Research Tips

Portals - websites that will give you links to lots of other sites!

The Digital Public Library of America.  The DPLA portal allows you to search hundreds of American library and museum collections for digital objects such as images, sound and video files, texts, etc. all from one search environment. This is a great place to start your search for primary sources about any American topic from baseball to the Civil Rights Movement

Internet Archive - a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form

IPL2 (Internet Public Library, version 2) - this site is a portal, or gateway, to a wealth of resources for both  research topics and general interest topics.  If you are looking for high quality internet sites, this is a great place to start

IPL2 Pathfinders - a list of some of the most common research topics with links to some of the best resources

IPL2 Museum page - search for art, history, science and technology, or natural science museums around the world

Google Scholar

Library of Congress Virtual Reference Shelf - a portal to many quality online reference resources (stats, encyclopedias, etc.) created by the United States national library

Library of Congress Digital Collection

Searching the web and Evaluating what you find

Web searching in plain English - short video tutorial with tips for effectively searching on the web

World Wide Web in plain English - short video explaining how the web works

Protecting Reputations Online in plain English

Phishing Scams in plain English - explain what a phishing scam is and how you can avoid being a victim of one