Best Free Reference

Containing 14 searchable versions of the Holy Bible, Blue Letter Bible offers an extensive insight into one of the world’s most popular books. Passages can be changed from version to version for easy comparison and various tools (an encyclopedia, a dictionary, 23 text commentaries, and 30 audio/video commentaries) help users explore chapter and verse. Additional resources include charts, outlines, timelines, and maps, plus four streaming audio versions, are available from each passage’s page. When appropriate for the passage, over 2,700 hymns are also available (lyrics are shown with link to a MIDI file to play music). This web resource is useful for anyone interested in biblical study and especially notable for comparing Bible versions.

Sports fans rejoice! This valuable resource provides statistics for four major sports: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, and each sport’s section is browsable and searchable in many ways. Baseball aficionados will find regular season box scores back to 1957 along with minor league stats back to 1992. Football lovers can look up draft picks and review single season and career leaders in passing, rushing, and kicking. Basketball devotees can find the top performers and award winners of the NBA and WNBA. Hockey enthusiasts will be able to find all players who wore the sweater number 25. With all of this and an additional section focused on Olympics history, Sports Reference hits the ball out of the park!

This site is a resource that has grown over the course of 15 years from a site focusing on the metro system in Barcelona to a site called “metroPlanet” to its current incarnation with an international scope and convenient, easy-to-use maps of urban railway systems in the world’s largest cities on 6 continents. Users will mainly appreciate UrbanRail.Net for its quick, simple maps, but the site put together by a Berlin public transportation enthusiast and historian also features practical information such as transit pricing, links, and timelines of transportation history for each rail service or line.

With prominent links to the President’s Weekly Address, the National Budget, and the economic recovery plan, the searchable site also provides links for both current news (“The Briefing Room”), the administration’s “Agenda” (nicely narrowed by topic), and ways to learn about “Our Government”, especially the Executive Branch. “The Administration” lists the President, First Lady, Cabinet members, White House Staff and even the Vice-President and his wife; “About the White House” tours the building itself and its former residents, Air Force One, and Camp David.

While involvement and donations are desired by the Foundation, the “learn” section garners this site’s win. Packed with tree identification, regional hardiness zone recommendations, tips on planting and care, and youth education for all ages (and educators), the site links to additional resources including state foresters and extension services information. Searchable, the site offers detailed tree guides by species with size, shape, growth rate, and hardiness data; sun, soil, moisture preferences; as well as a description and information on its attributes, wildlife value, and history/lore. This site is intended especially for homeowners, but is useful for anyone interested in trees.

The Writing Lab at Purdue houses 200 free writing resources and instructional materials for students, teachers, and trainers. Included are formatting and style guides, grammar and mechanics, internet literacy, ESL, job search and technical writing, and research. There are sections geared to writing for specific disciplines (e.g. experimental report writing in psychology) and forms (e.g. writing about poetry). This site provides the nuts and bolts needed to jump start any writing project.

BookFinder.com is a “one-stop ecommerce search engine” that indexes over 150 million books for sale from the catalogs of over 150 million sellers in 50 countries. Included are new, used, rare and out-of-print titles. With its huge inventory, users can compare prices and selections quickly, particularly for hard to find items. It is easy to use and flexible. There are many ways to locate items: author, title, ISBN, first or signed copies, binding, price, language, and whether new or used. While Amazon is a gold mine, BookFinder.com is definitely a gem!

This resource for advanced research in the humanities indexes works published in the British Isles and North America between 1473 and 1800. Basic and advanced search options are available, as well as a browsing feature. Bibliographic data includes imprints and physical descriptions of each item. Because many of these works can be found in the Early English Books Online and the 18th Century Collection Online, this site also lists libraries holding physical copies and gives microfilm collection reel numbers. Finally, the site supplies information if the resources are available electronically or on the web.

Students fill out a detailed questionnaire about academic achievement, future plans, interests, and awards and then receive information on scholarships and internships for which they are eligible. The beauty of this site rests in its organizational features. Students can set up e-mail reminders about application due dates, mark favorites or delete entries from their lists, e-mail descriptions to friends, and add personal notes about a scholarship. The site also contains advice on test preparation, navigating the admissions process, and transitioning to college. FastWeb boasts that their database searches “1.3 million scholarships worth over $3 billion,” making this a valuable resource for busy students.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, “your pathway to career success” assists in exploring careers, writing résumés, interviewing, and locating jobs. Though brought to the web by the State of Minnesota, the site provides links to other states and to nearly 2000 OneStopCareer Centers nationwide.

Established in 1999, this site is valuable for its extensive coverage of both historical and current information on United States presidencies and is easy to navigate. It provides a searchable database of over 85,000 documents, such as speeches, official papers, executive orders, proclamations, news conferences, and press briefings. Various retrieval options are available, including by keywords, dates, document type, and presidents. Additional in depth analyses are offered on topics that may be challenging to locate by other means, such as presidential relations with Congress. Lastly, Quick Time Player videos of important presidential election moments, addresses, and speeches are provided.

PubChem is a search tool for chemical information, divided into three areas: Compounds, Substances, and BioAssays. Full entries provide detailed information with the most basic information—a general description, the molecular weight and formula, the structure, plus a Table of Contents (ToC) for the full entry—all easily found “above the fold.” Use the ToC or scroll down to retrieve more advanced information, such as bioactivity results, synonyms, chemical actions, detailed properties, and more. Each module is fully interlinked with the other sections of PubChem as well as resources in ToxNet and PubMed, providing full access to toxicology resources and the medical literature, and allowing users access to as much or as little of the chemical information as they need.

The National Ocean Service (NOS) studies, monitors, and protects coastal and marine areas in the United States. The NOS web site offers detailed information about the agency’s activities, including access to educational videos and weekly podcasts on various coastal science topics. The site also hosts more than 1,000 up-to-date nautical charts, tide level data updated every 10 minutes, and beautiful photography in an image gallery. Teachers will find games, activity suggestions, and lesson plan ideas for students in grades 3-12. This site is an excellent resource for students, teachers, mariners, and anyone interested in America’s coastal ecology.

Sponsored jointly by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), this site provides select digital access to American newspapers from 1880 to 1910 and from mainly ten states. Additionally, access to an invaluable directory of newspapers published in the United States from 1690 to the present is available. The directory can be browsed by title or searched by state, county and city, date, keyword, frequency, language, or type of newspaper. The directory usually offers comprehensive information, such as titles, alternative titles, publication places, geographic coverage, persistent links, publishers, dates of publication, descriptions, frequencies, languages, subjects, general notes, LCCN, OCLC numbers, succeeding titles, and links to holdings.

This site boasts that one can “convert just about anything to anything else.” And with 50,000 conversions and 5,000 units, it has an impressive range. Sure, it has the popular conversions: length, temperature, speed, volume, weight, cooking, area, fuel economy, and currency. But it also contains measurements for women’s clothing sizes between countries, light-years, density, torque, horse height, meeting room size needed for attendees, gauge and much more. There is even a “Fun Stuff” category that is practically addictive where users can find their age in dog years, convert their names into Morse code, determine their weight on Mars, and verify how many days until retirement! Indispensible.

Ah, finally - a map system that does it all. This free service offers detailed street and terrain maps, robust locator tools to find addresses/businesses/places, and a route planner for traveling by car, public transport, or walking. Live traffic conditions for several cities are available as well. For those who need visual cues, Google Maps provides that too. Its fascinating "Street View" shows 360° panoramic street-level views, inviting users to virtually walk and explore the area. This is available in many U.S. cities and in several countries abroad. There is also a feature for those wanting to create their own maps. No more fumbling with folding paper maps, just click on this great site.

This site is one of the fastest ways to find information about the exploitive practices of 4000 businesses worldwide, which would be difficult to locate by other means. Users can begin searching by company name, issue, country, or topic. Balanced coverage is provided via news, announcements, and special resources while providing responses from the accused companies. By making negative enterprise behavior more transparent, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre may help stop companies’ human rights abuses.

The homepage of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) delivers “health information for the whole family.” There are many medical websites out there, but FamilyDoctor.org stands out for its ease of use. Visitors to the site can view it in English or Spanish, and the site contains a prominent link to make the text bigger. An impressive list of health tools—including dictionaries, an AAFP physician directory, calculators, immunization schedules, and more—complements a browsable list of symptoms and conditions by age and gender. In addition to information on diseases, the site also contains recommendations for healthy living.

This valuable resource targeting health consumers describes itself as "Your Guide to Understanding Genetic Conditions." The homepage presents a clean look and features six main sections in a centralized table: Genetic Conditions, Genes, Chromosomes, Handbook, Glossary, and Resources. The left-hand area of the homepage provides quick access to timely and frequently requested information packaged under the headings: "What's New," "Newborn Screening," and "In the Spotlight." The site also addresses the important question of "How can I find a genetics professional in my area?"

Drawing on the trusted Physicians' Desk Reference (PDR®), this site provides information for prescriptions drugs, over-the-counter medications, and herbals/supplements. Included are recommended dosage, side effects, possible food and drug reactions, and in many cases pictures to assist with drug identification. But PDRHealth extends far beyond drug information. It also offers excellent overviews of numerous diseases and conditions, from kidney stones and migraines to teething and Cushing Syndrome. And there is even of listing of clinical trials, searchable by region and illness, for those living with cancer or rare diseases. This well-organized, authoritative, and attractive site is a must-have for anyone needing drug information.

The web site of the World Health Organization (WHO) tracks current international health emergencies and disease outbreaks, and offers extensive information on diseases and health issues affecting the global population. Visitors to the site will find an interactive Global Health Atlas with mapping interface, statistical databases covering the health status of each WHO member country, and full-text access to WHO’s publications, including journals, reports, and bulletins. The web site’s Fact Sheets provide excellent overviews of various international health topics and are an ideal resource for high-school and college students beginning their research.

This site supplies information on the history, economy, and politics of countries and territories. Each profile includes an overview, map, facts, and current leaders. A media overview provides information on the press, television, radio, news agencies, and number of Internet users. Links provided on the side of the profile connect to the latest news and key stories, BBC links, background articles, related Internet sites and video and audio clips from the BBC archives. Additional features include timelines, recent news links, background articles, Internet sites, and BBC archive video and audio clips. Information on over 20 key international organizations is also included.

Detailed, easily browsable profiles of cities and counties across the U.S. are the specialty of ePodunk, which has grown to include data on airports, cemeteries, museums, and other institutions as well. Profiles include historical postcard images from the Making of America project and all imaginable statistics at the city and county level: income, educational level, economic, crime. Not only does the site link to useful municipal/county government and chamber of commerce sites, but it also displays or links to harder-to-find information like local media outlets, community organizations, political reports, historical weather information, support for libraries, a “gay index” based on the Gay and Lesbian Atlas, films shot in the area, and celebrity residents.

The National Gardening Association (NGA) offers a wide array of useful gardening content for consumers and educators. Gardeners can consult the weed and pest libraries, food gardening and plant care guides, regional reports, and how-to articles. They can also browse the useful Q and A database and the buyer’s guide. The most impressive feature is the NGA Plant Finder, searchable by plant type, hardiness, light, flower color, and more. In addition, there is a special “Kids Gardening” section loaded with activities and classroom projects. For those who prefer to view gardens rather than dig in the dirt, there is a public garden locator. Two green thumbs up!

This web site provides a searchable directory to over 6000 freely available online bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries. Searches may be entered by language(s), subject, or title/keyword. Search results provide the number of entries and links to the online dictionaries. The site also provides a directory of translation and interpreting courses, a listing of translator and interpreter associations worldwide, language resources, freeware to download and links to sites for currency conversion, text analysis and language identification. Language-related software and products may be purchased at the website.

Well organized, very interactive, and full of information for all, the EPA site offers news, local information, teacher resources, multimedia (videos, photos, audios), resources, and even a trivia quiz, all accessible from the homepage. The “For Youth” section includes tabs for elementary, middle, and high school students while “Work with Us” offers career, grant, and contract information. The site shows lots of depth, too, with navigation tabs for “Learn the Issues”, “Science & Technology”, “Laws & Regulations”, “Newsroom”, and “About EPA”; each is a treasure trove of information in itself, adding to the usefulness and comprehensiveness of the site.

The LocalHarvest Web site offers a nationwide directory of farmers’ markets, small family farms, and organic food sources. Visitors to the site can find local farms, markets, Community Supported Agriculture programs, and food-related events searching by zip code or state, or by using the interactive map. The site also offers a monthly newsletter, recipes, and blogs written by LocalHarvest members. This is a definitive resource for anyone interested in buying local and/or organic food and produce.