Information Resources at Madison Public Library

Quick Reference and Fast Facts

Some sites have a little of everything! For sites with biography, encyclopedia, almanac, and similar references information all available through one portal, see:

AllRefer - http://www.allrefer.com/
Librarian's Index to the Internet - http://www.lii.org

Almanacs

Guinness World Records --http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com
Authority on recrod-breaking achievements.

Information Please Almanac - http://www.infoplease.com
Brief facts on many topics, searchable by subject or keyword.

InfoPlease -This Day in History --http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
Significant events by date, searchable by month, date, and year.

Old Farmer's Almanac -- http://www.almanac.com/
Gardening, cooking, homemaking, sun rise and sets, weather forecasts...

Associations & Non-Profit Groups

Biographies

Biography.com - http://www.biography.com
Dead People Server - http://dpsinfo.com/

Biographical Dictionary - http://www.s9.com/biography/search.html
This biographical dictionary covering 28,000+ personalities has advanced search capabilities, but offers brief descriptive information rather than a full biography.

Cambridge Biographical Dictionary - http://www.biography.com
Part of the History Channel, this site offers a paragraph of information on over 20,000 important people.

InfoPlease Biography --http://www.infoplease.com/people.html
Biographical profiles of people throughout the world.

Presidents of the United States - http://www.ipl.org/ref/POTUS
Research your favorite President on the Internet.

Science, Technology, and Industry Sites - http://echo.gmu.edu
A directory of biographical information about scientists and mathematicians available on the Internet. From ECHO (Exploring and Collecting History Online).

Calculation & Measurement

Calorie And Fat Gram Chart For 1000 Foods - http://www.ntwrks.com/~mikev/chart1a.htm
Includes fat, calorie, and cholesterol counts for common foods. For fast food products, check out Fast Food Facts.

Financial Planning Toolkit: Financial Calculators - http://www.finance.cch.com/tools/calcs.asp
Calculators for loan rates, mortgages, refinancing comparisons, amortization, debt consolidation, and more.

The Inflation Calculator - http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
What is a Dollar Worth? - http://woodrow.mpls.frb.fed.us/research/data/us/calc/

MegaConverter2 - http://www.megaConverter.com/mega2
Convert It ! - http://www.convertit.com/Go/ConvertIt/
At MegaConverter2, select "Mega Converters" from drop-down menu on left-hand side. Convert length, time, distance, weights and measures, wind chill and more. For the less adventurous, Convert It! converts acceleration, area, energy/work, fluid/liquid, length/distance, mass, metrology, pressure, power, or volume/capacity, and is easier to use.

OANDA Currency Converter - http://www.oanda.com/converter/classic
At this site you can easily convert between any of 164 currencies.

Temperature Conversion Calculator - http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/links/temperature.html
Convert temperatures between Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin, Ramur, and rankine.

Calendars/Time Zones

Calendar Zone - http://www.calendarzone.com
Links to hundreds of calendars, including celestial, event, cultural, daily, and interactive.

Virtual Perpetual Calendars - http://www.vpcalendar.net
Includes calendars for every year in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as holiday dates, leap year information, and more.

TimeandDate.com - http://www.timeanddate.com
Offers a variety of calendars and clocks for reference or personal use.

World Time Server - http://www.worldtimeserver.com/
See current time and deviation from GMT for all countries and many large cities

Countries

Country Briefings - http://www.economist.com/countries
Country Briefings section provides news, profiles, forecasts and statistics on 60 major countries. Main focus is on detailing the political and economic structures of each country.

Country Studies - Library of Congress --http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/
Formerly available in paper format, the Country Studies series includes electronic editions of books published between 1988 and 1998. The series "presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world". Recent updates to this database are available via the Country Profiles site.

Flags of the World - http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/
Each country's flag is pictured in color, with a description of the significance of the colors and symbols, and a brief history.

Nationmaster.com - http://www.nationmaster.com/
NationMaster is "a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank, World Resources Institute, UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD." Make your own charts and graphs of anything from population to number of kidney transplants performed.

Nations of the World --http://www.loc.gov/law/guide/nations.html
Provides links to each country's constitution and selected legal guides along with access to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.

Portals To The World - http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html
Offers selected links to 214 countries, chosen by LOC subject specialists.

World Factbook - http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
U.S. government profiles on countries, complete with small map and picture of flag.

World Time Server - http://www.worldtimeserver.com/
See current time and deviation from GMT for all countries and many large cities

Dictionaries/Language

Acronym Finder - http://www.acronymfinder.com/

American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition --http://bartleby.com/61/

American Sign Language Dictionary Online - http://dww.deafworldweb.org/asl/

ARTFL Project: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 Edition - http://humanities.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/webster.form.html
Though this is an older edition, it is exceptionally thorough and gives examples of word usage.

Askoxford-- http://www.askoxford.com/
"Search the Compact Oxford English Dictionary online; get answers to questions on English, language, grammar, spelling, quotations, and usage;..."

Bartleby.com - http://www.bartleby.com/
Find quotations, poetry, English language style and usage, thesauri, encyclopedias and much more in this comprehensive reference resource.

The Glossarist - http://www.glossarist.com/
Topical dictionaries and glossaries for many different subjects.

Merriam Webster's Dictionary - http://www.m-w.com/
This easy-to-use dictionary includes multiple meanings (including British usage), as well as entymology and pronunciation of words.

Medline Plus Medical Dictionary --http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html
On-line Medical Dictionary - http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/omd/

Online Etymology Dictionary -- http://www.etymonline.com/index.php
An online etymology dictionary searchable by natural language, single term, any term, and exact phrase.

Quotations - http://www.bartleby.com/index.html
"Key word, author, title and subject access to a number of major quotation sources in the public domain, including Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the King James Bible, Roget's Thesaurus and others."

Roget's Internet Thesaurus - http://www.thesaurus.com

Translators

Altavista's Babelfish translator - http://world.altavista.com/
Free2Professional Translation - http://www.freetranslation.com
Polly Glotto - http://www.pollyglotto.com (includes speech)
WorldLingo (Translation, Localization, Globalization) - http://www.worldlingo.com

Symbols.com - http://www.SYMBOLS.com
Common symbols from a variety of cultures are searchable by graphic element or meaning.

Wiktionary -http://en.wiktionary.org
A multi-language dictionary with thesaurus, currently has about 133,655 definitions, articles and places since being introduced in December 2002. A project of the Wikimedia Foundation along with the Wikipedia encyclopedia.

Wordsmyth - http://www.wordsmyth.net/
A dictionary/thesaurus with exceptional searching capabilities for hard-to-spell or frequently misspelled words and over 50,000 entries.

YourDictionary.com - http://www.yourdictionary.com/
Links to 1,500 dictionaries covering 230 separate languages, from Afrikaans to Xhosa, plus specialized dictionaries, multilingual dictionaries, verb conjugators, translators, thesauri, synonyms and homonyms, quotations, etymology, and more. Formerly known as A Web of Online Dictionaries.

Encyclopedias

Encyberpedia: The Living Encyclopedia - http://www.encyberpedia.com/cyberlinks/links/index.html
A voluminous listing of online encyclopedias

Encyclopaedia Britannica - http://www.britannica.com
Links to Encyclopaedia Britannica articles and similar web sites, by general category or specific search topic.

Encyclopedia.Com - http://www.encyclopedia.com
Brief information from the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (3rd ed.) is supplemented with several cross-references to photographs and text at selected additonal sites.

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
A multi-language free collaboratively written encyclopedia by its readers. For an index to Wikipedia see: WikiWax.

Etiquette

The Knot - http://www.theknot.com/k_ETIQUETTE.shtml - (wedding etiquette)

Getting Through Customs - http://www.getcustoms.com/omnibus.html - (international customs for business travel)

Maps & Locators

Atlapedia Online - http://www.atlapedia.com/
Physical and geographic country maps, complete with statistics and factoids.

Google Maps --http://maps.google.com
Find local businesses and contact information by entering the name and location of the concern.

How Far Is It? - http://www.indo.com/distance/
This easy-to-use site calculates distance (as the crow flies) between any two points in the world and includes a map for further reference. For driving mileage between two cities, try MapQuest or MapsOnUs

Live Search Maps (Microsoft) --http://maps.live.com/

Find local businesses, people, and places. Use the aerial feature for close display of local places. Provides more detail than Google Maps for zooming in on local addresses.

Maps on Us - http://www.mapsonus.com/
MapQuest! - http://www.mapquest.com/
Rand McNally --http://www.randmcnally.com
These free, interactive street atlases of the continental United States gives you mileage, door-to-door or city-to-city, and street maps with driving directions. Also has trip planning information.

National Atlas - http://www.nationalatlas.gov/
With a little patience, you can creat your own maps based on information such as agricultural production, crime, geographic features, population, and more. The program requires Netscape 4+ or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4+ with frames enabled.

Perry-Casta eda Library Map Collection - http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/index.html
Find world maps, historical maps, and political, topographical, and economic maps.

TerraServer-USA - http://terraserver-usa.com
"The TerraServer-USA Web site is one of the world's largest online databases, providing free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States," including one for Madison, Wisconsin.

Topozone - http://www.topozone.com/
Every USGS topographic 1:100,000, 1:25,000, and 1:24,000 scale map for the entire United States. If you need help interpreting the maps, try Topographic Map Symbols from the USGS. Topographic maps are also available at Trails.com.

News

NewspaperARCHIVE
NewspaperARCHIVE is a unique database of historical newspapers offered through EbscoHost. It includes close to 30 million scanned pages from newspapers spanning over 200 years. The content of the newspapers is not indexed by subject, and advanced searching of this very large database is not available. You may only search NewspaperARCHIVE in two ways: search the full-text by keyword or browse the collection by date and newspaper location & title. This is an invaluable primary resource for historical research and a unique tool for genealogists.
Access to this resource through EBSCOhost is provided as part of the BadgerLink project.
[Help with login problems]

States and Cities

50 States and Capitals - http://www.50states.com
Information for all fifty states and seven territories, including state flags (picture and description), state symbols, political and geographical information, and a direct link to the state's official web page.

City-Data.com - http://www.city-data.com
Find data on many cities in the U.S., including census information, maps, weather, photos, and more. Find similar information on e-podunk.com, with ranked lists of standard and unique statistics.

Official City Sites - http://www.officialcitysites.org/
Links to official state and city web pages in the U.S. and several European countries.

Sperling's Best Places - http://www.bestplaces.net/Default.aspx
Compare over 3,000 U.S. cities in housing, costs of living, crime, education, economy, health and climate. Choose any two cities and see them displayed side-by-side. Or try Townhunter for a similar service.

StateMaster -- http://www.statemaster.com/index.php
Using pie charts, maps, graphs and scatterplots, find comparative data for states on numerous topics. Most data is taken from sources such as the Census Bureau, FBI, and National Center for Eductional Sttistics.

U. S. Gazetteer - http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/gazette.html
Locate a city, township or county by name or zip code. Brief data includes 2000 & 1990 population, as well as an interactive map of the area.

Statistics & Profiles

American FactFinder --http://factfinder.census.gov

Official portal to the Census Bureau's numerous statistical resources.

Consumer Price Index - http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Get the most current CPI press release, or look at an overview of CPIs from 1913-present.

Demographic Services Center (WI Dept. of Administration) - http://www.doa.state.wi.us/section_detail.asp?linkcatid=11&linkid=64&locid=9
Links to Wisconsin demographics, including WisStat.

FedStats - http://www.fedstats.gov
Statistics from 70 U.S. government agencies, searchable by keyword and agency. For an idea of what this site covers, check the A to Z key. Many files require Adobe Acrobat.

Nationmaster - http://www.nationmaster.com/
NationMaster is "a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank, World Resources Institute, UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD." Make your own charts and graphs of anything from population to number of kidney transplants performed.

State LMI (Labor Market Information) Directory - http://www.lmi-net.org/index.php?page=8
Labor market and jobs information for the 50 states.

StateMaster--http://www.statemaster.com/index.php
Produced by the same folks as Nationmaster, this "statistical database which allows you to research and compare a multitude of different data on US states...StateMaster.com goes beyond the numbers to provide you with visualization technology like pie charts, maps, graphs and scatterplots".

United States Census Bureau - http://www.census.gov
Searchable site with numerous statistics for the cities, states, and the nation., including a current population finder, local area profiles, and current economic indicators. Includes links to the Statistical Abstract .and the latest 2000 Census reports. In addition, under "Related Sites," provides links to state and international data centers.

U.S. State Fact Sheets - http://www.ers.usda.gov/epubs/other/usfact/
Basic and agricultural statistics on every state in the U.S., compiled by the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

University of Michigan Documents Center's Statistical Resources on the Web - http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/stats.html
Provides links to many of the same sources as the U.S. Census Bureau and FedStats, but links are grouped on the main page by category, and include other non-government sources for statistics.

Wisconsin Blue Book - http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lrb/bb/07bb/index.htm
The Blue Book contains facts and statistics on Wisconsin, presented in Adobe Acrobat files.

Wisconsin Health Statistics - http://www.dhfs.state.wi.us/stats/
Statistics on Cancer, Health Care Providers, Health Surveys, Health Insurance, Population, and Vital Statistics (Births, Deaths, Marriages, Divorces, Life Expectancy).

Worknet (Information to Grow wisconsin's Workforce) - http://worknet.wisconsin.gov/worknet/
Access statistics about the Wisconsin work force, including the county snapshots, County Workforce Profiles of Wisconsin.

Stock Quotes

Big Charts - http://www.bigcharts.com
Provides interactive charts for stocks and mutual funds, as well as current and historical quotes.

Quote.com - http://finance.lycos.com/
Thorough and detailed quote coverage.

Yahoo! Finance - Research Tools - Historical Quotes - http://biz.yahoo.com/r/
Provides historical stock quotes back to 1962. Click on "Historical Quotes" under the "Research Tools" section.

Telephone/Address/Email

Vital Records

United States Vital Records Information --http://vitalrec.com/index.html
Find vital records at the county level for each state.

Where to Write for Vital Records
Find vital records at the state records centers.

Weather Forecasts and History

Agribiz Weather - http://www.agribiz.com/weather/wthrfram.html
National Weather Service - http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/iwin/graphicsversion/bigmain.html
Weather Channel - http://www.weather.com/

Historical Climate Summaries (Midwest Regional Climate Center) - http://mcc.sws.uiuc.edu/html/MWclimate_data_summaries.htm
Historical highs, lows, and precipitation records from weather stations around the Midwest. See similar information from the Wisconsin State Climatology Office.

Weather Underground - http://www.wunderground.com/
Includes daily historic weather records, Weather Cams, radar and satellite imagery, and other maps.

Wisconsin Road Conditions - http://www.dot.state.wi.us/dsp/roadcond/current.html
From the Dept. of Transportation. Not updated during the summer. A listing of construction and detours is also available.

Zip Codes

Free Zip Code Look Up - http://www.zipinfo.com/search/zipcode.htm
You can't use this to get an exact zip code by street address, but you can view zip codes by city, or find the longitude/latitude of a zip code (or city) here.

ZIP Code Lookup (U.S. Postal Service) - http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp

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