Developing the Online Reference Collection (Classroom Connect)
  November 1999 Issue 
 This is the first in a four-part series by Joyce Kasman Valenza <jvalenza@mciunix.mciu.k12.pa.us>, librarian at Springfield Township High School in Erdenheim, PA. Joyce also writes a weekly column, tech.K12, for the Philadelphia Enquirer. Her book Power Tools was published last year by ALA Editions.

Encyclopedias

Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2002-03 Edition
CIA World Factbook
"Webstitutes" vary in quality and scope. Many are more accessible, full replicas of their print counterparts, as in the case of such government publications as the Occupational Outlook Handbook or the CIA World Factbook. 

Bartleby.com: Great Books Online
Because of copyright issues and publishers legitimate desire to turn a profit, other Webstitutes are older or abridged versions of standard tools, like the turn-of-the-century version of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations currently available through Project Bartleby. Is such a tool still valuable? Of course, especially when it is wisely supplemented with several more modern Web databases.

 Encarta Concise Encyclopedia http://encarta.msn.com
 " is both a bargain and a tease. No, it doesn't pack the multimedia punch of the Encarta Deluxe, but it is a good, reliable freebie, and my students find it handy as a starting point for research. Result lists display accessible "free concise encyclopedia" articles, selected Web links from an MSN search, and related news articles from MSNBC. What's the tease? Premium content available to subscribers is noted with dollar signs, and each concise article notes the size of the longer article in the Deluxe version."

 Encyclopedia.com
Also in the bargain/tease category is Infonautic's Encyclopedia.com. Encyclopedia.com returns free articles (over 14,000) from Columbia Concise Encyclopedia and Web links, along with its links to premium (pay content) from Electric Library's huge article and image archives. Both of these products have extensive cross-references, useful in narrowing a topic for research.

Let's Find Out Encyclopedia http://www.letsfindout.com
The Let's Find Out Encyclopedia by Knowledge Quest presents an eclectic assortment of articles especially appealing to elementary users. Its attractive interface, organized by subject, will promote browsing. 

 Complete Funk & Wagnalls http://www.funkandwagnalls.com
Perhaps the best value in free encyclopedias is the Complete Funk & Wagnalls. Though registration is required, the unabridged 29-volume encyclopedia is enriched with multimedia: animations, sounds, music, flags, and maps. Reuter's World News updates the content on the hour, and Random House Webster's College Dictionary provides definitions and fact charts. Users may search all the tools at once or specify whether they'd like to search in each of the individual tools.

Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/
It's not only for parochial schools: the Catholic Encyclopedia has proved an excellent tool for historical and biographical research in my public high school. For a recent project on Thomas More, the Catholic Encyclopedia clearly beat out our general encyclopedias. Though it's truly an old version (1913), for most uses (e.g., saints) this 15-volume encyclopedia does an impressive job.

Alamanacs

Information Please http://www.infoplease.com
Information Please Kids' Almanac http://kids.infoplease.com
No compromise here: the folks at Information Please have been at it since 1947, and they have now given us two rare gifts: Information Please Almanac and Information Please Kids' Almanac. Both pack enormous reference punch and entertainment value.

 Old Farmer's Almanac http://www.almanac.com/
Old Farmer's Almanac is a classic. Though abridged, it's a handy online tool for determining the best fishing days, how to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, and when to plant what. 

Biographical Reference

 Biography.comhttp://www.biography.com/search/index.html
A&E has gathered a database of over 20,000 brief profiles with links to Web sites at Biography.com. The Biographical Dictionary includes more than 27,000 "notable men and women who have shaped our world from ancient times to the present day." The database may be searched by name, birth and death years, positions held, professions, literary and artistic works,

 Lives, the Biography Resource
Lives, the Biography Resource, claims to be the "largest guide to biography sites on the Web." Lives is an excellent *index*; the content is not original. Searches link to thousands of Web sites containing biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, letters, narratives, and oral histories.

 Academy of Achievement  http://www.achievement.org/mainmenu.html
The Academy of Achievement is a multimedia experience, designed as a virtual museum, to "bring the inspiring life stories of this century's eminent achievers to the fingertips of every student, teacher, and parent." Biographies are supplemented by interviews and quotes, and include audio and video of their subjects.

Classical Music All Stars  http://www.culturefinder.com/cgi-bin/dbm/content/music/allstar

Distinguished Women Past and Present  http://www.teleport.com/~megaines/woindex.html

Faces of Science: African Americans in the Sciences http://www.lib.lsu.edu/lib/chem/display/faces.html

 Gale Group Free Resources  http://www.galegroup.com/freresrc/index.htm

Great Economists & Their Times  http://www.frbsf.org/econedu/unfrmd.great/greattimes.html

Lives, the Biography Resource  http://members.home.net/klanxner/lives/index.html

National Women's Hall of Fame http://www.greatwomen.org/index.html

Nobel Prize Internet Archive   http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/nobel.html

Time Man of the Year Archive   http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/special/moy/moypast.html

4000 Years of Women in Science   http://crux.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/4000WS.html

Reference Gateways 
If all of these seem like too much work, there is an easier route. Simply bookmark or link to some of these exceptional reference gateways:

Digital Librarian: Reference  http://www.servtech.com/~mvail/reference.html

DeskRef  http://ansernet.rcls.org/deskref/

Internet Public Library Ready Reference http://www.ipl.org/ref/RR/

Martindale's Reference Desk  http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/~martindale/Ref.html

My Virtual Reference Desk  http://www.refdesk.com/

New York Times Navigator http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/navigator/index.html#ref

Ready Reference Galaxy  http://www.einet.net/galaxy/Reference.html

Reference Shelf  http://alabanza.com/kabacoff/Inter-Links/reference.html

Research-It!  http://www.iTools.com/research-it/

Researchpaper.com http://www.researchpaper.com

Scholes Library Electronic Reference Desk http://scholes.alfred.edu/ref_desk/ref.html

Study Web Reference  http://www.studyweb.com/

THOR Virtual Reference Desk 

Virtual Reference Desk  http://thorplus.lib.purdue.edu/reference/

Yahoo Reference  http://dir.yahoo.com/reference/index.html