Reference Websites
Below is a list of some free sites which have been compiled by the American Library Association.
Abbreviations
http://www.abbreviations.com
Extensive collection of hundreds of thousands of acronyms, abbreviations and initialisms. Arranged by broad areas, then broken down into browseable categories.
Ad*Access
http://library.duke,edu/digitalcollections/adaccess
More than 7000 ads from print newspapers and magazines published from 1910 to the 1950's. Content focuses on radio, TV, transportation, beauty/hygiene, and WWII.
Television Commercials
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adviews
Access thousands of historic commercials from the 1950s-1980s.
Almanacs
http://www.infoplease.com/almanacs.html
Information Please Almanac
American Time Use Survey
http://www.bls.gov/tus
Provides statistics and graphical data on the amount of time people in the U.S. spend on various activities.
Art Project
http://googleartproject.com
Links to more than 1000 works of art in 17 museums around the world. Virtually explore a museum, view the art in high resolution. and create your own personlaized collection.
ATM Locator
http://www.mastercard.com/cardholderservices/atm/
Find Mastercard , Cirrus or Maestro ATM's worldwide
Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
http://yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm
Documnets relevant tot he fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government. Searchable by date, subject, author and title.
Baby Name Wizard
http://babynamewizard.com
Find the perfect name. Create a list by length of letters in a name, letter preference, heritage and popularity. Provides etymologies, and can track names by state or year for popularity.
Bank Rate Monitor
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/default.asp
Mortgage, college financing, insurance, debt information and more
BigCharts.com
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com
The site provides basic, advanced and interactive tools for charting; current and historical quotes; industry and market data; news and analysis; and screening tools for stocks on major worldwide exchanges. Information is organized under tabs.
Biodiversity heritage Library
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org
With over 32million+ digitized pages about plants and animals from publications from 1484 to the present, the site is for browsing digitzed books and journals, and scanned images are of high quality and in full color. Explore some of the world's great science libraries, museums and botanical gardens.
Cars.com
http://www.cars.com
Easy to understand on what to buy, where to buy and how much to pay for a new or used auto or truck. Pricing and financing information. Search for specific makes, models and years.
Charity Navigator
http://charitynavigator.org
Rates over 5000 charities. Updated frequently, groups change according to the season and events.
Consumer Search
http://www.consumersearch.com
Automotive, computers, electronics, family, health, home and more.
Cooking Light
http://www.cookinglight.com
Over 20,000 recipes online. The travel section lists some of the best places to eat out when traveling.
Currency converter
http://www.oanda.com/converter/classic
Convert any currency to another including historical information
Current Value of Old Money
http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html
Collects links "to inflation statistics, price indexes, and sources of data on changes in the value of money." Resources are divided geographically and thematically.
e-books@Adelaide
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au
Full text e-books of classic works of literature, philosophy, and history from various countries. Downloadable to various e-book devices.
ePodunk
http://www.epodunk.com/
Profiles of cities and counties-data on airports, museums, statistics at the city and county level. Links to local media outlets, community organizations, historical weather, films shot in area and celebrity residences.
Encyclopedia of Earth
http://www.eoearth.org
Free online encyclopedia with 7000 articles written by "scholars, professionals, educators, practioners and other experts who collaborate and review each other's work." Content is keyword searchable.
FBI Records
http://vault.fbi.gov
Online "vault" to thousands of declassified FBI documents spanning decades.
Forvo: words pronounced
http://www.forvo.com
Audio playback clips of word pronunciations in over 280 languages. Website can be viewed in several languages.
Google Translate
http://translate.google.com/#en|es|
Translate words, text, website or entire documents in over 50 supported languages. If you can't identify the language, use the "detect language" feature. Quality varies by language.
Hulu
http://www.hulu.com
Free television episodes, full length movies and video clips. Browse by genre, documentaries to popular series.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
http://iucnredlist.org
Compilation of information on plant and animal species threatened with extinction. List is updated once a year. Taxonomy, geographic range, population, habitat, ecology, threats and conservation actions are included.
Local Harvest
http://www.localharvest.org/
nationwide directory of farmer's markets, small family farms & organic food resources. For anyone buying local and/or organic food and produce.
Long Island Railroad
http://www.mta.info/lirr/
Schedule, fares, maps, delays, escalator and elevator, purchasing information.
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
http://nsidec.org
Supports research into the world's frozen realms. Includes Sea Ice Index or learn All About Snow.
NewspaperCat
http://ufdc.ufl.edu/hnccoll
Catalog of Digital Hisotrical Newspapers. Links to over 1700 freely availabledigital hisotrical newspapers.
Online Conversion
http://onlineconversion.com/
50,000 conversions and 5000 units. Has the popular conversions, but also contains measurements for women's clothing between countries, light years, density, torque, and fun stuff such as weight on Mars and names into Morse Code.
Open Library
http://openlibrary.org
Seeks to create and maintain "one webpage for every book ever published." The site provides full-text access (when available) to out-of-copyright titles, including the option to send the text to a Kindle. Over 20 million records gathered so far.
Opinion Polls
http://www.gallup.com
Gallop Polls on all topics.
Petrucci Music Library
http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page
20,000 works from 3000 composers. Free sheet music online
Poetry Tool
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poetrytool.html
Articles about poetry and poets. Poems in full text, including podcasts and audio versions of poems.
ProCon.org-Pros and Cons of Controversial Issues
http://procon.org
Site looks at both sides of 40 controversial issues in many areas. For each issue, a core question is posed along with the top ten pro and con statements regarding the issue, little known facts, historical timeline and a glossary.
Professional Misconduct
http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/opmc/main.htm
Physician and Physician Assistant disciplinary and other actions.
Still Tasty
http://www.stilltasty.com
The site contains information on how long food can be safely stored and the best way to keep it. Information from the Department of Agriculture, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Suffolk Transit
http://www.sct-bus.org/schedules.html
Bus schedules, maps, fares, and news.
U.N. data
http://data.un.org
International statistics on a broad range of topics
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
http://uis.unesco.org
The most comprehensive database for education statistics in the world, tracking current and historical data. Can build custom tables and reports besides predefined statistical tables, country profiles and global rankings.
Weights and measures
http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/links/weights/equivalences.html
Common equivalent weights and measures.
Zip Code
http://www.usps.com/zip4/
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