Reference desks, info on people and businesses, auto prices, writing tools – word, styles, citations, mail & shipping, vital records.

• CyberTimes Navigator used as the home page in the newsroom at the New York Times.
• Itools Search, research, locate, web tools,
• These sites bring library and reference materials together LibrarySpot | My Virtual Reference Desk. | Martindale’s Reference
• Librarian’s Index to the Internet a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 6,000 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to users of public libraries.

---

• Automobiles
  • new and used car prices, auto recalls, etc.  Edmund’s Automobile Buyer’s Guides | Kelly Blue Book | carprices
  • Find the the history of a used car (fee for reports) Carfax
  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Recalls, crash tests, other safety issues.
• • Guide to company information, by Genie Tyburski
  • Hoover OnLine information on public and private companies – company capsules, in-depth profiles, financial information, stock charts, and lists of executives, products, and competitors.
  • EDGAR the SEC’s database of corporate information.
  • Bloomberg Online provides links to newswires, press releases, competitors, and more.
  • FRED from the Federal Reserve Bank, FRED provides historical U.S. economic and financial data, including daily U.S. interest rates, monetary and business indicators, exchange rates.
    

    ---

• Words
  • Dictionaries & thesauri, multi-lingual, specialized at Your Dictionary.com or  One-look.
  • Roget’s New Millenium Thesaurus
  • The Lexical Freenet. Definitions, rhymes, links between words, pictures &, sounds.
  • Bartleby’s Quotations, 87,000 quotes for four major sources.
  • Business Glossary @ Washington Post: more than 1,250 business terms, organized and cross-referenced; search for particular word or search full text to find every reference to a word or phrase, or simply browse.
  • The Glossarist. comprehensive directory of glossaries.
• Style
  • Elements of Style, William Strunk, Jr.
  • Grammar and style guide by Jack Lynch.
  • Translation, Google Language Tool translates web pages into/from English & Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, French.
  • Webgrammar. On-line writing guide.
  • American Heritage Book of English Useage
• • Citation Guides; U.Mich links to citation guides – MLA, APA, how to cite electronic documents, etc.
  • Introduction to Basic Legal Citation @ Cornell: indispensable, based on the 16th Ed. of the Bluebook.
• Other
  • • General: Wikipedia (user maintained – not uniformly accurate)
    • TechEnclyclopedia

---

Locators for People and Business

• People-finder guide
• These sites allow you to search for telephone numbers and e-mail for businesses and residences and generally include maps and driving directions, reverse lookups.
  • YB Lost. An excellent compilation of locator resources on the web.
  • Reverse lookups. By phone number or address or here
  • Anywho from AT&T has fast, clear directory service, and a reverse directory
  • Switchboard and InfoSpace offer nationwide telephone, address and reverse directory ThomasNet from the Thomas Register of Manufacturers
  • Yahoo People Finder can help find e-mail addresses
• Doctors: AMA Physician Select: check here to get info on qualifications and board certifications for virtually every M.D. in the U.S.
• Lawyers: Martindale Legal Locator (or as text only) , FindLaw Legal Directory

---

Mail & Shipping

• U.S. Post Office: Regs, rates, mail tools and ZIP code lookup codes, address changes, postage rates, etc.
• FedEx and UPS to track your packages.
• PackTrack is an all-in-one tracking site for 60+ carriers.
• ZIP information links ZIP codes to census data, distances to other ZIP’s, post office info, etc

---

• Vital check or VitalRec:  where to write/call/FAX for vital statistics – birth, marriage, death certificates.
• For Pennsylvania county-level info, use vitalrecord.   Pennsylvania birth/death certificates.