Reference The number of reference questions that any public library reference desk can answer can be extensively expanded with access to the Internet. Even the smallest public library can have access to American phone directories, information about patents and the full text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example. This section is divided into the following subsets: General Resources Encyclopaedias Statistics Directories Maps Biographies News and Media What’s On Quotes Dictionaries Other Stuff Reference Help 1 Entertainment General Resources The amount of reference material which is available can be somewhat overwhelming and there are a number of key websites which have organized the main resources into structured collections of links for use by reference librarians and members of the public around the world. EARLweb http://www.earl.org.uk/earlweb/index.html EARLweb is a collection of useful reference resources collected together by EARL designed with the UK public librarian in mind. Internet Public Library - Ready Reference Collection http://www.ipl.org/ref/RR/ Large collection of extremely useful online reference resources - designed with the American librarian in mind though. Library Spot http://www.libraryspot.com/ Library Spot is a commercial website which has been designed for librarians - it aims to “bring the best library and reference sites together with insightful editorial in one convenient, user-friendly spot.” Encyclopaedias 2 Most of the major encyclopaedias are now available in a CD-ROM format and increasingly these are also being made available online. Typically the online encyclopaedia will provide access to a small percentage of its resources for free and charge a subscription fee for access to the whole resource. However some of these limited subsets may still be a major addition to a small library which does not have access to a printed version of a recent encyclopaedia. Freeserve Encylopaedia http://www.freeserve.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/index.html The Freeserve Encyclopaedia, which is based upon the Cambridge Encyclopaedia Database, has over 35,000 thousand up-to-date articles, thousands of pictures and hundreds of sounds and animations. Encarta http://encarta.msn.com/encartahome.asp A limited free version of Microsoft’s multimedia encyclopaedia. Hutchinson Online Encyclopaedia http://www.bt-ern.co.uk/helicon/ Registering provides free access to a subset of the material available - a subscription is required for access to the whole encyclopaedia. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online http://www.britannica.com The complete text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is available online. Encyclopaedia Mythica 3 http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/ This is an encyclopaedia on mythology, folklore, legends, and more. It contains over 5,100 definitions of gods and goddesses, supernatural beings and legendary creatures and monsters from all over the world. Statistics National Office for Statistics http://www.ons.gov.uk/ Includes access to Statbase, the UK National Online Statistics Database. UK Government Statistical Service http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ Includes the UK in figures. UK Census Gateway http://census.ac.uk/ Still being developed at the time of writing. CIA World Fact Book http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html The Data Archive http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/ The Data Archive is a specialist national resource containing the largest collection of accessible computer-readable data in the social sciences and humanities in the United 4 Kingdom. Directories UK Yellow Web Directory http://www.yell.co.uk/ Scoot http://www.scoot.co.uk/ Searchable directory of UK businesses which can be searched by business type and location. Telephone Directories on the Web http://www.teldir.com/ BT Phonenet UK http://www.bt.com/phonenetuk/ British Telecom’s white pages freely available on the Internet - business numbers also included though the search mechanism is not as well designed as it could be. UK Public Libraries Website Directory http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ac940/weblibs.html UK Postcodes http://www.afd.co.uk/pcsearch.htm People Search - Yahoo’s e-mail directory http://ukie.people.yahoo.com/ 5 Maps Multimap.com http://uk.multimap.com/ Enter a UK postcode and it brings up a map of that area. - can also be searched using place name, London streets and grid references. Maps Website Directory http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/map_sites/map_sites.html Developed by the Perry-Castañeda Library at the University of Texas, Austin this is a huge collection of links to map resources on the web. It includes links to historical maps, city maps and weather maps. Maps.com http://www.maps.com/ A supplier of digital mapping services to industry, and an operator of map-based internet destination and e-commerce sites for consumers, business, and education. See also http://www.mapquest.com for a similar service. Biographies World Biographical Index - Internet Edition http://www.saur-wbi.de/ Gallery of Achievement http://www.achievement.org/galleryachieve.html A limited number, but useful nonetheless, of biographies of famous people of the 6 twentieth century. Biographical Dictionary http://www.s9.com/biography/index.html Over 27,000 people are listed in this resource. Lives - the Biography Resource http://members.home.net/klanxner/lives/index.html Huge collection of links to biography resources on the web. News and Media UK TV Channels BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/ A very content rich website which contains tons of useful information - the pages from BBC Education are particularly impressive. ITV http://www.itv.co.uk Channel 4 http://www.channel4.com/ Channel 5 http://www.channel5.co.uk/ Teletext 7 http://www.teletext.co.uk/ This site delivers the teletext service over the web instead of the TV. Media UK Internet Directory http://www.mediauk.com/directory/ A useful directory of UK Internet media resources - includes magazines, radio and television. News BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Extensive and continually updated news website. It has a searchable archive which is building up into an extremely useful resource. One of the best sites available on the web. CNN http://europe.cnn.com/ Global news available for free online at CNN - mainly US focus though. ITN http://www.itn.co.uk/ The Press Association http://www.pa.press.net/ The Press Association website gives only limited information about each story but 8 does provide access to Newsfinder, a search tool which searches over 100 relevant UK news sites for stories on similar topics. Reuters http://www.reuters.com/news/ NewsNow http://www.newsnow.co.uk/ Provides one access point to all the news stories from most of the major online news providers. A fast and convenient way to find out what’s going on. UK National Newspapers Most of the national newspapers now have websites. These sites may be an extension of their printed version which is continually updated during the day or may be only a limited copy of the print version. Most of the papers are free to access but require you to register before you can use them. The Times http://www.the-times.co.uk/ The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/ The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/ 9 The Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk/ Sporting Life http://www.sporting-life.com/ The Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ Only the IT section is available online at the time of writing. The Express http://express.lineone.net/ The Scotsman http://www.scotsman.com/ Financial Times http://www.ft.com/ The Observer http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/observer/ Belfast Telegraph http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ UK Local Papers News Directory: UK http://www.ecola.com/news/press/eu/uk/ 10 A directory of UK newspapers including many local papers - an excellent resource for finding out what’s happening local all around the UK. Local newspaper sites often provide access to job listings, property sales and local entertainment and education information. International Newspapers The Internet allows easy access to newspapers around the world for very little cost. Most newspapers are free to use although some like the New York Times require you to register before you can use them. Like UK newspaper sites some are simply online versions of the print paper whilst others provide additional services and are continually updated through out the day. The American Journalism Review (AJR) is an extremely useful web directory of newspapers around the world. ARJ Newslink http://ajr.newslink.org/news.html All Newspapers.com http://www.allnewspapers.com/ A commercial web directory of newspapers around the world that also includes links to news agencies, magazines, television and radio stations. What’s On Film Finder http://www.yell.co.uk/yell/ff/home.html A database of what films are showing where in the UK. BBC Programme Alert 11 http://www.bbc.co.uk/alert/index.shtml The BBC’s searchable directory of what’s coming up on TV and Radio. If you register you can receive free weekly e-mails about what programmes are on which will be of interest to you. Event Selector http://www.eventselector.co.uk/ Events Selector is a free to use database of events around the UK. Material for the database is supplied by Press Association Listings. Quotes The Internet Movie Database Quote Search http://us.imdb.com/Search/quotes A database of famous quotation from recent films. Barlett Familiar Quotations (1901 Edition) http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/bartlett/ The classic reference text freely available online but limited by the fact that it uses the 1901 edition. Quoteland http://www.quoteland.com/ General site about quotes. Dictionaries 12 There are a vast number of dictionaries available online ranging from your standard dictionary to ones specialising in specific topics such as medicine, business and computing. A very useful search tool is the One Look Dictionaries which searches across 560 online dictionaries in one go. These dictionaries are also arranged in subject lists as well. Medical dictionaries are listed in the Health section of this chapter. One Look Dictionaries http://www.onelook.com/ WWWebster Dictionary http://www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm The WWWebster Dictionary is based on Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition and is freely available. Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1894 edition) http://www.bibliomania.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/index.html Symbol Dictionary http://www.symbols.com/index.html Contains more than 2,500 different symbols which can be searched for or browsed. The Rap Dictionary http://www.rapdict.org/ Rap song terminology explained! Nolo.com Law Dictionary 13 http://www.nolo.com/dictionary/wordindex.cfm Legal terms explained in simple language - covers American law though. The Semantic Rhyming Dictionary http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/dougb/rhyme-doc.html Roget’s Thesaurus (1852 Edition) http://www.thesaurus.com/ Other stuff Patent Office http://www.patent.gov.uk/ Acronym Finder http://www.acronymfinder.com/ Over 100,000 acronyms explained here - including UKOLN! Homesight http://www.homesight.co.uk/index.html By entering a postcode you can find out about the schools, amenities and council tax of any area of the country. A very useful resource is the increasing number of websites created by independent bookshops specialising in out of print and rare books. These sites consist of a union catalogue of the holdings of a large number of bookshops. This enables out of print and rare books to be quickly tracked down. Books can be easily purchased with a 14 credit card and they are delivered through the post. An easy way to track down a nostalgic birthday gift of a 1960s pop-up Babar book or a hard to find reader request. Most of these sites and the bookshops that contribute to them are in America. This raises the delivery charges of each item to UK users but doesn’t decrease the speed of the service. Abebooks.com - the World’s Network of Independent Booksellers (so they say) http://www.abebooks.com/ Bibliofind http://www.bibliofind.com/ Booksearch Biglink http://www.booksearch.com/ Bookfinder http://www.bookfinder.com/ Yahoo’s listing of UK Out of Print Booksellers http://uk.dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/United_Kingdom/ Business_and_Economy/Companies/Books/Shopping_and_Services/Booksellers/ Antique__Rare__and_Used/ Reference Help There are a number of online newsgroups or services provided by librarians to help either other librarians or members of the public to answer those impossible reference queries. These services depend on the cooperation of reference librarians who field queries by e-mail. 15 Ask A Librarian http://www.earl.org.uk/ask/index.html Ask A Librarian is managed by EARL - the UK public library consortium. A number of reference libraries around the UK take in turns to answer reference queries which are submitted through the main page of the site. Stumpers Mailing List http://www.cuis.edu/~stumpers/ A mailing list for reference librarians around the world who help each other out with those hard to answer reference questions. Ask An Expert http://www.askanexpert.com/ A collection of links to experts in a large number of fields who are willing to answer questions online. Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Deja.com hosts and provides access to over 40,000 discussion forums. The archives of these forums are searchable through the main deja.com site and consequently provide access to a vast repository of what can be very specialised knowledge. Entertainment Reference There are a considerable number of useful online databases about film and music. These databases are free to use though they are commercial sites and might be trying 16 to sell you videos and CDs at the same time. Internet Movie Database http://uk.imdb.com/ The biggest and the best of the movie reference tools. All Music http://www.allmusic.com/ Information can be searched for by song name, album name, artist, style and label. Has a sister site called All Classical which contains only data on classical music which can be searched by performer or composer. Ultimate Bandlist http://www.ubl.com/ Huge web directory of pop music resources. Simply searching on the name of a group will provide a collection of web resources dedicated solely to that group. Nom de Guerre - The Real People’s Real Name Resource of Pseudonyms and Aliases http://www.walshnet.com/walshnet/punster/realname.htm International Lyrics Server http://www.lyrics.ch/index.htm Database of lyrics from mainly pop music. 17