Quick Facts

Below are general reference tools for a quick bit of information.

Almanacs

CIA World Fact Book
Good overviews, including maps, of most of the countries in the world.

Infoplease.com
An online version of the Information Please Almanac.

Biographical Resources

American National Biography
Online version of the multi-volume reference set that provides scholarly biographies of significant Americans.

Biography Resource Center
Information on people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas. Includes full-text from nearly 250 periodicals.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Online version of the 60-volume reference set that provides 50,000 biographies of individuals who shaped British history.

Dictionaries / Acronyms / Thesauri

Acronyma

Acronym Finder

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

A Basic Dictionary of American Sign Language

Merriam-Webster Online
Dictionary and thesaurus.

OneLook Dictionaries
Over 900 dictionaries.

Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford Reference Online
Contains the complete texts of over 100 Oxford University Press dictionaries and reference titles.

Symbols.com
Search for the meaning of a symbol, or the symbol for a word or concept. An online version of Carl Liungman's Thought Signs.

Thesaurus.com

Webopedia
Computer technology terms.

WordNet
A lexical database that provides synonyms and other related words of English-language words. Created by the Cognitive Science Laboratory of Princeton University.

Directories

Directory of Associations -- available on campus only

General Encyclopedias

Encyclopaedia Britannica

How Stuff Works
Offers explanations about the operation of a wide range of items: VCRs, car engines, toilets, electric razors, etc.

Wikipedia

Grant help

The Chronicle of Philanthropy Guide to Grants --requires username and password; contact a librarian.
Access all corporate and foundation grants listed in The Chronicle of Philanthropy since 1995.

Community of Science

Foundation Directory Grants Index -- requires username and password; contact a librarian.
Access over 70,000 grantmakers and 150,000 grants.

The Foundation Center
An independent clearinghouse for grant information, with a directory of grantmaker web sites, material on how to write grants, and analyses of funding trends.

GrantsNet
A funding resource for training in the biomedical sciences and undergraduate science education, available for free and supported by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

SRA International Grants Web
Acomprehensive collection of key funding links. The Web site has a built-in clientele (SRA's membership) but should also appeal to faculty and graduate students, since it covers both public (NSF, NIH) and private (foundations, research associations) funding sources that academics need to finance their own research.

Maps

CIA World Fact Book
Includes maps of most countries in the world.

Google Earth
Maps and satellite images for complex or pinpointed regional searches.

MapQuest

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
Over 5700 online maps from the University of Texas at Austin and links to other online map collections.

US Gazetteer
Allows you to search for places in the US, view a map of the location, and check census information about the place. Maintained by the US Census Bureau.

Telephone / Address / E-Mail Directories

555-1212.com
Looks up ZIP and area codes.

AnyWho
One-stop searching for residential and business phone numbers, FAX numbers, mail addresses, and URLs. Maintained by AT&T Labs.

BigBook
A good basic listing of American businesses maintained by Verizon.

Switchboard
This directory and people finder provides 106 million residential listings and 11 million business listings.

Telephone Directories on the Web
An annotated meta-index to residential, business, and e-mail directories worldwide.

WorldPages
Over 112 million North American phone listings, over 9 million e-mail addresses, over 30 million URLs, and links to over 200 other directories worldwide.

ZIP Code Lookup and Address Information
This United States Postal Service site allows you to find ZIP code information.