Selected Reference Sources
Note: You must be a Lawrence faculty, staff, or student to use resources marked [LU]. Off campus access to restricted resources is available through the Lawrence proxy server.
A condensed page of selected resources can be found on the Desk Reference page.
Almanacs ~ Awards ~ Biography ~ Dictionaries ~ Directories
Encyclopedias ~ Government ~ Maps ~ Phone books ~ Quotations
Statistics ~ Thesauri ~ Weights and Measures ~ Writing Guides
- Credo Reference. Over 200 reference titles covering a wide range of subjects. Includes full text, images, sound files, maps and more.
- InfoPlease
- Old Farmer's Almanac
- This Day in History from the History Channel.
- UK 2004 - The Official Yearbook of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- World Factbook from the CIA
- Academy Awards from Oscar.com
- Grammy Awards
- Ig Nobel Prizes
- Literary Awards from Barnes and Noble.com
- Nobel Prizes
- Pulitzer Prizes
- American National Biography
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-present.
- Biography and Genealogy Master Index [LU]
- Biography.com
- Contemporary Authors, use: Literature Resource Center [LU]
- Dictionary of National Biography [LU]
- Nobel Prize winners
- Who's Alive and Who's Dead
- Who's Who [LU]
- Wisconsin Genealogy Index . Includes the Wisconsin Name Index which allows you to "search through more than 100,000 obituaries, personal sketches, and other short biographies of Wisconsin people."
- World of Scientific Biography by Eric Weisstein.
- English Dictionaries:
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary Click on "Enter OED Online" to search. [LU] - Language Dictionaries:
Latin-English Dictionary
Oxforld Language Dictionaries Online translates French, German, Spanish, and Italian, into and out of English
YourDictionary.com: a large collection of language dictionaries
Babylon a free, online dictionary and translator - Science and Technical Dictionaries:
Biology Online Dictionary of Biology
Beilstein Dictionary, a German-English/English-German dictionary "for users of the Beilstein Handbook of Organic Chemistry."
The Jargon File: "a collection of slang terms used by various subcultures of computer hackers"
Medical Dictionary from MedlinePlus
Scientific and Technical Acronyms, Symbols and Abbreviations - Specialty Dictionaries:
RhymeZone Rhyming Dictionary
SYMBOLS.com: "contains more than 2,500 Western signs, arranged into 54 groups according to their graphic characteristics"
- AON: Associations on the Net
- Books in Print. "The first place to find books, audios, and videos." From RR Bowker. [LU]
- CollegeSource Online: directory and full-text of more than 14,000 college catalogs [LU]
- Finding Legal Services: a directory of lawyers and more
- LibWeb: libraries on the web
- Musical America. The business source for the performing arts. [LU]
- Thomas Register of American manufacturers Login as "seeleyg" with password "mudd"
- Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory "provides users with essential serials...information that ranges from subscription rates to the latest web sites." [LU]
- World Directory of Environmental Organizations
- Zip Code Lookup from the USPS
- Britannica Online [LU]
- Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Courtesy of our friends at Bartleby.com
- Encarta Online: "an abridged version of the award-winning Encarta Encyclopedia on CD-ROM"
- Encyclopedia.com: "more than 17,000 articles from The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia"
- Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan [LU]
- New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians [LU]
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Congressional Universe: legislative information from the Congressional Information Service. [LU]
- THOMAS: Legislative Information on the Internet. The best source for information about Congress, text and status of legislation, and committee hearings.
- Blank and outline maps from About.com
- MapQuest
- PCL Map Collection from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas
- Thesaurus of Geographic Names from the Getty Information Institute
- U.S. Geographic Names Information Service
- U.S. Gazetteer from the Census Bureau
- Weather maps from the NOAA. Daily, going back to 1871.
- General Phone Number Info
- Toll-Free Directory
- International Calling Codes
- Telephone Directories on the Web: links to phone books worldwide
- White Pages
- Yellow Pages
- Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the 1901 edition
- Quoteland
- The Quotations Page
- Sources for Quotations in the Sciences
- Census Bureau
- Dow Jones Averages -- currently and over the years
- FedStats: "one stop shopping for federal statistics"
- Gallup Brain. A searchable record of more than 70 years of public opinion. [LU]
- LABORSTA: the International Labour Office database on labor statistics
- OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms
- Penn World Table: build your own international economic statistical tables
- Statistical Abstract of the US
- Statistical Resources on the Web
- Statistical Universe. Statistical information from Congressional Information Service. [LU]
- StatLib, "a system for distributing statistical software, datasets..."
- Wisconsin Demographic Services Center
- Roget's Internet Thesaurus
- WordNet: a lexical database for English
- WWWebster Thesaurus from Merriam-Webster
- Fundamental Physical Constant Data from NIST
- megaConverter: what equals what?
- Citation Guides from Purdue
- Online Writing Lab at Purdue
- Paradigm Online Writing Assistant
- Writer's Workshop Online Writing Guide from UIUC
