Child Online Protection Act Overturned

Wed, 07/23/2008 - 09:07 — Blake

A federal appeals court struck down as unconstitutional a Clinton-era law that would have forced websites with adult material to verify visitors' ages, dealing another blow to the government in a 10-year court battle over net censorship.

The 3rd U.S. Circurt Court of Appeals upheld on Tuesday a 2007 lower-court decision that the Child Online Protection Act violated the First Amendment since it was not the most effective way to keep children from visiting adult websites.

This Cuban library lends DVDs about state torture

A government critic's collection includes Bibles, books by Cuban defectors, and positive biographies about Fidel Castro. THE ERNEST HEMINGWAY LIBRARY: That’s what Carlos Serpa, a government critic, calls his home library in Isla de la Juventud, Cuba. His collection includes Bibles, books by Cuban defectors, and positive biographies about Fidel Castro and “Che” Guevara.

They Used -What- as a Bookmark? by birdie

Always good as a conversation starter...the things people leave in books that are not traditional bookmarks. Thousands of dollars, a Christmas card signed by Frank Baum, a Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card, a marriage certificate from 1879, a baby’s tooth, a diamond ring and a handwritten poem by Irish writer Katharine Tynan Hickson are just some of the stranger objects discovered by booksellers. And then there's the strip of bacon.

Abebooks has a listing of these items...some mundane, some bizarre, some deeply personal. What have you found?

Guide of the Week: Federal Budget Process

There are few things more complicated than the US federal budget process. This week's guide:

U.S. Government Documents: The Budget Process (Jerry Breeze, Columbia University, 1999) Last Updated sometime in 2008

Can help you untangle the fiscal knots that is the United States Budget. This selective guide points to information about the current budget, including state by state budget impacts as well as historical data and background materials.

This guide also has a federal budget calendar which can help you see when different budget publications becomes available. Finally, Jerry provides a section on News and Commentary which draws from non-governmental sources.

The next time you are faced with a concerned citizen or a student writing about an aspect of the US budget, point them to this guide. Then see what else is available from the Handout Exchange. Don't see the subject you're looking for? If you're a documents librarian why not research the subject yourself, put a guide together and link that to the Exchange? Or build a guide on the Exchange wiki itself?

Keep Up With Technology, Keep Up With Teens

Since 2002, there has been a 15 percent increase in circulation and a 40 percent increase in visits, so reports the Conshocton Tribune(Central Ohio).

Young adult librarian RoseMary Honnold explains: "That grew out of a meeting I had with a tech club that I specifically put together to see what teens would be interested in. They asked for free Internet time and we talked about gaming. We acquired funds from various sources and add equipment as we go." Currently the library has a Nintendo Wii, a Playstation 2, the game Rock Band for the PS2, ten laptops and laptop games. Games can be projected on a movie screen through the use of a projector.

"I just come down to have fun. I check my MySpace, I play Rock Band, I hang out with my friends," said Justine Givens, 16. "It's a great place for teens to hang out."

$1 Million to study video games

by effinglibrarian

School of Information Awarded $1.2 Million from IMLS for The Study of Digital Librarianship, Video Game Industry

"The School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin has received $1.2 million from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) to prepare students for librarianship in a digital world..."

Aren't library schools supposed to prepare students for librarianship in whatever world exists at the time? So up to the point of awarding this grant, library schools have only been preparing students for librarianship in the Bronze age world? the Stone world? the strange World of Sid and Marty Krofft?

"The project will focus on providing doctoral students with a deep understanding of digital librarianship..." Oh, they have money for the new nerds. Nerd 2.0.

"Assistant Professor Megan Winget was awarded $255,040 to advance her research in the video game industry's methods, behaviors and attitudes for the purpose of building more meaningful models of collection and preservation of complex, community-built digital creations."

Preservation of video games? Yeah, they're called Ziploc bags. I think the one-gallon size will hold a Sony PlayStation. Buy some kitchen garbage bags for a PS3. For $250,000, you should be able to stock up.

Why are they studying the video game industry for preservation? The industry's view has never supported backwards compatibility, hence no preservation, only disposal and the purchase of new hardware. The only preservation in the gaming world is done by individuals and fans of video games.

The story says that part of the grant is to educate professors on archival storage, which I guess means to teach them to not touch the contacts on the Atari 2600 game cart. I can see these archivists discussing the best way to bag that Intellivision console, whether the controllers should be bagged individually or in pairs, and in what temperature to store it all for future generations. I wonder if they know about the landfill piled high with ET: the Extra-Terrestrial Atari 2600 carts.

Tell them to call me if they want a box of Atari ST or 3DO games. Yeah, 3DO; I even owned stock in the company. Yeah, I'm a dope.

Library confrontation points up privacy dilemma

Library Director Amy Grasmick sits in the Kimball Public Library's children's room where public access...

RANDOLPH, Vt. - Children's librarian Judith Flint was getting ready for the monthly book discussion group for 8- and 9-year-olds on "Love That Dog" when police showed up.

They weren't kidding around: Five state police detectives wanted to seize Kimball Public Library's public access computers as they frantically searched for a 12-year-old girl, acting on a tip that she sometimes used the terminals.

Flint demanded a search warrant, touching off a confrontation that pitted the privacy rights of library patrons against the rights of police on official business.

"It's one of the most difficult situations a library can face," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of intellectual freedom issues for the American Library Association.

Investigators did obtain a warrant about eight hours later, but the June 26 standoff in the 105-year-old, red brick library on Main Street frustrated police and had fellow librarians cheering Flint.

"What I observed when I came in were a bunch of very tall men encircling a very small woman," said the library's director, Amy Grasmick, who held fast to the need for a warrant after coming to the rescue of the 4-foot-10 Flint.

Library records and patron privacy have been hot topics since the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Library advocates have accused the government of using the anti-terrorism law to find out — without proper judicial oversight or after-the-fact reviews — what people research in libraries.

But the investigation of Brooke Bennett's disappearance wasn't a Patriot Act case.

"We had to balance out the fact that we had information that we thought was true that Brooke Bennett used those computers to communicate on her MySpace account," said Col. James Baker, director of the Vermont State Police. "We had to balance that out with protecting the civil liberties of everybody else, and this was not an easy decision to make."

Brooke, from Braintree, vanished the day before the June 26 confrontation in the children's section of the tiny library. Investigators went to the library chasing a lead that she had used the computers there to arrange a rendezvous.

Brooke was found dead July 2. An uncle, convicted sex offender Michael Jacques, has since been charged with kidnapping her. Authorities say Jacques had gotten into her MySpace account and altered postings to make investigators believe she had run off with someone she met online.

Flint was firm in her confrontation with the police.

"The lead detective said to me that they need to take the public computers and I said `OK, show me your warrant and that will be that,'" said Flint, 56. "He did say he didn't need any paper. I said `You do.' He said `I'm just trying to save a 12-year-old girl,' and I told him `Show me the paper.'"

Cybersecurity expert Fred H. Cate, a law professor at Indiana University, said the librarians acted appropriately.

"If you've told all your patrons `We won't hand over your records unless we're ordered to by a court,' and then you turn them over voluntarily, you're liable for anything that goes wrong," he said.

A new Vermont law that requires libraries to demand court orders in such situations took effect July 1, but it wasn't in place that June day. The library's policy was to require one.

The librarians did agree to shut down the computers so no one could tamper with them, which had been a concern to police.

Once in police hands, how broadly could police dig into the computer hard drives without violating the privacy of other library patrons?

Baker wouldn't discuss what information was gleaned from the computers or what state police did with information about other people, except to say the scope of the warrant was restricted to the missing girl investigation.

"The idea that they took all the computers, it's like data mining," said Caldwell-Stone. "Now, all of a sudden, since you used that computer, your information is exposed to law enforcement and can be used in ways that (it) wasn't intended.'"

Art Garfunkel's Favorite Books

[Thanks to Anonymous for this post]

Since the 1960's, Art Garfunkel has been a voracious reader. Since 1968, Mr. Garfunkel has been keeping a list of every book he has read.(Index of Books). We also present the following list of books which have been designated by Mr. Garfunkel as his favorites. The books are indexed here in the order in which they were read.

1.	Jun 1968	Jean-Jacques Rousseau	The Confessions	1781	606 pp.
2.	Jun 1968	Erich Fromm	The Art of Loving	1956	146 pp.
3.	Oct 1968	P.D. Ouspensky	In Search of the Miraculous	1949	389 pp.
4.	Feb 1969	L.N. Tolstoy	War and Peace	1869	1444 pp.
5.	May 1969	Philip Roth	Portnoy's Complaint	1969	274 pp.
6.	Sep 1969	Emily Brontë	Wuthering Heights	1847	320 pp.
7.	Jan 1970	Johann Wolfgang Goethe	The Sorrows of Young Werther	1774	199 pp.
8.	Mar 1970	Garrett Mattingly	The Armada	1959	402 pp.
9.	Mar 1971	Bill Moyers	Listening to America	1971	342 pp.
10.	Jul 1971	Charlotte Brontë	Jane Eyre	1947	477 pp.
11.	Jan 1972	L. N. Tolstoy	Anna Karenina	1873	852 pp.
12.	Mar 1972	Albert Schweitzer	J.S. Bach, Vol. 1	1911	428 pp.
13.	Oct 1973	Jane Austen	Pride and Prejudice	1797	430 pp.
14.	Oct 1974	Sir Arthur Conan Doyle	The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes	1892	248 pp.
15.	Feb 1975	Robert A. Caro	The Power Broker	1974	1162 pp.
16.	Jun 1975	Henry James	Portrait of a Lady	1881	545 pp.
17.	Dec 1976	John S. Shelton	Geology Illustrated	1966	424 pp.
18.	Jan 1977	Saul Bellow	Humboldt's Gift	1973	472 pp.
19.	May 1977	C.G. Jung	Modern Man in Search of a Soul	1933	244 pp.
20.	May 1977	Charles Chaplin	My Autobiography	1964	497 pp.
21.	Sep 1977	Stephen King	The Shining	1977	447 pp.
22.	Jul 1977	Bulfinch	Mythology	1855	236 pp.
23.	Apr 1978	Charles Darwin	The Origin of Species	1859	460 pp.
24.	Apr 1978	Robert M. Persig	Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance	1974	406 pp.
25.	May 1978	Erik Erikson	Childhood and Society	1950	424 pp.
26.	May 1978	Marcel Proust	Swann's Way	1928	325 pp.
27.	Jul 1978	Plato	The Last Days of Socrates Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo	390 b.c.	199 pp.
28.	Aug 1978	Fydor Dostoevsky	The Idiot		642 pp.
29.	Sep 1978	Robertson Davies	Fifth Business	1970	268 pp.
30.	Dec 1978	Jack Kerouac	On the Road	1955	310 pp.
31.	Aug 1979	Jean Rhys	Good Morning, Midnight	1974	190 pp.
32.	Sep 1979	Richard Price	Ladies' Man	1978	264 pp.
33.	Sep 1979	Jean Rhys	Voyage in the Dark	1934	159 pp.
34.	Nov 1979	Thomas Hardy	Jude the Obscure	1896	164 pp.
35.	De 1979	Jonathan Swift	Gulliver's Travels	1726	360 pp.
36.	Jan. 1980	Isaac Bashevis Singer	The Slave	1962	287 pp.
37.	Sep 1980	Jean Dorst	The Life of Birds, vol. 1	1971	341 pp.
38.	Sep 1980	Marcel Proust	Within a Budding Grove	1920	386 pp.
39.	Feb 1981	Edward Gibbon	The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged)	1787	713 pp.
40.	Feb 1981	J. P. Donleavy	The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman	1977	402 pp.
41.	Mar 1981	James Joyce	A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man	1916	253 pp.
42.	Jun 1981	Gary Zukav	The Dancing Wu Li Masters	1979	332 pp.
43.	Jul 1981	David Halberstam	The Powers That Be	1979	1027 pp.
44.	Oct 1981	Saint Augustine	Confessions	398 a.d.	347 pp.
45.	Jan 1982	Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra	Don Quixote	1604	940 pp.
46.	Jan 1982	Virginia Woolf	A Room of One's Own	1929	118 pp.
47.	Feb 1982	Baldesar Castiglione	The Book of the Courtier	1518	345 pp.
48.	Mar 1982	D.M. Thomas	The White Hotel	1981	240 pp.
49.	Apr 1982	Leon Edel	Henry James - The Middle Years: 1882--1895	1962	389 pp.
50.	Jun 1982	Johan Huizinga	The Waning of the Middle Ages	1919	335 pp.
51.	Jun 1982	Honoré de Balzac	The Black Sheep	1842	339 pp.
52.	Oct 1982	Robert G. Weisbord	Ebony Kinship	1973	220 pp.
53.	Feb 1983	William James	The Varieties of Religious Experience	1902	500 pp.
54.	Mar 1983	Thornton Wilder	The Bridge of San Luis Rey	1927	124 pp.
55.	Jun 1983	Emil Ludwig	Napoleon	1926	682 pp.
56.	Aug 1983	Henry David Thoreau	Walden	1854	247 pp.
57.	Aug 1983	Peter Gay	The Enlightenment (The Rise of Modern Paganism)	1966	419 pp.
58.	Sep 1983	W. Somerset Maugham	The Razor's Edge	1944	314 pp.
59.	Sep 1983	Vladimir Nabokov	Lectures on Literature	1980	382 pp.
60.	Jan. 1984	James Joyce	Ulysses	1921	783 pp.
61.	Mar 1984	J.D. Salinger	Nine Stories	1953	198 pp.
62.	Ap. 1984	Thomas Mann	The Confessions of Felix Krull Confidence Man (The Early Years)	1955	378 pp.
63.	May 1984	L.N. Tolstoy	What is Art?	1896	191 pp.
64.	Oct 1984	Iris Murdoch	A Severed Head	1961	205 pp.
65.	Jan 1985	William M. Thackeray	Vanity Fair	1847	636 pp.
66.	Feb 1985	Thornton Wilder	The Ides of March	1948	204 pp.
67.	Mar 1985	Constantin Stanislavski	An Actor Prepares	1936	295 pp.
68.	May 1985	Harriet Beecher Stowe	Uncle Tom's Cabin	1852	590 pp.
69.	Jun 1985	Lucretius	On the Nature of the Universe	c. 54 bc.	256 pp.
70.	Jul 1985	Marcel Proust	The Guermantes Way	1925	425 pp.
71.	Aug 1985	Lao Tsu	Tao Te Ching	6 Cent. bc.	81 pp.
72.	Sep 1985	L.N. Tolstoy	Confession	1879	93 pp.
73.	Oct 1985	Richard Ellmann	James Joyce	1959	744 pp.
74.	Oct 1985	Herodotus	The Histories	446 bc.	624 pp.
75.	Nov 1985	Edith Wharton	The House of Mirth	1905	329 pp.
76.	Jan 1986	Virgil	The Aeneid	30-19bc.	336 pp.
77.	Ap. 1986	Julian Jaynes	The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind	1976	446 pp.
78.	Sep 1986	William Kennedy	Ironweed	1983	227 pp.
79.	Nov 1986	Vladimir Nabokov	The Enchanter	1939	95 pp.
80.	Dec 1986	Harold C. Schonberg	The Lives of the Great Composers	1970	627 pp.
81.	Dec 1986	David A. Stockman	The Triumph of Politics	1986	411 pp.
82.	Jan 1987	Thomas Hobbes	Leviathan	1651	729 pp.
83.	May 1987	Carrie Fisher	Postcards from the Edge	1987	218 pp.
84.	Jun 1987	Marcel Proust	Cities of the Plain	1913	378 pp.
85.	Oct 1987	Rudyard Kipling	Just So Stories	1902	158 pp.
86.	Oct 1987	Peter Ladefoged	Elements of Acoustic Phonetics	1962	108 pp.
87.	Nov 1987	Mark Twain	Life on the Mississippi	1882	352 pp.
88.	Feb 1988	Fyodor Dostoevsky	Notes from the Underground	1864	158 pp.
89.	Apr 1988	George Eliot	Middlemarch	1872	908 pp.
90.	Jun 1988	Francis Parkman	The Oregon Trail	1849	286 pp.
91.	Jan 1989	Charles Dickens	Bleak House	1853	975 pp.
92.	Mar 1989	E.L. Doctorrow	Billy Bathgate	1989	323 pp.
93.	Jul 1989	Brenda Maddox	Nora - The Real Life of Molly Bloom	1988	381 pp.
94.	Aug 1989	Sanche de Gramont	Epitaph for Kings	1969	428 pp.
95.	Oct 1989	Sigmund Freud	Civilization and Its Discontents	1930	104 pp.
96.	Jul 1990	Mark Twain	Innocents Abroad	1867	492 pp.
97.	Jul 1990	Sylvia Plath	The Bell Jar	1963	216 pp.
98.	Nov 1990	Thomas Mann	The Magic Mountain	1927	716 pp.
99.	Nov 1990	Fredric Dannen	Hit Men	1990	327 pp.
100.	Feb 1991	Will and Ariel Durant	The Story of Civilization VIII: The Age of Louis XIV	1963	74 pp.
101.	Mar 1991	Thomas L. Friedman	From Beirut to Jerusalem	1989	525 pp.
102.	Apr 1991	Marcus Aurelius	The Meditations	177 ad.	129 pp.
103.	May 1991	Marcel Proust	The Captive	1921	289 pp.
104.	Au. 1991	Oscar Hijuelos	The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love	1989	407 pp.
105.	Nov 1991	John Updike	Rabbit, Run	1960	249 pp.
106.	Nov 1991	William Styron	The Confessions of Nat Turner	1966	429 pp.
107.	Jan 1992	H.G. Wells	A Short History of the World	1922	357 pp.
108.	Feb 1992	Swami Prabhavananda	The Sermon on the Mount according to Vendanta	1963	126 pp.
109.	Apr 1992	Nathaniel Hawthorne	The House of Seven Gables	1851	245 pp.
110.	Dec 1992	Camille Paglia	Sex, Art and American Culture	1992	287 pp.
111.	Fe. 1993	Hermann Hesse	Demian	1919	179 pp.
112.	May 1994	Franz Kafka	The Trial	1920	256 pp.
113.	May 1994	Daneil Defoe	A Journal of the Plague Year	1725	256 pp.
114.	May 1994	Jean Rhys	After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie	1931	191 pp.
115.	Aug 1994	Henry Kissinger	Diplomacy	1994	835 pp.
116.	Dec 1994	Gustav Janouch	Conversations with Kafka	1923	201 pp.
117.	Jan 1995	Samuel Butler	The Way of All Flesh	1903	444 pp.
118.	Apr 1995	Stendahl	The Red and the Black	1830	574 pp.
119.	Mar 1996	Robert D. Kaplan	Balkan Ghosts	1993	300 pp.
120	Ma. 1996	Gustave Flaubert	Flaubert in Egypt	1850	222 pp.
121.	Jun 1997	Charles and Mary Lamb	Tales from Shakespeare	1807	313 pp.
122.	Oct 1997	Keith B. Richburg	Out of America	1997	254 pp.
123.	Dec 1997	David Denby	Great Books	1996	463 pp.
124.	May 1998	Patrick Süskind	Perfume	1985	263 pp.
125.	Au. 1998	Ralph Ellison	Invisible Man	1952	469 pp.
126.	Nov 1998	D.H. Lawrence	Sons and Lovers	1913	484 pp.
127.	Feb 1999	Arthur Golden	Memoirs of a Geisha	1997	428 pp.
128.	Apr 1999	Russell Banks	Cloudsplitter	1998	758 pp.
129.	Oct 1999	Dan Kindlon, Michael Thompson	Raising Cain	1999	267 pp.
130.	May 2000	Zora Neale Hurston	Their Eyes Were Watching God	1937
131.	Aug 2000	Jacques Barzun	From Dawn to Decadence	2000
132.	Nov 2000	Jakob Walter	The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier	1830
133.	Mar 2002	Elizabeth Gaskell	Wives and Daughters	1866
134.	Dec 2002	Harold Nicolson	Good Behavior	1955	285 pp.
135.	Feb 2003	Charles Bukowski	Post Office	1971	196 pp.

100 Unbelievably Useful Reference Sites You’ve Never Heard Of

By Laura Milligan

Beyond Google, Wikipedia and other generic reference sites, the Internet boasts a multitude of search engines, dictionaries, reference desks and databases that have organized and archived information for quick and easy searches. In this list, we’ve compiled just 100 of our favorites, for teachers, students, hypochondriacs, procrastinators, bookworms, sports nuts and more.

Dictionaries and More

When you need a quick definition or want more specialized results that display synonyms, rhyming words and slang, turn to this list.

1. OneLook: This no-frills online dictionary lets you look up basic definitions, related words, phrases and more. You can even customize your experience with different searches.
2. RhymeZone: Type in a word to find rhyming words, synonyms, definitions, Shakespeare references and more.
3. Strange and Unusual References: Head to this site to look up all-vowel words, magic words, magic archetypes, how to identify unicorns and other odd material.
4. freedict.com: This online translator can find words in Dutch, Afrikaans, Russian, Portugese, Swedish, Japanese, Hungarian and more.
5. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Search through topics like technology, American history, literature in English, proverbs and more to become a more "active citizen in our multicultural democracy."
6. Word Spy: Search for a specific word to bring up funny quotations and a definition, or you can browse categories and sub categories like aging and death, hacking and hackers, entrepreneurs, jargon and buzzwords, art and design, drugs, euphemisms, sleeping or cell phones.
7. Slang Site: Look up Web words, slang and even made up but often used words here.
8. Behind the Names: Find out the history of your name or search names by categories like English, Spanish, mythology, Biblical names, African and more.
9. Directory of Occupational Titles: If you’ve ever wanted to know the official name of your job, look it up here.
10. Glossary of Real Estate Abbreviations, Terms and Phrases: Get through your next home signing by doing some extra research on this site.

Teacher References

Teacher guides like these will help you double-check facts, look for relevant quotes and get ideas for lesson plans.

11. Twain Quotations A to Z: Inspire (or confuse) your students by throwing out a Mark Twain quote every once in a while. You can search by subject matter.
12. Math Glossary: Look up words and concepts like abacus, Thales’ theorem, obtuse triangle and a lot more in this special site.
13. Biology Website References for Students and Teachers: Learn about evolution, cell chemistry, anatomy and genetics from this list of reference sites.
14. Children’s Literature Web Guide: Look for award-winning children’s books, readers’ theatre sites, stories published online and more on this site.
15. Charles Dickens Gad’s Hill Place: Use this quote page to search by topic, title, or phrase, or pull from The Daily Dose of Dickens book.
16. Encyclopedia Mythica: Search for text, quotes and history of mythology, folklore and religon. Categories include Greek people, Celtic mythology and Roman mythology.
17. American Memory: The Library of Congress’ American culture and history reference site features topics like environment and conservation, immigration, women’s history, Presidents, religion, maps, literature, African American history and others.
18. ASL Browser: Look up American Sign Language signs here.
19. Ditto: Search the web for all kinds of beautiful images on this site.
20. Learning and Performance Glossary: From accelerated learning to guidance package to meta skills, this glossary is full of education terms for teachers.

Librarian References

Librarians will benefit from these great reference sites, some of which were designed just for or by librarians.

21. A Glossary of the Humanities: Click on a letter to look up words, phrases and concepts that use references from Foucault, Burke, Frye and others as definitions.
22. Library of Congress Online Catalogs: We’re pretty sure most librarians have heard of this site, but it’s seriously one of the best reference sites on the Web.
23. Historical Text Archives: This site boasts nearly 687 articles and 70 books about history, especially American history.
24. KidsClick!: This educational search engine was created by librarians and is organized by topics like society and government, machines and transportation, health and family, facts and reference, and a lot more.
25. Library Spot: This great reference site has links to encyclopedias, Top 10 lists, business references, public libraries and a LOT more.

Just for Fun

Search for unique profanity, sex terms and ridiculously long words here.

26. The Dialectizer: Paste a URL into the box and select a dialect like Redneck, Cockney or Elmer Fudd to have the whole site translated.
27. The Devil’s Dictionary: This adapted version of Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary contains words like brute, gallows, damn, wrath, and X.
28. Sexual Dictionary: Look up quotes for "doin’ the wild thing" here, as well as other slang terms for sex.
29. Grandiloquent Dictionary: Impress your friends by using huge words you found here.
30. Roger’s Profanisaurus: Have fun looking up profane words at "the ultimate swearing dictionary."

Health Care

Instead of Googling your symptoms, use these authoritative reference sites to get drug information, find a hospital and research a disease or condition.

31. Medline Plus: Look up anything to do with health care on this site from, prescription drugs to local resources to symptoms and diseases.
32. RxList: RxList is "the Internet drug index," and you search by prescriptions dispensed, names searched or just by letter.
33. Google Directory - Health and Medicine: Categories and individual web pages are listed on this Google reference site. Browse topics like health news, history of medicine, medical dictionaries or patient education.
34. Patient Care: Columbia University Medical Center lists a number of patient resources, including tools for finding a doctor, dentist and hospital.
35. MediLexicon: At MediLexicon, you can use the medical dictionary search, hospital search, medical abbreviations search or read all the latest medical news.
36. InteliHealth: This reference site has an Ask the Expert section, as well as a database full of information for diseases and conditions, from asthma to digestive issues to weight management to STDs.
37. Healthfinder: This government site features a Drug Interaction Checker, a Health Library and consumer guides.
38. The Merck Manual: Search this online medical library for diseases and conditions and drug products.
39. Bristol Biomedical Image Archive: Browse thousands of biomedical images on this site.
40. Online Medical Dictionary: This simple search tool lets you browse by letter or subject area.

References for Students

From homework help to art definitions to almanacs, students of all ages will find reference material here.

41. Online Music Theory Helper: Order flash cards or look up different theory lessons on this site.
42. ArtLex: Browse this art terms dictionary for historical context information, definitions and more.
43. The Works of the Bard: Use the Shakespeare search engine or browse plays by category to get references and text of Shakespeare’s works.
44. Factmonster Reference Desk: Here, you’ll find an almanac, homework center, atlas, dictionary and encyclopedia for younger students.
45. Little Explorers Picture Dictionary: Students learning to read will find pictures to go along with their definition results.
46. Distance Education Glossary: If you’ve recently enrolled in a distance ed course or program, use this glossary to help you navigate your new education portal.
47. HyperHistory Online: There are over 2,000 files on this site, on all kinds of world history topics like politics, religion, culture, science and special events.
48. Style Guides and Resources: This reference list will help you out when you need to write a paper using APA, MLA, and other special citation systems.
49. Statistical Resources on the Web: Find updated statistics on everything from agriculture to business to labor to housing to the military.
50. RefDesk: Check your facts quickly and easily at the RefDesk, which features a site of the day, thought of the day, and plenty of multi-search tools.

Niche Sites

When you need to look up highly specialized materials and facts, look to these niche sites for help with online conversions, transportation and military acronyms, legal help and more.

51. Dictionary of Metal Terminology: Search online or order the hard copy version to find metal-related words.
52. Online Conversion: Convert "just about anything" on this site, which understands over 5,000 different units for date, time, density, energy, acceleration, angles and a lot more.
53. Transportation and Logistics Acronyms: Find acronyms for the U.S. government and military, supply chain systems, transportation, trucking, freight and more.
54. Harry Potter Glossary: If you’re behind in your Harry Potter reading, use this extensive glossary to help you sort out all of the characters and unique vocabulary.
55. Videoconferencing Glossary: Even non-techies can understand the fundamentals of videoconferencing thanks to this website, which lists definitions for words like analog signals, camera presets, bps, continuos presence and others.
56. Everybody’s Legal Glossary: Nolo’s legal glossary is designed for everyday people who need help understanding traffic tickets, real estate forms, and "hundreds of legal terms, from the common to the bizarre."
57. All About Jewels: Illustrated Dictionary of Jewelry: Find a picture of each gem or jewelry and learn about its minerals, fashion history, gravity and colors.
58. Dictionary of English Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions: ESL students and curious native speakers can search this dictionary to find idioms like "part and parcel," or "gnaw your vitals."
59. WestNet IT Glossary: Search results for IT words bring up definitions, a list of related words, animations and graphics.
60. Travel Industry Dictionary: Look up words and acronyms like gay friendly, day rate, WAPTT, recall commission statement and more on this site.

Search Engines

Search engines are unique Internet reference guides. Read this list to find lots of search engines besides Google.

61. Giga Blast: Giga Blast is still in beta form, but you can search websites, images and video.
62. MsFreckles.com: Cute little Ms. Freckles gives you all the tools to conduct a meta search here.
63. Kart00: Here, you have the option of only searching English pages or the entire web.
64. Gimpsy: Gimspy specializes in "active sites for active people." You can search by verb or action, by filling in the sentence "I want to…"
65. CustomSearchEngine.com: This site is a link directory for Google’s custom search engine.
66. Rollyo: This highly customizable search engine lets you enter a keyword or phrase and then select specific categories to search, like travel and hotels, health, celebrity gossip and more.
67. Ms. Dewey: Your off-the-wall host Ms. Dewey flirts, sings and offers silly trivia or analysis while you search.
68. Ulyssek Search Engine: You can view your results organized into categories on this site.
69. Cha Cha: This creative search engine makes you feel like you’re sending a text from your cell phone when you search.
70. FactBites: FactBites is "where results make sense" and is touted as a search engine crossed with an encyclopedia.

Open Source Sites

For open source materials that also serve as reference guides, use this list.

71. DataParkSearch Engine: Use this open source search engine to find multilingual sites, pull up "fuzzy searching based on acronyms and abbreviations" and find text files, mp3s and .gif files.
72. Wiktionary: Wikipedia’s free dictionary is a collaborative, multilingual resource.
73. Open Library: This user-generated book catalog has over 13 million books in its library.
74. dmoz: dmoz is an open directory project, where you can search for or edit topics and results for kids and teens, reference materials, business, health, arts and more.

Internet and Computer Reference

Non-techies and experienced web workers may want to brush up on Internet and computer terms by searching these sites and glossaries.

75. CNET Glossary: Use this glossary to look up network terms.
76. Glossary of Internet Terms: From ADN to Meta Tag to SDSL to cgi-bin, find definitions of Internet terms here.
77. Chat Stuff: This short dictionary has translations for popular chat acronyms like AFK, BAK, and BCNU.
78. McAfee Virus Glossary: Learn about online threats and computer security by browsing this authoritative glossary.
79. Tech Encyclopedia: Look up a specific word or click to get a random definition each day.
80. What Is? IT Dictionary: Browse categories like personal computing, call centers, cheat sheets, authentication, network hardware, compliance, Linux, storage management, Telecom, robotics and a whole lot more for tech definitions.

Consumer Research and Public Information

Use this list to find customer reviews, a currency converter, small business directories and more.

81. USA.gov: Search all kinds of government information here, from public safety to jobs and education to taxes to voting.
82. Pricewatch: Look up low prices on computer hardware, electronics and other gadgets here.
83. Small Business Big World: This is the "almost free" site for finding local and international small businesses.
84. Kelly Blue Book: Here you’ll find all kinds of consumer information about new and used cars.
85. XE Currency Converter: Transfer euros, USD, Canadian Dollars, UK pounds, Algerian dinars, Chinese yuan and any other currency here.
86. Hoovers: Hoover’s is "your one-stop reference for business information," and you’ll find industry overviews, business reports, and a lot more.
87. ZoomInfo: Research an industry or company by using this business search engine.
88. Stock Market Yellow Pages: Search for stocks on this search engine, which pulls results from Forbes, Yahoo!, Wall Street City and other sites.
89. SeatGuru: View layouts of airplanes so that you can easily pick your seats on your next trip.
90. Zillow: Find homes, get mortgage information and search loans on Zillow.

News and Pop Culture

Discover pop culture references, a sports almanac, new literature guides and more in this list.

91. Who’s Alive and Who’s Dead: Keep track of which famous musicians, performers, actors, athletes and political figures are alive and which ones are dead.
92. AllMusic.com: Search by genre like rock, jazz, pop, world, rap or blues.
93. Dictionary of Pop Culture References: From A to Z, you can find words, phrases and characters from pop culture.
94. Encyclopedia Smithsonian: Browse topics like Japanese art, astronomy, horticulture, popular entertainment, domestic life, conservation and more on this authority site.
95. Science.gov Energy and Energy Conservation: Find new and archived articles about energy conservation here.
96. Internet Broadway Database: Look up directors, actors and more for all Broadway shows here.
97. Grove Music Online: This site is "the world’s premier authority on all aspects of music."
98. bibliomania: Over 2,000 classic texts can be found on this site, as well as reference books, study guides and links to buy books.
99. Sports Almanac: From the Olympics to hockey, you can find everything there is to know about sports history and players on this site.
100. Newsknife: This reference site ranks the top news sites by each particular story, by month, homepage resources and other categories.