versa)
dictionaries.s.
Provider: Information Resources Department
The
Britannica Concise
This free short-entry encyclopedia does not have as much content
as the full Encyclopaedia Britannica (it's based on the one-volume
printed Merriam-Webster Collegiate Encylopedia), but it does
offer a searchable and browsable collection of more than 25,000
entries on a variety of topics.
Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia
Begun on January 15, 2001, Wikipedia uses collaborative software
to offer this free-content encyclopedia. As defined by the
website, "free" means free to add, free to edit,
and free to copy and redistribute. Wikipedia is a multilingual
open-content online encyclopedia, continually evolving through
collaborative development. It is now the world’s largest and
most comprehensive encyclopedia with over 7 million articles.
Statistics
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Census:
State and County Quick Facts
Quick, easy access to facts about people, business, and geography
from the US Census Bureau
Provider: U.S. Census Bureau
City Data
Provides comprehensive profiles many locations in the USA.
Draws upon multiple sources. Includes hundreds of
thousands of maps, satellite photos, stats about residents
(race, income, ancestries, education, employment),
geographical data, state profiles, crime data, sex
offenders, housing, businesses, local news links based on
our exclusive technology, birthplaces of famous people,
political contributions, city government finances and
employment, weather, hospitals, schools, libraries, houses,
airports, radio and TV stations, zip codes, area codes, air
pollution, water systems and their health and monitoring
violations, comparisons to averages, professionally written
city guides, and more. Great one stop shopping for local
statistics.
Provider: City Data.com; Commercial
Weather
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Weather
Underground
Weather forecasts for the US and the world with a fast, easy
to use interface. Includes weather maps, graphics and radar
images and historical data (back to 1970).
Provider: Weather Underground, Inc.; Commercial |