General reference resources

“So much has already been written about everything that you can't find out anything about it,” said James Thurber. This page is an attempt to prove Thurber wrong.

“General reference” is a “fuzzy” term, suggesting resources that are too diverse to be confined to a specific subject. If you do not find here a category you are looking for, try these other pages:

Geography	Government	History
Internet	Libraries	News
Universities and colleges	Weather	Writing and literature

Another place that might be helpful in locating resources not listed below is the list of Internet subject guides.

Comprehensive “reference desks”

Refdesk.com
- Home page
- Quick reference/research
Bartleby: Reference
The Reference Desk of Michigan eLibrary
Quick Reference List at Purdue
Reference Shelf at University of California-San Diego
Electronic Reference Sources at Rutgers
Reference Resources of the Internet Public Library
Ready Reference portion of the Internet Library for Librarians
Digital Librarian: A librarian’s choice of the best of the Web [Margaret Vail Anderson]
Internet Collegiate Reference Collection [Bloomsburg University]
Infoplease
iTools
Start Spot Network
Best Information on the Net [O’Keefe Library, St. Ambrose University]
Library Spot
Oxford Reference Collection (restricted to faculty, staff, and students of The University of Memphis)

Encyclopedias

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia Britannica (and other reference sources, too)
Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3rd edition [E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil]
Only the prototype is available at this time, but you might be interested in reading about an online recreation of the pioneering classic Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des artes et des metiérs by Diderot and d’Alembert.

Research

Research and Documentation Online [Diane Hacker]
Research Resources [University of Memphis Libraries]
World Wide Web Research Tools [Robert Harris]
Scholarly Societies Project [University of Waterloo]
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center)

Selected reference subjects

See the note above about other pages maintained at this site which may contain the reference material you are looking for.

Dealing with irritating telephone problems

Identifying and reporting unwanted calls
National Do Not Call Registry
Bypassing automated phone systems (Interactive Voice Response) to talk to a live person
- GetHuman Database
- DialAHuman
HardToFind800Numbers (how to find “hidden” customer service numbers)

Time and calendars

Current time at The University of Memphis
Official U.S. time [National Institute of Standards and Technology]
Current date and time check [U.S. Naval Observatory]
World Time Server
Local Times Around the World
Various types of calendars
Perpetual calendars
Calendars through the Ages [WebExhibits]
Julian date converter [U.S. Naval Observatory]

Statistics

World Wide Web Virtual Library in Statistics [University of Florida Statistics Department]
Statistical Resources on the Web [University of Michigan Documents Center]
Data on the Net
Statistics.com
Statistical Abstract of the United States [U.S. Census Bureau]
Inter-University Consortium on Political and Social Research (“ICPSR”)
Historical Census Browser [Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, University of Virginia Library]
Statistics Every Writer Should Know [Robert Niles]

Cultural

Medical

Health on the Net Foundation
MedTerms Medical Dictionary [MedicineNet.com]
HealthLine
World Health Organization
Merck Manual Home Edition
MEDLINEplus Health Information [National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health]
healthfinder [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]
MayoClinic.com
Healthopedia.com
AllRefer Health
InteliHealth
MedicineNet
WebMD-Health
HealthScout
drkoop.com
National Council Against Health Fraud
Health Care Reality Check [Georgia Council Against Health Fraud]
Alternative medicine resources on the Internet [University of Pittsburg]

Miscellaneous

Acronym finder
Computer-related abbreviations and acronyms [Irving and Richard Kind]
Almanacs
- Yahoo directory of almanacs
- Old Farmer’s Almanac [Yankee Publishing Inc.]
- InfoPlease Almanacs
Awards and prizes [Rutgers]
Calculators and formulas [O’Keefe Library, St. Ambrose University]
Roman numeral converter [Steven Gibbs]
Guiness World Records
How Stuff Works
Legal [Rutgers]
Mythology [Encyclopedia Mythica]
Quotations
- Internet Public Library directory of quotations sites
- Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th edition [Bartleby]
Weights and measures [Rutgers]