READY REFERENCE RESOURCES

General

• Refdesk.com - This site provides links to a wide range of resources with a minimum of annotation. Includes sections called Fast Facts (375 links), Quick Reference (300 links) and Facts Encyclopedia (7000 links covering 73 subjects).
  
  
• Best Online Reference Sites - 30 ready reference categories, some of which are subdivided. All links are annotated and allow the user to rate their usefullness. A very clean site which is easy to scan visually and strikes a nice balance between selectivity and scope of coverage.
  
  
• LibrarySpot - Includes links to online libraries, reference sites, current events topics and online exhibits. Also links to lists such as Oprah's picks and Caldecott Medal winners. Moderately comprehensive but annotations are very brief.
  
  
• Librarians' Index to the Internet - Links point to an extensive collection with lengthy annotations, a hierarchical organization and search capability. This was formerly the Berkeley Public Library Index to the Internet.
  
  
• Best Information on the Net - Provides annotated links for an alphabetical list of topics. Sites are chosen by the O'Keefe Library of St. Ambrose University. Also has resources by major, for the disabled, for students, for librarians, hot topics and online reference sources. Site does not support keyword searches.
  
  
• Booksandinformation.com Reference Desk - This site focuses on the type of information you might find in a small rural library. It includes links to sites about grants, scholarships, biographies, literary criticism, magazine/journal articles, term paper sources, directories to find people/businesses and the like.

Free Online Reference Works

• The Glossarist - A comprehensive directory of glossaries (subject dictionaries) on all subjects. You can perform a word search to locate an appropriate glossary but you can only use one glossary at a time - it does not perform simultaneous searches of multiple sources.
  
  
• OneLook Dictionary Search - Offers access to hundreds of general and specialized dictionaries. It will search for your word on the Internet and then provide links to its listing within the dictionaries indexed as well as a link to the dictionary's home page. A variety of languages can be chosen or you can choose the translate option. Links are provided to additional dictionary sites not indexed here.
  
  
• Reference at Bartleby.com - A searchable mix of old classic works (such as the 1919 edition of Bartlett's Quotations and a 1918 version of Gray's Anatomy) and newer sources (year 2000 editions of the World Factbook and the Columbia Encyclopedia). Search all at once or choose a particular work.
  
  
• YourDictionary - Allows quick lookup of word in a dictionary or thesaurus and permits use of wildcards to find words you cannot spell. Links to dictionaries for other languages and other word related resources including FAQs, rhyming and other specialty dictionaries, and grammar guides.

The following are maintained by Academic Institutions and are geared more toward Scholarly Needs

• Son of Citation Machine - Citation Machine is an interactive web tool designed to assist high school, college, and university students, their teachers, and independent researchers in their effort to respect other people's intellectual properties.
  
  
• Martindale's The Reference Desk - Provides a vast collection that is particularly strong in science, medicine, weather and Internet resources.
  
  
• InfoMine: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections - Links to over 20,000 academically valuable resources. Allows basic or advanced search of the site. There is also a subject index and a search may be restricted to a particular subject area.
  
  
• Indiana Un. at Bloomington Libraries Internet Quick Ref. - Composed of 21 well chosen categories. The site is searchable and includes a link allowing reorganization in category outline form, similar to a table of contents.
  
  
• Academic Info - A gateway to college and research level resources. About 250 to 500 new sites are added each month and given in a separate list. Allows browsing by subject or keyword searches.
  
  
• Quick Reference - UT Library Online - Located at the University of Texas, this site presents a good list of minimally annotated links organized by both subject and title.
  
  
• UCSD Libraries Reference Desk - Well-designed and accessible, this site targets basic reference with barely annotated resources listed in 18 categories.