Online Reference Shelf

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Abbreviations and Acronyms of the U.S. Government
http://www-lib.iupui.edu/subjectareas/gov/docs_abbrev.html
This is a fairly comprehensive listing of military acronyms.

Acronyms
http://silmaril.ie/cgi-bin/uncgi/acronyms
A searchable index of acronyms and abbreviations.

Almanacs

Almanac of Politics and Government
http://www.polisci.com/
A searchable almanac covering U.S. politics with some information on world governments. Features include: a political calendar; political documents; basics on the U.S. legislative, executive, and judicial branches; U.S. state and local government; U.S. political parties; economics and the U.S. federal budget; and political history.

Farmers Almanac
http://www.almanac.com/
Since 1792, The Old Farmer's Almanac has published useful information: tide tables; sunrise tables and planting charts; recipes; and weather predictions.

Information Please Almanac
http://www.infoplease.com/
This is the online version of the popular almanac, arranged by topic, or can be searched by keyword. It also includes the Random House Webster's College Dictionary and the Columbia Encyclopedia.

InfoNation
http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/infonation3/menu/advanced.asp
An easy-to-use, two-step database gives the most up-to-date statistical data for the UN Member States.

Biography

Biography.com
http://www.biography.com/
This site provides search for more than 20,000 personalities tied to the popular television show.

Book Reviews

Booklist Online.com
http://www.booklistonline.com/
This is a standard reviewing resource for libraries on a wide variety of subjects. Particularly good for literature for children and young adults.

Cannylink
http://www.cannylink.com/booksreviews.htm
This is a substantial megasite index of many good book reviewing sites.

Library Journal Digital
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
This is the online version of the standard periodical used by librarians for book selection and current publication.

New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrb/
The online version of the longstanding review.

New York Times Book Review Online
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/
Book reviews and articles about books and authors back to 1980.

Calculators

Martindale's "Reference Desk" Calculators On-Line Center
http://www.martindalecenter.com/Calculators.html
This is a very interesting site with thousands of links to calculators for various subjects and provides a listing to over 9,610 calculators.

Calorie Calculator
http://www.caloriecontrol.org/
Sponsored by the Calorie Control Council, this site provides information concerning how many calories and fat grams are present in a food serving.

Currency Converter
http://www.xe.net/ucc/
Performs quick foreign exchange rate conversion from a wide variety of currencies.

Bloomberg Currency Calculator
http://www.bloomberg.com/invest/calculators/currency.html

Metric / Imperial Converter
http://www.initium.demon.co.uk/converts/metimp.htm
Designed to convert length, area, mass / weight, liquid volume, and temperature from metric into imperial figures and vice-a-versa.

Calendars

Calendar Zone
http://www.calendarzone.com/
Some of the calendars that are included on this site are: Art, Celestial, Cultural, Daily, Event, Holidays, Religious, Web & Interactive Calendars.

Ecclesiastical Calendar
http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/ec-cal.html
Provides a form to calculate an Ecclesiastical calendar for any year.

Time and Date.com
http://www.timeanddate.com/
A site that creates a calendar for you. Includes a world clock and time/date information.

Dictionaries/Thesauri

WWW Webster's Dictionary/Thesaurus
http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm

Alpha Dictionary.com
http://www.alphadictionary.com/
Recipient of multiple awards, this site is like a one-point support for various dictionaries. The site provides an index of online dictionaries in various languages.

Allwords.com
http://www.allwords.com/
This web site provides definitions in English and searchable for words in English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish. Additionally, there is pronunciation file available for each English word.

Dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/
Search site for definitions and synonyms. Includes thesaurus.

Language Dictionaries and Translators
http://www.word2word.com/dictionary.html

Looksmart Fast Facts
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/
Access to the site's Infoplease Encyclopedia and Dictionary.

One Look Dictionaries-the fast finder
http://www.onelook.com/
Simultaneous searching of 569 online dictionaries.

Thesaurus.com
http://thesaurus.reference.com/
Word search and links to alphabetical and category index. Provides a thesaurus & dictionary.

Wordsmyth Educational Dictionary & Thesaurus
http://www.wordsmyth.net/
Provides basic and advanced searching to find definitions and synonyms.

Directories

Americom Long Distance Area Decoder
http://decoder.americom.com/
Use this page to look up area codes in the United States, Canada, and some additional countries

International Calling Codes Directory
http://www.the-acr.com/codes/cntrycd.htm

AnyWho
http://www.anywho.com/
A free directory service with residential, business, and government white and yellow pages listings. Includes a Reverse Telephone Search.

AT&T Directory
http://www.att.com/directory/
Good web site to find a person, business, e-mail address, toll free number, and web site etc. It also allows reverse lookup with telephone numbers.

Big Yellow
http://www.bigyellow.com/

Switchboard
http://www.switchboard.com/

The Ultimate White Pages
http://www.theultimates.com/white/
A metasearch website provides capability to search multiple white pages at once. It also includes a reverse directory search in which phone number can be searched instead of by name.

Worldewide Yellow Pages
http://www.worldyellowpages.com/
Links to yellow page directories for more than 100 countries. The directories are listed alphabetically by country name.

Zip Codes Lookup
http://www.usps.com/ncsc/

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedia Brittanica
http://www.britannica.com/
Online version of the current edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the free service include access to the entire text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica newspapers. Includes multimedia features on topics of current interest and in-depth coverage of 15 major subjects.

Encylopedia.com
http://encyclopedia.com/
Encyclopedia.com is a free encyclopedia with more than 1400 articles from the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.

Encarta Concise Encyclopedia
http://encarta.msn.com/
This is a free encyclopedia from Microsoft that contains 16,000 articles and more than 2,200 photos, illustrations, maps, charts, and tables. An advanced search option is available.

Fact Books

Reference Desk
http://www.refdesk.com/
Helpful information on a variety of topics. Includes "Fast Facts" section.

World Fact Book
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
The CIA World Fact Book includes information about the geography, demographics, government, and economy of countries, territories. Each country entry contains basic statistics with maps.

Government Reference Resources

Government Information Exchange
http://www.info.gov/
Links to federal directory, yellow pages, state and local government, foreign government, international organizations.

United States Senators
http://www.senate.gov/

United States Representatives
http://clerk.house.gov/

Language Translators

Altavista Translation Services
http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Free Translation.Com
http://www.freetranslation.com/
A free web based translation service.

Language Dictionaries and Translators http://www.word2word.com/dictionary.html

Maps/Atlases

Movie Reviews

Real Movies
http://movies.real.com/
Features movie reviews, trailers, interviews, streaming short films, video clips, showtimes, and film festival etc.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
http://www.imdb.com/
IMDB has a database of more than 2 million filmographies -- searchable by title, actor, director, producer, character, country, genre, quotes and plot.

Roger Ebert of "Siskel and Ebert Fame"
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/
The Ebert Archives contain Roger Ebert's movie reviews since 1985.

Rotten Tomatoes
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
"Horrible Movies" reviewed from around the United States.

News Links

AJR News Link
http://newslink.org/
Links to newspapers, broadcasters, and magazines.

Vanderbilt Television News Archives
http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/
The Television News Archive collection is the world's most extensive and complete archive of television news. The Archives holds more than 30,000 individual network evening news broadcasts from the major U.S. national broadcast networks.

Quotations

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
http://www.bartleby.com/

Quoteland.com
http://www.quoteland.com/
Searchable or browsable by topic. Includes many literary and humorous quotations.