Research+Tools


 * __ Social Bookmarking-- Keep Track of Your Bookmarks Online and Find New Ones Easily __**

● ** Diigo ** [|http://www.diigo.com] (Allows you to bookmark, highlight, and add sticky notes, documents, images and notes to web pages. You can share bookmarks with others and find out what other people are bookmarking.)

● ** Delicious ** [|http://www.delicious.com] (Save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are bookmarking. It also means that we can show you the most popular bookmarks being saved right now across many areas of interest. In addition, our search and tagging tools help you keep track of your entire bookmark collection and find tasty new bookmarks from people like you.)

**__ Librarian-Vetted Resources: __**

● ** Internet Public Library ** [|http://ipl.org] (ipl2 is a public service organization and a learning/teaching environment. To date, thousands of students and volunteer library and information science professionals have been involved in answering reference questions for our Ask an ipl2 Librarian service and in designing, building, creating and maintaining the ipl2's collections. It is the result of a merger between IPL and LII, The Librarian’s Internet Index.)

● ** Library Spot: ** [|http://libraryspot.com] (a free virtual library resource center for educators and students, librarians and their patrons, families, businesses and just about anyone exploring the Web for valuable research information)

● ** Wikipedia Selection 08/09 ** [] ( This is a free, hand-checked, non-commercial selection from Wikipedia, targeted around the UK National Curriculum and useful for much of the English speaking world. It has about 5500 articles (as much as can be fitted on a DVD with good size images) and is about the size of a twenty volume encyclopaedia (34,000 images and 20 million words). This selection of topics have been carefully chosen, tidied up, and checked for vandalism and suitability. The content is available for [|free] [|download] [|from] [|the] [|SOS] [|Children] [|website] or as a 3.5GB free DVD, as well as being searchable online.)

● ** Infotopia ** [|http://www.infotopia.info] (Infotopia is an academic search engine accessing only trusted websites previously selected by librarians, teachers and library and educational consortia. It is maintained by Dr. Michael Bell, former chair of the Texas Association of School Librarians.)

● ** Sweet Search ** [] (FindingDulcinea presents only credible, high-quality and trustworthy Web sites, saving time for the novice and the experienced user alike. Each piece, whether a Web Guide, a Beyond the Headlines story or a Netcetera article, receives the same meticulous research. The Web sites included in each piece are connected through original narrative, providing users with information on each site before they even click on it.)

● ** Citizendium ** [] (“Our growing number of editor-approved articles are reliable and of world class quality, rivaling the best printed encyclopedias.”)

● ** BUBL LINK ** **Catalogue of Internet Resources** [] (Selected Internet resources covering all academic subject areas, primarily organized by Dewey Decimal Classification )

● ** Dewey Digger ** [] (“Explore knowledge via the Dewey Decimal Classification”)

**SortFix** powered by Google, search the web in a new way, a little like Wonder Wheel: >
 * [|__http://www.sortfix.com/__]

● ** Library of Congress Digital Collections and Services ** [] (Access to print, pictorial and audio-visual collections and other digital services)

● ** Beyond Google – Improve Your Search ** [] (Fifteen tools and strategies for helping students (and colleagues) to explore the web beyond the first two pages of Google results. I wasn’t able to get this to work at school, but could at home.)

**__ Directories, Etc. __**

● ** Virtual LRC ** [] (The mission of the Virtual Learning Resources Center is to index thousands of the best academic information websites, selected by teachers and library professionals worldwide, in order to provide to students and teachers current, valid information for school and university academic projects! The Virtual LRC is both a dedicated index of over 10,000 web pages maintained by a real human being, as well as a meta-search engine that includes in its results information gleaned from many of the best research portals and university and public library Internet subject guides recommended by teachers and librarians.)

● ** Complete Planet – The Deep Web Directory ** [|http://www.completeplanet.com] (A comprehensive listing of dynamic searchable databases. Find databases with highly relevant documents that cannot be crawled or indexed by surface web search engines.)

**__ Higher Level Research __** ● ** Scholarpedia ** __ [|http://scholarpedia.org] __ (peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia written by scholars from all around the world. Each article is written by an expert. Each article is anonymously peer reviewed to ensure accurate and reliable information. Each article has a curator -- typically its author -- who is responsible for its content. Any modification of the article needs to be approved by the curator before it appears in the final, //approved// version.)

● ** WebLens ** [] (WebLens features links to thousands of the Net's most popular search engines, directories, metasearch tools, music and image searchers, people finders, company locators, reference tools, job databases, recipe archives, scholarly research resources and more. Be sure to check out the links on the left side of the page, especially “Main Search” and “Search Help.”)

● ** Online Education Database ** [] (Includes links to [|Deep] [|Web] [|Search] [|Engines] | [|Art] | [|Books] [|Online] | [|Business] | [|Consumer] | [|Economic] [|and] [|Job] [|Data] | [|Finance] [|and] [|Investing] | [|General] [|Research] | [|Government] [|Data] | [|International] | [|Law] [|and] [|Politics] | [|Library] [|of] [|Congress] | [|Medical] [|and] [|Health] | [|Science] | [|Transportation]. Some links may be outdated, but many other useful ones are included .)

==== ● **Online Universities ** [] (Undergraduates and grad students alike will appreciate the usefulness of these search engines that allow them to find books, journal articles and even primary source material for whatever kind of research they’re working on and that return only serious, academic results so time isn’t wasted on unprofessional resources.)  ====

● ** INFOMINE ** [] (INFOMINE is a virtual library of Internet resources relevant to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It contains useful Internet resources such as databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other types of information. INFOMINE is librarian built. Librarians from the University of California, Wake Forest University, California State University, the University of Detroit - Mercy, and other universities and colleges have contributed to building INFOMINE.)

**__ Language Arts- Specific __**

● ** BookSpot ** [] (BookSpot.com is a free resource center that simplifies the search for the best book-related content on the Web. Featured sites are hand-selected by BookSpot.com editors and organized into intuitive categories, such as bestseller lists, genres, book reviews, electronic texts, book news and more.)

● ** Bibliomania Reference ** [] (This is where you can find, in one place, fully searchable copies of your favourite language reference books, including dictionaries, books of quotations, synonyms, thesaurus, and literary sources.)

**__ Research Planners: __**

● ** Research Project Calculator ** [] (offers students a simple and comprehensive five-step model for navigating the research process)

● ** Assignment Calculator ** [] (original, college-level version Research Project Calculator; provides research hints and suggestions for each step of the research process)

**__ Search Assistance/ Suggestions: __**

● ** Make Search Engines Work Better for You ** []

● ** Ten Steps to Better Web Research: ** []

● ** 100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of ** []

**__ Other Help: __**

● ** High School Ace ** [] (A guide to some of the best free educational websites for teens. Includes news, subject guides, Quiz Hub, search tools, reference sites, games and puzzles.)

● ** Directory of Open Access Journals ** [] (“This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. We aim to cover all subjects and languages. There are now 5693 journals in the directory. Currently 2439 journals are searchable at article level. As of today 479157 articles are included in the DOAJ service.”)