Search
Engines, Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and other Library Tools
GUIDES TO SEARCH TOOLS
Try this excellent Directory of
Internet Navigation Tools for a comprehensive listing of web tools. This guide will
help you find web sites by subject, keyword and geographic location in addition to guides
to newsgroups, forums, FAQ's and personal internet email addresses. Also, try Search Engine Watch the best
place to learn EVERYTHING about search engines!
Library Tools
Student Resource Center(InfoTrac/Gale
Group)- The Student Resource Center is a comprehensive
cross-curricular resource, which includes: Full-text periodicals, newspapers,
curriculum-based reference content, primary source documents, professional development
titles and tools, and student research tools.
ERIC
- A link to search all of the ERIC clearinghouses
HyperHistory
Online - Let's talk about timelines. Okay, for those of you who are still
awake, let's talk about the really great, incredibly huge timeline you can find at Hyper
History Online. This color-coded reference chart covers more than 3,000 years of important
people and events in world history. The timeline is a work in progress, so not all time
periods are completely covered. But this site is an excellent starting point if you or
your students really want to begin to understand history and to put all of the facts and
dates into proper context.
MEL - The Michigan Electronic Library. Free access to 20,000 electronic
resources on the Internet. This "virtual library" is selected and evaluated by
librarians.
Bartleby.com - The preeminent
Internet publisher of literature, reference and verse providing students, researchers and
the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web free
of charge.
Britannica
Available online free, along with related articles from 76 top
magazines and links to 125,000 Web sites.
Encyclopedia.com - Electric
Library's Encyclopedia.Com is an excellent first-stop resource site with a database of
more than 17,000 articles from The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Third
Edition, and a user-friendly cross-reference system. In addition to giving a brief
introduction to the topic you are interested in, the encyclopedia also guides you to
related web sites and provides a link to Barnes & Noble's online bookstore. The
encyclopedia also provides links to other "Premium Resource" sites from Electric
Library, but many of these resources are only available to paid and registered members.
Bookmark this site. Your students will thank you for it, especially after you tell them
horror stories about how you used to have to walk to the library and lift several heavy
books to find the information you needed (Shudder!).
Microsoft Encarta
Online The award-winning multimedia encyclopedia that brings the world to your
fingertips.
Visual Thesaurus -
The Plumb Design Visual Thesaurus is an exploration of sense relationships within the
English language. By clicking on words, you follow a thread of meaning, creating a spatial
map of linguistic associations.
Web of On-line Dictionaries
- Have your students tune into the Web of On-line Dictionaries site the next time they
start typing a research paper. This nifty portal lets them access to more than 500
dictionaries and over 140 different languages, and it saves them the trouble of having to
reach across the room to get at the old, outdated paperback dictionary. This site is an
excellent language resource that utilizes Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth
Edition as its primary reference source.