Additional Reference Sources


Here are a few free sites to use to answer general reference questions, which are categorized by the type of resource. Those with a “ * ” before the listing were especially developed for students.

For more in-depth information, please use the DATABASE link on the Library website to reach our subscriptions to Grolier Online and EBSCO for encyclopedias; EBSCO and Gale Junior Edition K-12 for periodical articles; Gale for newpaper articles; and Maps 101 for atlases and numerous map collections. Passwords are available in the Library.

MULTIPLE REFERENCE TOOLS
* FactMonster (Information Please)
http://www.factmonster.com
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, with over 57,000 articles, as well as Information Please Atlas, Fact Monster Almanac, and Dictionary Search, are accessed from the home page. Students (target age 9-14) will find authoritative and reliable reference information when completing school projects and homework assignments.

Encarta (MSN)
http://encarta.msn.com/
On the Encarta toolbar, the choices are the Encarta encyclopedia of 4500+ articles, a dictionary, and a basic atlas. Encarta Premium services provide more in-depth resources at a price.

ALMANACS
World Factbook (CIA)
http://www.bartleby.com/151/
The U.S. government’s complete geographical handbook features 268 full-color maps and flags of all nations and geographical entities. Each country profile tracks such demographics as population, ethnicity and literacy rates, as well as political, geographical and economic data.

ATLAS
"Maps and Geography Guide" (National Geographic)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/ Featured maps in the "MapMachine" include aerial photographs, U.S. topographic and census, a 1565 world map, and the world street map.

DICTIONARIES and DICTIONARIES OF SYNONYMS (THESAURUS)
Merriam-Webster Online
http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm
* Merriam-Webster FOR KIDS, or "Word Central" is very user-friendly. In addition to looking up words quickly, students can also build their own dictionary.
For the higher functioning reader, free searches are available on the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus, under Merriam-Webster Online on the toolbar. Do not click on Encyclopaedia Britannica,or Merriam-Webster Collegiate or Unabridged, which are subscription services.

OneLook Dictionary Search (Study Technologies)
http://www.onelook.com/
This is a search engine for words and phrases; if you have a word for which you'd like a definition or translation, it will find the web-based dictionaries that define or translate that word. It "helps" with spelling, too. More than 6 million words in over 950 online dictionaries are indexed by the OneLook® search engine.

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus (American Heritage Dictionaries)
http://www.bartleby.com/62/
The Third Edition (c1995,2000) contains 35,000 synonyms and over 250,000 cross-references. This thesaurus features succinct word definitions and a hyperlinked category index.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS
Brittannica Concise Encyclopedia
http://concise.britannica.com/
This one-volume encylopedia includes 25,000 brief summary articles, which are a little more detailed than a dictionary definition. These articles can only be viewed in full if you have a subscription.

QUOTATIONS
"Quotations" (Bartleby.com: Great Books Online)
http://www.bartleby.com/quotations/
The best of both contemporary and classic quotations collections, including Bartlett's, Columbia, Simpson's and Respectfully Quoted are combined into a searchable database of over 87,000 entries, the largest of its kind ever compiled.

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