Online libraries, fact finding and checking, and news resources
• Library sites and portals
• Search engines, tools, and indexes
• Quotations, sayings, aphorisms, etc.
• Fact finding and news resources
• Check out hoaxes and urban legends
• Sarah Wernick on online viruses and petitions

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See more excellent up-to-the-minute resources under Blogs. For links to resources on language and usage, see Style, grammar, word choice, and pronunciation. In the column to the left you will find links to fact-checking sites, whether about politics or urban legends and rumors.

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Library sites and portals
Libraries and Libraries of the world: Writers and editors love you. We know that librarians are among the best (most helpful) researchers in the world, and many library systems are excellent portals to whole other research worlds. I will add more links here as time allows; here's a start:
• The British Library
• Federal Depository libraries
• Internet Public Library (IPL). Find resources by subject, newspapers and magazines, special collections, material for kids and for teens. Also known as Librarians' Internet Index .(Is it accurate to say this is a library,run by trained librarians?)
• Jacksonville Public Library (good general links)
• Librarian Chick (Stacy Reed's fab site)
• Libraries on the Web (LibWeb, US public libraries). Use interlibrary loan if you find what you need
• Library Spot (gateway to many excellent library and reference sites), sister site to Homework Spot
•••• Library of Congress (LOC). Online reference materials, digitized collections, photos, films, poems, the works--our nation's library)
• Library of Congress Online Catalog
• Library of Congress American Memory Collection (old motion pictures, Coca Cola ads, etc.)
• Musings about librarianship (ideas librarians might use and others might eavesdrop on!)
• National Agricultural Library (great links and not just agricultural)
• OCLC Global Gateway. The world's libraries. Connected.
• PubMed (PMC), a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/​NLM). Possibly helpful: PubMed Tutorial
• USDA A-to-Z Index
• U.S. National Library of Medicine Databases & Electronic Resources (National Institutes of Health, NIH/​NLM)
• World Digital Library (scans of original works and images of primary materials from cultures around the world, from ancient Chinese oracle bones to the first European map of the New World, plus photos, films, audio tracks)
• WorldCat (world's largest library catalog, a global catalog of library collections)

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LINKS TO FACT FINDING AND NEWS RESOURCES

American Folklife Center (online archive of webcasts of concerts, lectures, symposia from 2000 on)

American Library Association's recommendations for reference sites
• Best of the Best
• Choice's Top 25 Outstanding Academic Titles and
• Choice's Top 10 Websites 2011
• ALA Recommended Websites

American National Biography Online (ANB). Your library may have this important reference.

Association of Independent Information Professionals (aiip) (an industry association for owners of independent information businesses -- hire them to do various kinds of searches for you)

Bible Gateway (searchable Bible, with translations available in several languages)

Biblos.com, site for Bible studies, with atlases and maps, concordances, Bible timeline, parallel texts, lists of names, thesaurus, chronologies, story lists, translations, and more.

Bing (a visual search engine from Microsoft)

boingboing (a directory of wonderful things)

The British Library, tremendous resources, including a sizable online gallery

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, data on inflation, prices, employment, unemployment, pay & benefits, productivity, workplace injuries, more)

Business Navigator (NY Times guide to business, financial and investing resources on the Internet)

Calculators and converters for algebra, statistics, geometry, calculus, day/​date, units, physics, chemistry, weather, colors, etc. (Easy Calculation.com)

Calendars and calender converters:
• Calendar Zone (art, celestial, cultural, daily, event, geographic, historic, holidays, interactive, reference, reform, religious, software, traditional, Web, women)
• TimeandDate.com (world clock, time zones, stop watch, etc.)
• Hebcal Jewish Calendar (useful if you need to schedule around Jewish holidays)
• Virtual Perpetual Calendar.net (calendar for any year from 19th C. on, with dates for holidays in U.S. and Canada for 1995-2010)
• Calendar Converter (Gregorian, Julian, Hebrew, Islamic, Persian, Mayan, Bahα'ν, Indian Civil, French Republican, ISO-8601, Unix, Excel Serial Day Number)
• Calendars Through the Ages (history exhibit, about calendars over time and efforts to organize our life according to sun and stars).

Campaign Finance Information Center. Tracker, the center's quarterly newsletter, and the website contain stories, tips, tactics, links helpful for tackling complex pieces. Administered by Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.(IRE) and the National Institute of Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR).

Catholic Encyclopedia, online

Charitable, nonprofit organizations, rated:
• Charity Navigator rates 3,600 charities with one to four stars, rating them on organizational efficiency provides free financial evaluations of America's charities, rating them on organizational efficiency and organizational capacity.
• Guidestar. Donors, grantmakers, and businesses can use Guidestar's database of 1.8 million nonprofit reports.
• American Institute of Philanthropy, a nonprofit charity watchdog, rates nonprofits with a letter grade (A to F).
• Forbes's list of America's 200 Largest Charities. Forbes lists American's largest charities (by donations) and America's most efficient charities.

Countries, background on. You can learn a lot about the world's countries in states in various sets of notes, including the U.S. State Department's Background Notes and the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook, online.

C-Span Puts Full Archives on the Web (Brian Stelter, NYTimes, 3-15-10). Find them at C-SpanVideo.org.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Directory of thousands of open access, peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly journals (which do not charge readers or their institutions for access), with link to journals' websites.

Earthquakes in U.S., last 7 days (USGS, and there are many other pages of resources: maps, animations, seismogram displays, etc.). And here's a good explanation of the Mineral VA earthquake of August 23, 2011, Callen Gentley's entry on the AGU Blogosphere.

EDGAR (SEC) database. Every domestic public company in the United States with must submit forms and reports to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. EDGAR is the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system the SEC uses to transmit documents to investors. Anyone can access and download this information for free. Possibly helpful:
• EDGAR tutorial
• Important Information about EDGAR
• Researching Public Companies Through EDGAR: A Guide for Investors
• Search the Next-Generation EDGAR System

EurekAlert, sponsored by AAAS, the science society, as a way to disseminate info through reporters to the public. There's a public section, a reporters section, and an embargoed news section (for research appearing in peer-reviewed journals). News is filtered by subject: Agriculture (crops, food, forestry...), Archaelogy (new world, old world), Atmospheric Science (climate, pollution...), Business & Economics (health care, grants...), Chemistry & Physics (energy, atoms, superconductors...), Earth Science (geology, oceanography...), Education (science literacy, K-12, graduate...), Mathematics (models, systems, chaos...), Medicine & Health (cancer, diet, drugs...), Policy & Ethics (patients, treaties, laws...), Social & Behavior (addiction, parenting, mental health...), Space & Planetary (astronomy, comets, space missions...), Technology & Engineering (electronics, Internet, nanotechnology...). And various portals: News for Kids, Marine Science, Nanotechnology, Disease in the Developing World, Bioinformatics, Multi-Language.... And there is a Calendar of events in science (by month).

Evaluating Charities Not Currently Rated by Charity Navigator (Charity Navigator, your guide to intelligent giving). One helpful tool is the Foundation Center's 990 Finder.

Family history and genealogical resources (timelines, archives, genealogical links, etc.)

FindLaw (providing legal information, lawyer profiles, and a community to help you make the best legal decisions (check out Findlaw Answers).

FOB (firms out of business) (www.fob-file.com)...a database of publishing, literary and other firms out of business -- that is, printing and publishing firms, magazines, literary agencies and similar organizations that no longer exist -- and, where possible. which successor organizations might own any surviving rights. More
About FOB, which is run jointly by the Harry Ransom Center (University of Texas, Austin) and University of Reading Library.

Google News Revamped: This Is Your News, Personalized and Localized (Dan Nosowitz, Fast Company, 7-1-10). Here's Google News.

Investigative Reporting Resources (Padraic Cassidy's great links for investigative journalism--a tutorial on the Web). Some of the sites linked to:
• Five Easy Pieces: The S.E.C. Starter Kit and other tips for checking out companies
• How to Conduct a Historical Investigation
• Newslink
• 7 tips on covering bankruptcy court (Rick Desloge)
• Breaking and Entering: How to dissect an organization (Eric Nalder, Seattle Times)
Many more useful links at that site.

Musings About Librarianship (interesting and cool ideas librarians might use)

NIH Research. CRISP replaced by NIH RePORTer (NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting), a searchable database on federally funded biomedical research projects and programs. News updates here.

People finders:
• MelissaDATA
• Pipl
• 123People
• Person Locators (National Agricultural Library Links)
NY Times Cybernavigator to telephone & email directories

Place Finders. Software for locating old place names. Linda Coffin of HistoryCrafters (www.historycrafters.com) recommends two simple pieces of software, Animap and SiteFinder, put out by Goldbug software (www.goldbug.com), which work with a database of thousands of U.S. names for towns, counties, churches, schools, cemeteries, parks, railroads, townships, etc. Today they help you find not only current place names but also names from old records and databases that are no longer found in current maps and gazetteers.

Quotations, famous sayings, anecdotes, bits of wisdom
(many consider "famous quotes" poor usage)
• Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (searchable quotations from the original Bartlett, on Bartleby, plus other Bartleby-scanned collections of quotations and aphorisms)
• Bible Gateway
• BrainyQuote
• For the Speechwriters Reference Shelf (a booklist of quotations anthologies, compiled by Pat McNees and Joan Detz, on Washington Speechwriters Roundtable)
• Idea Bank (for quotations, anecdotes, humor, historical tidbits and other material to jazz up speeches)
• Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages (classified subjectively, arranged alphabetically, by Robert Christy, on Bartleby)
• 2InspireDaily -- Inspirational and motivational quotations
• Quotations Home Page
• Quotations Page
• The Quote Garden
• ThinkExist.com
• Top Bible Verses
• Verse (Bartleby's searchable classic anthologies)
• Yahoo Quotations(by categories)

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Search Engines, Tools, and Indexes (Selected)
• Ask.com
• Bing (Previously MSN Live Search)
• Dogpile (searches many Web search engines)
• Google (current King of Search Engines, with powerful ranking algorithms and special searches: images, groups, news, maps, shopping, etc.)
• Librarian's Ultimate Guide to Search Engines
• Open Directory (comprehensive Web directory edited by human volunteers)
• Search Engine Colossus (international search engine -- search in other languages and 310 countries)
• Scirus (for scientific information)
• USA.gov (U.S. government's official portal)
• The WWW Virtual Library (the oldest Web catalog)
• Yahoo (second only to Google in popularity)

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Time of day. U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock hotline (with various ways of translating it into your time, U.S. time)

• WeatherSpark(beta), a new type of weather website, with interactive weather graphs that allow you to pan and zoom through the entire history of any weather station on earth
• Weather Warehouse. Historical weather data. Want to know if it was raining in a certain year and place?

whatamieating.com (a searchable online international food dictionary)

Several websites are devoted to fact-checking and identifying hoaxes and urban legends. Before you forward that "true fact," e-mail petition, warning, amazing opportunity, or piece of gossip, run it by one of these sites. To check out accuracy in media reports, go to Regret the Error (http:/​/​www.regrettheerror.com/​)as well as the "Accuracy in Media" sites it links to.

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The following material was migrated here from the website of the late, great Sarah Wernick, by permission of her husband, Willie Lockeretz.

Emailed Virus Warnings and Petitions:
A Responsible Approach

Someone emails you a warning about a scary computer virus. Or you receive a petition for a worthy cause that urges you to sign at the bottom and pass it along to all your friends. Before you hit the “Forward” key, check it out – even if the mailing came from a trusted friend or expert.

• Virus warnings


• Petitions

Virus warnings

People who pass along emailed virus warnings mean well - but nearly all these warnings are hoaxes. At a minimum, they waste time and cause needless worry. But some of these hoaxes are as dangerous as viruses, because they direct people to delete files that are actually necessary parts of their computer's operating system.
Before you forward a warning to others, take a minute to verify it at one of the many reliable anti-virus sites online. If the warning is legitimate, include a documenting URL when you forward it. That way, people can rely upon your information. And if you learn that it's a hoax, discourage others from spreading it further: Copy the debunking URL and send it with a brief summary to the person who warned you and to everyone else who received the warning.

For reliable information about viruses warnings, see any of the following:

• The Urban Legends Reference Pages – http:/​/​www.snopes.com – offer an extensive searchable archive with excellent information.


• The urban legends page of About.com – http:/​/​urbanlegends.about.com– is
  an excellent resource for hoaxes and urban legends, with articles and extensive searchable archives.


• The Department of Energy's Cyber Incident Response Capability (DOE CIRC) – http:/​/​www.doecirc.energy.gov/​– provides good articles and searching capability.


• Another venerable Internet resource is Vmyths.com – http:/​/​www.vmyths.com– with reliable information on specific virus myths and urban legends, as well as useful general information.

Are You Infected? The following two sites allow you to screen your computer viruses at no charge. If you're infected, they also provide free instructions or free programs for eliminating many viruses. http:/​/​securityresponse.symantec.com (Scroll down and look for "Online Virus and Security Check") http:/​/​www.antivirus.com (Look for "Trend Micro HouseCall" and click on "Scan now.")

Petitions

Has this urgent appeal to save NPR turned up in your inbox?

On NPR's Morning Edition last week, Nina Totenberg said that if the Supreme Court supports Congress, it is in effect the end of the National Public Radio (NPR), NEA & the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). PBS, NPR and the arts are facing major cutbacks in funding....

The letter asks you to sign a petition and forward it to as many people as possible. Don't bother: This petition has been circulating since 1995, and it's hopelessly out of date, as NPR explains on their website.
This is just one example of a petition that’s either pointless or a hoax. Think about it: Everyone submits the same lists, so there are hundreds or even thousands of duplications. How can such petitions be credible? And signatures are lost if someone breaks the chain.

Can it hurt to pass along a petition, even if you’re not sure it’s for real? Yes – because it wastes people’s limited time and energy for activism. Better to focus our efforts where they can do some good.

Here are other options:

• Send people to an online organization that is collecting signatures – or that facilitates more direct action, such as writing to members of Congress.


• If you want to start your own petition or find one to sign – visit Petition Online (http:/​/​www.petitiononline.com). As they explain: “Unlike the various flaky email petitions that periodically wander around the Internet, with PetitionOnline there is exactly one authoritative master copy of your petition. Each signature and email address (always required, but optionally confidential) is logged for possible explicit or statistical validation. Duplicate signatures are automatically rejected, and each person who signs is automatically sent a confirming email message.”

by Sarah Wernick
Revised December 1, 2004.
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