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Free
Online Databases for Rural and Small Libraries Joint Conference of the
Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services & Association of Rural
and Small Libraries Radisson Hotel Presenter: Bob Flatley, Electronic Resources and Periodicals Librarian Rohrbach Library, flatley@kutztown.edu; 610-683-4168 |
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NOTE:
This page highlights non-government databases available free on the
Internet. For recommended free
government databases for small libraries visit my other page at http://faculty.kutztown.edu/flatley/govresources.htm
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Art and Architecture Thesaurus.
http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/aat/
Provides a
structured vocabulary of around 125,000 terms, scope notes, and other
information for describing fine art, architecture, decorative arts, archival
materials, and material culture. Provided by the
Art History Image Database.
http://www2.art.utah.edu:81/index.html
Includes
4000 digitized reproductions of works of art and architecture ranging from the
period before written history through the 20th century. Included here are
representative examples from around the globe.
Nobel Prizes and Laureates.
http://nobelprize.org/
This site
provides quick access to the names of Nobel Prize winners in each of the five
categories. The site also provides information about the Bank of Sweden Prize
in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. For each Laureate, you may
access biographies and, occasionally, view in-depth presentations of his or her
work.
Biographical Dictionary.
http://www.s9.com/biography/
This
dictionary has information on over 18,000 people and provides birth and death
years, professions, positions held, literary and artistic works and other achievements
of people throughout history.
Better Business Bureau.
http://www.bbb.org/
BBB reports
provide information on over two million organizations. It is a good idea to
check before you invest or give.
The free
site provides a brief overview of company, key numbers and people, competitors,
rankings, subsidiaries. Profiles public
and private companies.
Mortgage Loan Calculators. www.mortgageloan.com/calculator/
Features
over 100 different finance-related calculators.
Yahoo Finance.
http://finance.yahoo.com/
"Yahoo!
Finance is a leading financial destination, providing consumers with a broad
range of comprehensive online financial services and information essential
stock information."
Free Foto.
http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp
Site claims
it has over 20,000 images. For non-commercial use only.
Foundation Finder.
http://lnp.fdncenter.org/finder.html
Basic
information about private and community foundations within the
Martindale.com. http://www.martindale.com/xp/Martindale/home.xml
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.
White Pages.com.
http://www.whitepages.com/
One of the
most popular telephone directories on the Internet, can search white and yellow
pages across
The On-line Books Page.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
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
Electoral Vote Predictor.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Tracks the
electoral vote (EV) state by state. Also
includes a history of the electoral college and it’s purpose, weaknesses,
strengths, and current controversies.
Polling Report.
http://pollingreport.com/
Includes
polling data from all major polls about current events and politics of interest
to Americans.
DAR Genealogical Records Index.
http://members.dar.org/dar/darnet/grc/grc.cfm
For almost
a century DAR members have been collecting unpublished genealogical materials,
largely Bible and cemetery transcriptions, into the Genealogical Records
Committee Reports of their state chapters. There are nearly 18,000 volumes of
these typescripts in the DAR library with a searchable online index in
progress. It is recommended that searchers NOT limit a search to a particular
state because many records from eastern states appear in the typescripts for
the state in which the donor/transcriber lived. Note that these records are not
limited to DAR member ancestors.
Ellis Island:
Covers the
period 1892-1924 when 22 million passengers and crew members entered the
FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service. http://www.familysearch.org/
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.
- Ancestral File: Over 35 million
pedigrees and family group records.
- Census: Every-name index to the
1880 U.S. Census, the 1881 British Isles Census, and the 1881 Canadian
Census.
- International Genealogical
Index: More than 300 million birth, christening, and marriage records.
- Family History Library Catalog:
The catalog of the collection located in
- Family History SourceGuide: An automated collection of more than 150
publications from the Family History Library.
- Web Sites: A guide to web sites
with useful family history information.
Social Security Death Index (Rootsweb). http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/
Social
Security Death Index is generated from the U.S. Social Security Administrations
Death Master File. The free database only includes the person’s name, birth
date, SS#, and last residence. You can also order a full report for apx. $25. This is a
copy of the application that was filled out when the person applied for a SS#.
HyperHistory Online. http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html
3,000 years
of world history with a combination of colorful graphics, lifelines, timelines,
and maps.
ALA
Popular
site from the American Library Association highlights many innovative web sites
for children.
Internet Public Library Kidspace. http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/
Contains
links to many free resources for kids, categories include reference, the world,
computer, health, reading, math, science, etc.
Bartleby.com Great Books Online.
http://www.bartleby.com/
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.
Online
version of the 1901 edition of
Map Collection, Perry-Castaneda.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/index.html
The
Perry-Castaneda Map Collection displays selected digitized images from the
printed collection housed at the
MapQuest.
http://www.mapquest.com/
Popular
mapping tool for locations and directions.
Also try Yahoo Maps <http://maps.yahoo.com/> for comparison.
News Link.
http://newslink.org/
News Link,
produced by American Journalism Review, offers information about and links to
Web sites of media sources, including newspapers, magazines, radio and
television stations, and publishers.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/
Indepth
articles about famous philosopher and philosophical concepts. Original articles written by professors and
scholars.
Creative Commons. http://creativecommons.org/
Features
movies, music, and more of artists who are willing to share their work freely on
the Internet.
Internet Movie Database.
http://www.imdb.com/search
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.
Information
Please Almanac. http://www.infoplease.com/
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. http://www.yourdictionary.com/
YourDictionary.com
provides access to language and language-related products and services on the
Web including dictionaries, polyglot dictionaries, courses, synonyms and antonymns, and other services that act as a research tool
for linguists and non-linguists alike.
Babelfish Translation. http://babelfish.altavista.com/
Provides
the online text and web page language translation.
The Britannica Concise.
http://concise.britannica.com/
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.
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/
This free
online encyclopedia is based on the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia
Britannica. Each entry, written by an expert in the field, contains a detailed
article and bibliography. Users can look for articles alphabetically or search
the site.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
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 managed and operated by the non-profit
Wikimedia Foundation. In March 2004, it contained over 220,000 articles in
English and more than 300,000 in other languages.
Credits
Thanks to
Dr. Bernard Vavrek and the Association of Rural and Small Libraries for asking
me to their 2004 Conference in
Many
descriptions on this page from the New York Public Libraries excellent Free
Databases page, http://www.nypl.org/databases/index.cfm?act=2&free=yes
The free databases
are arranged alphabetically but can be searched by catalog, all contents are
described and cataloged. Includes over
130 databases.