General Reference Sources

1895 U.S. Atlas
Scanned-in images of the United States, from a 1895 Rand McNally Atlas of the World. A state map as well as county maps are available for most states, as well as city and town data.

A&E's Biography Page
Biographical information on 15,000+ individuals, from the Arts and Entertainment network.

Acronym and abbreviation list
Database of common acronyms and abbreviations, searchable.

Address server
Type in an address, and the server will format it for you correctly and provide a Zip code.

Associations on the Net
Links to associations (several thousand) which have a presence on the Internet.

AT&T Toll-Free Number Recommendation Tool
1-800 numbers around the country, searchable by keyword.

BigBook Online Phone Directory
An online yellow-page directory that provides a map of businesses found.

Big Yellow
A searchable database of all businesses (over 16 million) contained in yellow pages across the US.

Biographical Dictionary
A searchable database of biographical information (brief; includes career information and birth/death dates) on over 20,000 individuals worldwide.

Biography resources: Finding information on the famous, infamous, and obscure
Provides links to an array of information on biographical topics. It is one of ACRL (Association of College & Research Libraries) Internet resource Web sites and contributed by Susan A. Schreiner and Michael A. Somers.

Canadian Geographic Names
A database of over 500,000 Canadian place names. Type in the name you're looking for, and the program will provide the latitude, longitude, and a regional map.

Calendar Zone
Links to a variety of calendar information: what days fell on which dates for given years, celestial calendars, religious calendars, holidays...

Calendars Through the Ages
Provides a variety of calendars for exploring the fascinating history of the human endeavor to organize our lives in accordance with the sun and stars. A search interface is also provided.

Color Landform Atlas of the United States
For each of the states, a satellite map, county map, and relief map, with links to other sites on the Web with state map information.

CultureCanada.gc.ca
CultureCanada.gc.ca is the Government of Canada's one-stop Web access to government resources on the subjects of Culture, Heritage and Recreation. Provides links to a wide range of resources from all levels of government in Canada, as well as Non-Governmental Organizations, major cultural associations, and others.

FindArticles.com
A vast archive of published articles that you can search for free. Constantly updated, it contains articles dating back to 1998 from more than 300 magazines and journals. It includes topics such as business, health, society, entertainment, sports and more. Articles can be read and printed at no cost.

Flags of the World
Images of flags from all over the world, including historical flags and the dates they were in use.

How Far Is It?
Calculates the distance (as the crow flies) from any two sites throughout the world. Includes latitude/longitude for both sites.

Information Please
The complete text (searchable) of the Information Please Almanac, along with the A&E Entertainment Almanac, ESPN Information Please Almanac, Random House Webster's College Dictionary, and the Columbia Encyclopedia.

InfoSpace Searching
Search for people, businesses, toll-free numbers, government listings, and fax numbers in the US and Canada.

Internet Public Library
Links to ready reference sources and other internet sites arranged by subject.

LOGOS Dictionary
Type in a word or phrase, and LOGOS will translate it into any one of 20+ languages.

MapQuest Interactive Atlas
An online atlas which provides information on geographic areas from the regional all the way down to the street level. Individuals who register (free of charge) can personalize their atlas so that it will show locations of particular types of businesses, landmarks, etc. In addition, the TripQuest section will plot out a travel route between any two points in the US and Canada.

National Register of Historic Places
The database will let you search the Nat'l Register of Historic Places by state, or by state and county.

NIRA's World Directory of Think Tanks
A directory of 500+ research centers and "think tanks" in 100 countries.

Nobel Laureate Database
The Nobel Foundation on the Web contains a searchable database of past Nobel laureates.

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
Links to electronic maps (of all continents and many countries), from the University of Texas.

Project Gutenberg Home Page
Links to Project Gutenberg documents (electronic versions of books for which copyright has expired) at the University of Illinois.

Pulitzer Prize Winners
A list of past and present winners, with explanations of the judges' decisions.

Roget's Thesaurus
A forms-based interface to Roget's Thesaurus.

refdesk
Fact checker for the Internet.

Resources for Cape Verde Information
Links to various Cape Verde related web sites.

Switchboard Phone Directory
A searchable set of phone directories - one for residential US addresses, one for US businesses.

Symbols.com
An online encyclopedia of graphic symbols and their meanings.

Union of International Associations
Hyperlinks to information on over 40,000 international organizations and constituencies

West's Legal Directory
A searchable directory of lawyers and law offices across the country.

Tax Forms
Federal tax return forms in PDF format.

Your Dictionary
Glossaries of abbreviations and terms for languages around the world.

Zip Code Lookup Form
From the US Postal Service. Also included are state and street abbreviations.

Last Modified: October 28, 2011