3 September 2002. Kokogiak Media, with the apparent blessing of Amazon.com, offers a fast-loading, easy-to-use, stripped-down version of Amazon.com. I spent a few minutes comparing use of this version with the official site. Even though I'm a frequent user of Amazon.com, I found items I sought more quickly with Amazon Light. For purchases, the new site sends you back to Amazon.com, but makes the transition almost seamless. Simply add purchases to "Your List," and then click "Manage List." When you view your Amazon.com shopping cart, the items appear. This is a nice improvement to Amazon.com for folks who just want to find and buy what they want. But if you like window shop, then by all means, use the original Amazon.com. 25 February 2008. The Internet Archive offers a subscription service for entities that want to archive special collections and make them searchable, either publicly or privately. Newly added, is a full-text search feature that not only queries the public special collections but also collections in the Internet Archive. While the index isn't as current as the index for the Wayback Machine, it's now possible to search archived Web pages as well as other archived file formats by keyword. Searching and displaying the results is free of charge. 18 October 2004. Britannia.com, LLC, a privately held company incorporated in Delaware, provides biographical information about select people in British history. Coverage includes many British monarchs, prime ministers and authors. Many articles consist of about a one-page summary, but some run only a paragraph or two. A feature entitled "Great Scotsmen" provides an overview of historic figures in Scottish history, but the individual biographies are not in-depth. Since none of the biographies reference source materials, it's a good idea to verify the information you find here. (Do not confuse source with Britannica.com.) 8 March 2004. Revised 5 May 2008. Developed by Penn State's Smeal College of Business, this specialty search engine indexes commercial and academic articles and reports on business issues. Previously called SMEALSearch. Additionally, "BizSeer attempts to generate a citation analysis for all the academic articles harvested and ranks them in order of their citation rates (the most cited articles are listed first) similar to the ranking of CiteSeer and the Google Scholar." Search for documents by keyword, or discover where an author or document has been cited. Special search limits include restricting queries to information appearing in the document header or title. Information provided includes an abstract, related documents, citations and a link to the the full-text document. 14 September 2005. BookRags describes itself as "one of the premier online sites for classical study guides, book notes, eBooks, and essays." Covering topics in English, History, Math and Science, BookRags provides study guides, essays, literature summaries, biographies, electronic copies of classical texts, and more. You may search or browse its extensive collection of study materials. 8 November 2004. The Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust provide free access to a digital library of business directories, dictionaries, maps, tax documents and full-text monographs covering medieval and early modern times. Find the journals of the House of Commons and House of Lords covering approximately 1547 to 1832. You can also search for references to people. Keyword searching supports truncation, exact phrases or synonyms. You can also limit a query to a specific source. 2 December 2002. Publisher CCH Incorporated offers this free site for business owners, especially those with small businesses. Find the CCH Small Business Guide, a collection of practical articles on various aspects of planning and running a small business. Other sections of the site provide model forms and checklists (Small Business Tools), employee training (HR Tools), and advice about business issues (Ask Alice). 10 October 2002. Revised 21 April 2006. Penn State's School of Information Sciences and Technology hosts CiteSeer, a search engine for finding literature in computer and information science. CiteSeer was developed at the NEC Research Institute by Steve Lawrence, Lee Giles and Kurt Bollacker. Search by keyword to find documents or citations. Documents contain an abstract or summary as well as links to other documents that cite to the matching document and related documents. You may also download the full-text of matching documents. 30 October 2002. BBC News offers country profiles containing many useful facts for students, journalists, and researchers. Features include sound files for the country's national anthem and important events, a timeline of key events, biographical information about its leaders, and information about the media. 18 October 2004. Available in print (5 volumes) and on the Web in English and Maori, the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography contains biographical information about more than 3000 people, active before 1960, but who are no longer living. Many biographies include portraits and other images. Citations to select additional information appear at the end of each article. The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage makes this information available to the public free of charge. Gary Price compiles this list of annotated links to specialty search tools. As he explains, general or popular search tools like AltaVista and HotBot cannot index much of the material from specialty sites. Direct Search provides links to the sites so that researchers may access and search them directly. 6 April 2005. The Center for Research Libraries offers a database of more than 750,000 uncataloged dissertations from countries other than Canada and the United States. Search by author, title, English language translation of the title, subject, country, institution, language or year to find a bibliographic description of the dissertation. Searching the British spelling produces the best results. 31 October 2002. Revised 21 April 2006. Part of the Resource Discovery Network, EEVL provides access to information in engineering, mathematics and computing. Find a database containing thousands of descriptions of specialty Web sites in these subjects, a search engine (EESE) that queries the content of more than 250 subject-related full-text e-journals, and several special databases, including Recent Advances in Manufacturing (RAM) bibliographic database, the SearchLT database (teaching and learning resources) and the Offshore Engineering Information Service. 27 May 2004. Virginia Tech University Libraries makes available a database of graduate theses and dissertations from several institutions in the U.S. and around the world. You can search the database by keyword to find detailed information about these documents as well as links to the documents themselves. The information provided includes the author, title, date of the document, institution and more. A useful feature is the ability to "find similar documents" to those in the search results list. Full-text dissertations and theses appear in PDF. 11 November 2003. The the Annapolis Group, a nonprofit alliance of independent liberal arts colleges, offers a database of experts in politics, history, science, economics, art and other scholarly disciplines. Search by name, college or keyword to find a brief biographical profile, which provides the expert's name, academic affiliation, email address, title, phone, area of expertise and more. 19 November 2002. Revised 5 May 2008. Designed for journalists, FACSNET enables searching for experts in economics, science, law and public policy. Search by affiliation, name, or topic to find experts, their contact information, affiliation, and a brief description of their expertise. Experts listed in the database are FACS Scholars, or people known to, or who teach for, the Foundation for American Communications. The Foundation is a non-profit organization that "is dedicated to improving the quality of information reaching the public through the news."
Technical note: When we visited this site on 5 May 2008, it was undergoing maintenance. The site content may change. 23 September 2003. The Westchester Library System in Ardsley, New York helps patrons launch their Internet research with an easy-to-use Web site, which is arranged by topic. Choose from one of several broad topics until you find a resource likely to answer your question. Most starting points linked here take three clicks or less to find. Topics covered include computers, education, family, government, health, history, housing, travel and more. 27 September 2002. Revised 5 May 2008. The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries provides a search tool - Gold Rush, for finding electronic journals. Search by keyword, subject, or title. Or, browse by title or Library of Congress subject heading. Searchers can also limit retrieval by free or peer-reviewed sources. Journal records provide the Web address, bibliographic information, publication frequency and start/end dates, and contact information. 1 March 2004. A free site by Congressional Quarterly, Inc., Governing.com offers news, special reports, statistics and more relating to public policy issues. Find a complete archive of Governing Magazine, an online supplement to State and Local Source Book 2003, a summary of state legislative issues, government-related news arranged by topic and more. You can also sign up for a free daily email news alert. 10 April 2003. The University of Michigan Documents Center offers this portal to government information. Available since 1995, it covers Web sites providing information pertaining to federal, state, local, foreign and international government. It arranges many of them by topic and provides brief annotations. 13 April 2000. Revised 25 April 2002. INFOMINE catalogs information sources of superior substance and quality. All entries offer the site name and URL as well as a description and links to subject terms for related resources.
Search all INFOMINE databases simultaneously, or query or browse individual databases. Databases cover Electronic Journals, Biological, Agricultural & Medical Sciences, Government Information, Instructional Resources (K through 12 and also, University level), Internet Enabling Tools, Maps & GIS, Physical Sciences, Engineering, Computing & Math, Social Sciences & Humanities, and Visual & Performing Arts.
The site adds resources daily and provides a weekly email alert for those who wish to stay on top of new sites.
28 January 2002. Revised 5 March 2004. Ingenta offers a database of full text articles or bibliographic information about them. It covers more than 25,000 publications in a variety of disciplines from 1997 to date. Full text articles are available online or by electronic (Ariel) or fax delivery. Articles requiring author or publisher copyright permission appear in the database with complete citation information. Ingenta sells institutional subscriptions as well as individual pay-per-view access. 11 April 2003. The Internet Public Library helps people find quality resources on the Internet. Browse or search its various collections. It categorizes the subject collections according to the Dewey classification system. Also find numerous subject research guides and research tips. 25 February 2000. Revised 5 May 2008. Formerly titled Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) by the UK Resource Discovery Network, the site offers a database of information about high quality Web-based resources pertaining to the social sciences. Browse the catalog by subject or query it by keyword or other criteria (see the advanced search feature). Entries include site titles, links, URLs, brief descriptions, keywords, and more. This resources consistently adds several new resources daily.
11 November 2003. Revised 17 October 2007. Thomson ISI offers this free database of bibliographic references to frequently cited authors. Search by author or institution name to find a profile, which might include contact and personal information, education, honors/awards, affiliations, memberships, research interests, research grants, and citations to published works. This is a good starting point when searching for experts, particularly in the sciences. 29 August 2007. Information Today, Inc. (ITI) and ProQuest join to provide database access to ITI publications. ITI InfoCentral lets you search, browse or preview more than 44,000 full-text news reports, articles, interviews or critical reviews about the companies, products and people in the library, electronic information services, and digital content industries. Publications in the database currently include Computers in Libraries, Customer Relationship Management: CRM, EContent, EMedia/EventDV, Information Today, KMWorld, Link-Up, Multimedia & Internet @ Schools, Online and Searcher. You may display the abstract and bibliographic citation for free. Or purchase the full-text and display it in various formats, including PDF. 4 January 2000. Revised 25 April 2002. This excellent site categorizes high quality Internet resources by subject. Browse or search the site to find thousands of resources on hundreds of topics. 23 October 2002. Librarians with the State Library of Michigan select and categorize high quality Web sites. Each category listing begins with government sponsored resources, and then proceeds with non-profit and research sites, etc. This is a very useful tool for finding a few good research starting points. 27 May 2004. This project of OCLC Research makes searchable information about electronic copies of theses and dissertations. Click SearchSRU to begin. The search engine enables querying information about the graduate document, but not the text of the document. You can also display a list of documents by institution. Information provided includes the title, author, topic, abstract, institution, document date, URL of full-text, language and more. 6 August 2007. While the title of this Web site is an obvious over-statement, the NNDB or Notable Names Database is a useful tool for discovering basic facts about well-known individuals or people who have been in the news. You may search by name or keyword.
Keyword searching might be useful in trying to identify an expert witness. I have used it successfully in certain fact-based research; for instance, to answer questions such as who wrote a certain book or who starred in a certain movie or television show.
There is a certain facetiousness to the Web site. (See, for instance, the bio on Bill Gates.) Also, source information isn't consistent. We recommend verifying what you find here with an authoritative source. 23 September 2003. An Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at the University of Texas at Tyler provides an alphabetical index of speeches available online. Arranged by author or title, the index indicates full-text and audio availability. It also ranks the top 100 speeches and provides a collection of 9/11 rhetoric. You must know what you are looking for to use this site. There is no search feature other than your browser's find command. 18 January 2001. Occupational health consulting firm, WorkCare, offers this gateway to safety and health information resources. Find articles about occupational health and safety issues, a free newsletter, job ads, a bulletin board, and numerous annotated resources with detailed indexing. 19 July 2001. This site offers a database of public policy research papers by U.K. and U.S. organizations. It also provides research guides on a variety of topics including the Internet (intellectual property, privacy, freedom of speech), the European Monetary Union, economics, and more. 8 January 2003. This site serves as a portal to scientific and technical information and databases available from U.S. government agencies. Browse the collection of resources by subject or search multiple databases simultaneously. Topics include agriculture, veterinary medicine, biology, computers, energy, environment, health and medicine, math, and more. Revised 23 April 2008. A collection of what the editors of Scout Report consider the best Internet resources. The site arranges entries by subjects and also offers a search feature. 19 May 2003. Gebbie Press, publisher of The All-In-One Media Directory, provides an index of trade and industry journals on the Web. Search for magazines by keyword or title; or browse the subject categories. The search engine did not work well during our visit. 7 February 2008. Students in the University Writing Program and the Columbia College of Arts & Science at The George Washington University blog about research and writing resources. It seems they are learning a lot. Topics covered include plagiarism and integrating sources, citation styles, research management tools, and using Web 2.0 sources. The site could use an RSS feed, but the content looks great. 6 April 2005. TIME Magazine offers this archive of more than 266,000 articles dating back to the inaugural issue published in March 1923. You may browse the archive by topic, or search it by keyword. Results usually include the title of the article, the publication date, and partial lead paragraph. Full-text articles are available free of charge to TIME subscribers. You may subscribe online, but access is not immediate. Louisiana State University offers a collection of excellent subject guides covering a variety of topics including business, engineering, government, humanities, science, and social science. 28 November 2007. Wikibooks is a collection of free open-content textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides and manuals that anyone may edit, whether logged into the system or not. In other words, those who use this resource will have to take care regarding the accuracy of the information they find. Also, if a book isn't instructional (e.g., fiction), it isn't included in the collection.
The project, which has been in existence since 2003, covers many subjects. A sampling of instructional materials available includes Introduction to Paleoanthropology, Algorithms, Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, How To Assemble A Desktop PC, Managing Groups and Teams, Physics Study Guide and Kings and Queens of England. 11 August 2004. Brigham Young University hosts a massive index to documents pertaining to the first World War. Covering conventions, treaties and other official papers as well as diaries, personal accounts, photographs and more, the archive categorizes and provides the text of, or a link to, electronic copies of the documents. You can search the archive by keyword. 10 December 2003. EDITOR'S CHOICE. Lawyer-librarian Andrew Zimmerman authors this extensive guide to finding legal and factual information. Hosted by LexisNexis via its LexisONE portal, the guide provides brief explanations about specific aspects of legal, business and factual research. You can search the guide by selecting the option for querying the entire LexisONE site. You can also browse it using the comprehensive index provided on the front page of the guide. Entries include linked cross-references for finding related information. |
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