General Reference
These general reference sources have been selected for you to use to find answers to questions, facts, statistic,and use as technical tools. You can use them to find general background information on a topic or to guide you to additional sources of information.
Best Free Reference Sites:
Best Free Reference Web Sites Combined Index 1999-2016
Newspapers Online, Resources by Subject, Teen Section, Special Collections (from literary criticism to podcasts)
Almanacs and Yearbooks
The Old Farmers' Almanac provides weather forecasts, home and garden advice, astronomy predictions, full moon dates, tide tables, planting charts, farming data, and folklore.
The Daily Almanac from Infoplease features eleven categories of information such as Today's Birthday, Today's News, Today's Weather Fact, and this Day in History.
Converters, Calculators, and Measurements
Converts and calculates a variety of things such as measurement, currency, and time zones.
This site has interactive calculators for many different measurement systems.
This service finds the latitude and longitude of two places, calculates the distance between them, and displays them on a map.
This site "converts just about anything to anything else...with over 5,000 conversations and 50,000 conversion" such as angles, density, mapping, power and temperature.
Dictionary & Thesaurus
Provides entries in English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Provides synonyms, grammar tools such as punctuation, usage, spelling, and writing support, and also word lists, word origins, and language Q & A.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus
Provides over 1600,000 dictionary entries plus a thesaurus, spanish english dictionary, medical dictionary, and word of the day.
Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences
Provides 1,000 entries including definitions and examples from sociology, criminology, political science, and women's studies.
Provides many dictionary resources such as Websters, American Heritage Dictionary, and Wiktionary. Also provides thesaurus, quotes, ESL, foreign language, grammar and biography references and tools.
Provides definitions and information for abbreviations and acronyms by subject area.
Directories and Career Information
Provides college directories, links, admissions information, test prep, financial aid and other resources for national and international colleges.
Provides links to colleges, applications, and scholarships for over 1,500 colleges and universities.
Provides data on over 4000 colleges, universities and graduate programs. Also provides financial aid information and test preparation resources.
Provides information about careers, resume writing, job postings, and links to professional organizations.
Encyclopedias
Provides facts, biographies, definitions, and articles from over 100 trusted sources including The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th Edition), Oxford's World Encyclopedia, and The Encyclopedia of World Biography. Links to over 3,000,000 articles and 170,000 websites as well as providing medical, computer, and science subject encyclopedias.
Encyclopedia Mythica Contains over 7,000 articles and definitions on mythology, folklore, and legend from most world cultures. Includes deity biographies, genealogical tables, images, and stories.
Provides fact sheets, images, videos, journals, and other references on a variety of topics from the Smithsonian's museum, archives, and library.
Is the web's largest resource for symbols, signs, flags, and glyphs providing information arranged by category such as culture, county, religion, and more.
Factbooks
Provides data and popular facts about the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island Areas for topics such as population, education, poverty, and housing. The data is collected from several censuses and surveys. Search by state, country, town, or zip.
Provides a wide array of information on a variety of topics and from a variety of sources. Can search by topic such as history, governments, people, science and health, business and economy, or through source such as atlas, encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, or day in history.
Provides information about countries such as geography, people, government, economy, and energy. Also provides information about world leaders, maps, and historical publications.
Provides a variety of facts and other useful information, such as state maps, birds, flags, colleges, famous people, travel, judicial system, economy and current events.
General Information form many content areas for kids and teens (k-8).
Just for Fun Factbooks:
This online collection of world records can be searched by topic or explored by category.
Research
Pew Social and Demographic Trends
Pew Internet, Science, and Tech
Statistics
Google's Public Data Explorer provides public data and forecasts from a range of international organizations and academic institutions.
Provides information collected and published by The Bureau of Justice Statistics on crime, capital punishment, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government.
Provides statistics, information, and links to more than 100 US federal agencies. Provides links to international, country, state, and local area statistics.
Statistical Abstract of the United States
Provides statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Sources of data include the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private organizations.
The University of Virginia Library's list of US Government and Non-Goverment Statistics Resources.
The University of Virginia Library's list of International Statistics Resources.
Statistics and Studies from more than 18,000 sources.