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Recommended Websites
Quick, online reference websites
- Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Thesaurus, Quotations
- Education Information
- Fact books and Statistics
- Financial Aid
- Government (Local, State and Federal)
- Jobs/Careers
- Other Libraries
- Maps and Atlases
- News
- Telephone, Postal, and Web Directories
- General Online Help
- Search Engines
Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Thesarus, Quotations
Acronyms and Abbreviations
A searchable index which gives the meaning of acronyms and abbreviations.
Bartleby Great Books Online
Publishes the classics of literature, nonfiction, and reference free of charge for the home, classroom, and desktop of each and every Internet participant.
Bartlett's Book of Familiar Quotations
An electronic version of this popular book, searchable by key word or by author.
Biographical dictionary
Information on over 18,000 men and women from ancient to modern times.
Britannica Online
Full-text, illustrated encyclopedia online
Encyclopedia Mythica
An encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and legend.
Foreign Language Dictionaries
Provides quick look-up for English words as well as links to on-line dictionaries for over 130 languages
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A searchable encyclopedia which can be accessed by using a time line, using particular texts or performing a key word search.
Internet Glossary
An alphabetical listing of words relating to the Internet and its related hardware and software.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
An electronic version of this popular dictionary.
OneLook Reverse Dictionary
Describe the concept and get back a list of words.
Roget's Thesaurus
Allows searching by headword or full text.
Ultralingua
Translate English words or terms to a variety of other languages. Also includes links to many language websites.
Educational Information
College and University Home Pages
Includes name and geographical listings for university and college homepages all over the world. Hasn't been updated since 1996, but still quite comprehensive.
Kaplan Educational Centers
This company specializes in test preparation, admissions and career services. Provides information and sample tests.
League for Innovation Schools
"The League for Innovation in the Community College is a non-profit educational consortium of leading community colleges organized to stimulate innovation and experimentation in all areas of community college development." CPCC is one of the 20 members of this league.
North Carolina Colleges and Universities
Provides links to North Carolina Colleges and Universities, along with links to their library web pages.
North Carolina Community Colleges
Provides links to all the N.C. Community Colleges with web pages, and addresses and telephone numbers for those that are not on the web. Click on Colleges/Map in the contents list.
Petersons Guide to Schools, Colleges, and Universities
This electronic version of this popular book provides information on schools from kindergarten through graduate school. Includes career information, information about studying abroad, summer programs, special schools, and distance learning. Very comprehensive.
Yahoo! Directory: Colleges and Universities
This directory provides access to international colleges and universities, as well as links to other college and university web directories.
Factbooks and Statistics
Background Notes
Provides demographic, economic, historical information for countries around the world. Updated on an irregular basis.
CIA World Fact Book
Includes flags and maps and information on geography, people, government, economy, transportation, communication, and defense for most of the countries in the world. Also includes information on all the oceans.
County and City Data Book
Scroll to find various statistics on top city rankings. An abbreviated version of the print version.
Country Studies
Provides profiles of various countries, with information on history, geography, society, economy, transportation and commerce, government and politics, and national security.
FEDSTATS
Links to more than 70 U.S. federal government agencies that provide statistics of interest to the general public.
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Provides pictures or drawings and descriptions of these massive monuments.
Statistical Abstract of the United States
Provides selected features from this book, including USA statistics in brief, frequently requested tables, state rankings, and state and county profiles.
Thomas Register
This is an industrial buying guide which allows the user to search by brand name, product, or company, and includes product catalogs.
U. S. Census Bureau
Provides social, demographic, and economic information derived from the U. S. census. Requires PDF format to read.
Financial Aid
FAFSA
Online application for financial Department of Education's Federal Student Financial Assistance Programs.
FastWeb
Provides a college directory of over 4,000 schools with admissions, financial aid and general admission. Also provides email, calendars and cost calculators.
Government (Local, State and Federal)
The American Presidency Project
An extensive collection of digital documents of the presidency from George Washington to George W. Bush. It offers the beginnings of an audio and video archive.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Government
This is the official website for the city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, NC. Among its features are a Relocation Center for those new to the area; area and local government services; online services; business resources; and visitors' services, such as links to maps, places to stay, dine and shop. Also includes information and links to local officials and opportunities for feedback.
Census Bureau
Includes the Statistical Abstract of the United States, TIGER files, Trade Statistics, and an up-to-date population clock.
FedStats
Links to more than 70 U.S. federal government agencies that provide statistics of interest to the general public.
FirstGov
This is the first government website to provide easy, one-stop access to all online U.S. Federal Government
resources. It "allows users to browse a wealth of information — everything from researching at the Library of Congress to tracking a NASA mission. It also enables users to conduct important business online — such as applying for student loans, tracking Social Security benefits, comparing Medicare options and even administering government grants and contracts."
GPO Access
The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) "provides free online use of databases of Federal information in over 80 applications. A general search page provides for searching one or multiple GPO Access databases from a single page." Services fall into many categories of government information. Click About the Databases to see a list and explanatory notes. Find archived budgets, congressional directories, bills, Congressional Record, Federal Record, economic reports, and much more.
North Carolina General Assembly
Gives information about and links to NC legislators and information about bill status.
North Carolina Institute of Government
Gives access to the resources of the Institute, which "provides North Carolina’s local and state government officials with nonpartisan legal, management, and financial expertise." It is a part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, providing training, advisory services, and research.
North Carolina State Data Center
This site provides demographic and statistical data from Census 2000; population and housing; Vital statistics and health; social and human services; law enforcement, courts and corrections; environment, recreation, and resources; energy and utilities; government, employment and income; business and industry; agriculture; transportation.
North Carolina State Government
Provides links to state government departments and divisions, including general information of use to the public, personnel listings for state employees, business and education links, and agency links. A searchable index.
Thomas: Federal Legislative Information on the Internet
A searchable index with bill status, text of the Congressional Record, committee information and links to committee homepages, an explanation of the legislative process, links to historical documents, and directories for the House and Senate.
U. S. Congress
Directory of information about the members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
U.S. House of Representatives
Provides the House schedule, as well as schedules and sites for House committees and task forces. Also links to the Clerk's office, where you can find a more comprehensive collection of house-related information.
U.S. Senate
Provides links to individual senators' web sites. Searches for Senators by state and provides lists of Senate committees and their members.
U. S. Government Manual
A searchable electronic version of this printed text. Site includes links to other federal government sites.
U.S . PostalService
Provides postal services and products, and links to other government agencies related to postal activities.
Jobs/Careers
CPCC Career Services
Provides over 175 links to careers, career assessments, career planning, company profiles, job searching techniques and more.
Bizlink Career Listings
This is the Charlotte/Mecklenburg Public Library's links to jobs. There is an excellent list of local links.
CareerMart
Search for a job by state, region, or country; check out company profiles; link to universities, colleges, and community colleges; sign up to have jobs matched to your specifications.
County Salaries in North Carolina
This annual report contains salary and wage profiles by position, and information about fringe benefits that participating counties are offering for the 1999–2000 fiscal year. Included are the job titles that the counties used to provide the salary and compensation data.
FedWorld Job Bank
This database allows you to search abstracts of open U.S. Federal Government Jobs.
Job Bank USA
"JobBank USA Specializes in providing employment and resume information services to job candidates,
employers and recruitment firms."
NC Careers
This site "is a product of the NC State Occupational Information Committee...an interagency committee responsible for developing and delivering career information and career development products and services. It provides current information about NC occupations, allows the user to match characteristics to occupations, and gives locations and information about NC's post-secondary education and training programs.
North Carolina Employment Security Commission
Provides links to jobs, information about applying for benefits, and statistical data related to the labor market. Also has links to descriptions of jobs available through the NC Employment Security Commission.
North Carolina Office of State Personnel Job Vacancies
Lists all state jobs and contact information. Updated daily.
ThinkCOLLEGE®
The ThinkCOLLEGE® & Career Center, at Main Library, is a community based information and counseling Center open to Charlotte-Mecklenburg students of all ages. The center offers a wide range of services and activities, including one-on-one counseling, college and financial aid application assistance, SAT, ACT and PSAT preparation and, scholarship searches and more. ThinkCOLLEGE and the library also offer workshops and special events – at many PLCMC branches – designed to help students explore college and career options.
Libraries
Charlotte/Mecklenburg Public Library
Charlotte Area Educational Consortium Libraries
Johnson C. Smith University Library
North Carolina State University Library
Queens University Library
State Library of North Carolina
University of North Carolina-Charlotte Library
Maps and Atlases
CNN Weather Maps
Provides local, U. S., and world weather maps and forecasts, with a searchable index
Historical Map Web Sites
This is a comprehensive site with hundreds of links to historical maps including Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Russia, and historical astronomy sites.
National Atlas of the United States
Includes high-quality, small-scale maps and authoritative digital national geospatial
and geostatistical data sets. Examples of geospatial data include soils, boundaries, volcanoes, and principal aquifers. Crime patterns, population distribution, and incidence of disease are examples of geostatistical data. This information is tied to specific geographic areas and is categorized and indexed using different methods, such as county, State, and zip code boundaries or geographic coordinates like latitude and longitude. Also includes easy-to use software for data display, query, and custom information and map making and hot links to atlas sites on the WWW.
National Geographic Atlas
A wonderful, comprehensive source for everything you ever wanted to know about maps. Provides political and physical maps, with facts, flags and profiles. Indexed by country.
MapQuest
An interactive mapping service which provides maps, driving directions, and trip planning in the United States, as well as identifying places of interest. Also provides maps of selected international cities.
World Atlas
This site provides links to simple and detailed maps of continents and countries of the world.
News
Online Newspapers
The world's largest online newspaper directory
Charlotte Observer
The electronic version of this daily Charlotte, N. C., newspaper.
CNN Interactive
Headlines and stories from this cable news channel. Updated 24 hours a day.
Foreign News
Links to selected foreign newspapers.
News and Newspapers Online
Compiled by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro library, this site "lists hundreds of news resources from around the world that offer free access to current, general interest, full-text news."
Raleigh News & Observer
The electronic version of this Raleigh, N. C., newspaper.
Television News Archive
"The Television News Archive collection at Vanderbilt University is the world's most extensive and complete archive of television news. The collection holds more than 30,000 individual network evening news broadcasts and more than
9,000 hours of special news-related programming."
Telephone and Postal Directories
AnyWho
Search for businesses by a variety of criteria including business category, name, city, and state. Provides reverse lookup and email lookup as well as maps and directions.
Businesses Yellow Pages
Provides links to a number of Internet yellow page directories.
Internet 800 Directory
Allows searches by product, service, company name or toll free number.
People White Pages
Provides links to a number of internet telephone directories.
U. S. Postal Service
Provides links to the electronic services offered by the postal service.
Zip+4 Code Lookup
Provides the zip code plus the four number extension.
General Electronic Reference Collections
Bibliomania
This is an online literature library with hundreds of searchable full text classics.
DeskRef Quick Reference Links
Links from Ramapo Catskill Library System, Middletown, NY. covering 27 different subjects.
Internet Public Library Ready Reference Shelf
One of the most comprehensive listings of ready reference sites on the Internet..
Librarians' Index to the Internet
This is a comprehensive searchable site covering a wide range of topics of general interest. An excellent source for quick reference, arranged by subject and subdivisions. Sponsored by the Library of California.
MeL Reference Desk
From the Michigan eLibrary. Many links to lists on a variety of topics.
RefDesk
Provides links to hundreds of newspapers, radio and television stations, columnists, financial news. Also includes links to many quick reference sources. Very comprehensive site, with links to fun things as well, such as puzzles, daily comics, astrology, and many more.
Virtual Reference Shelf: Selected Web Resources Compiled by the Library of Congress
This site gathers a collection of links to Internet sites organized into about thirty subject divisions, including public and university library links organized by state, city, and county.
Yahoo! Reference Links
An excellent directory by topic for hundreds of links to various reference sources.
Search Engines
The following are only a sampling of the search engines available on the Internet.
AltaVista
Indexes the entire Internet, finding any word in most documents published on the World Wide Web or in Usenet discussion groups. Simple searches use natural language searching, and also allow phrase searches and plus or minus to require or exclude words. Advanced searching allows Boolean searching with AND, OR, NOT, and NEAR, limiting by year, and options for ranking. Defaults to OR. Also includes topic searching. Provides free email service.
AskJeeves
Allows searching with words, phrases, or questions. Does not do Boolean searching. For the unsophisticated user.
Excite
Contains a search engine, reviews to selected sites, current news, city information, and newsgroups. Uses concept searching, which searches for the exact words and other words closely linked to the words in your query. Allows phrase searches and plus or minus to require or exclude words, as well as Boolean searching with AND, AND NOT, and OR. Provides free email service.
Google
"Ranks relevant websites based on the link structure of the Internet itself...Google only produces results that match all of your search terms, either in the text of the page or in the link anchors pointing to the page... prioritizes results according to the proximity of search terms." Defaults to AND with multiple search terms. Uses plus sign (+) to search for stop words and minus sign (-) to eliminate a word. Does not support Boolean searching.
HotBot
Provides one form with options for keyword, exact phrase, and Boolean searching with AND, OR, and NOT. Search can be limited by time and geographic location. Allows phrase searching, and plus or minus to require or exclude words. Defaults to AND. Provides browsing by subject, and search tools for usenet, news, business, people, email addresses, classifieds, domain names, stocks, discussion groups, and shareware. Provides free email service.
Lycos
Provides topic searching and web, news, weather and stock searching. Allows phrase searching with quotation marks and plus and minus signs to include or exclude words. Does not do Boolean searching. Searches companies, people, classifieds, people, maps, yellow pages and links to Barnes and Noble and UPS. Provides free email service.
Metacrawler
An easy-to-use fast search engine which searches numerous search engines simultaneously and returns the complete set of results. Sends queries to search engines including Lycos, Infoseek, Webcrawler, Excite, AltaVista, and Yahoo. Ranks results by relevance. Search strategies are determined by the individual search engines.
Savvy Search
Queries multiple Internet search engines simultaneously and returns the complete set of results. Options for searching include requiring all words in the search, any words, or searching as a phrase. Does not allow excluding words.
WebCrawler
Provides topic and general searching, natural language or using quotation marks for phrases, plus and minus signs for including or excluding, and Boolean AND, OR, and NOT. Provides links to music, people finder, classifieds, yellow pages, stocks, weather, and horoscopes. Provides a meta-search of four websites: About, Ask Jeeves, Fast, and FindWhat. Provides free email service.
Yahoo
An excellent directory by topic for hundreds of links to various reference sources. Good starting point for new users. Links into the AltaVista database if nothing is found at Yahoo. Provides free email service.
