Encyclopedias

Use encyclopedias for short, reliable background information, for short biographies, hard facts, statistics, etc. Great places to start research.

• Gale Virtual Reference Library - Over 100 separate subject encyclopedias that can be searched all at once.
• Encyclopedia Britannica Online - Over 70,000 articles.  Also has Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus and a world atlas. Most search results have links to relevant web sites and periodical articles.
• Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia - A basic encyclopedia with clear, short entries.
• AccessScience - McGraw-Hill online encyclopedia of science and technology. Also links to research updates, multimedia, and more.
• Encyclopedia of Life Sciences - Biology and related fields. Articles range from introductory to advanced.

• Encyclopedia.com - Simultaneously searches over 100 encyclopedias and other reference sources. Look for results from the Columbia Encyclopedia, a good basic source.
• Wikipedia - The do-it-yourself encyclopedia. Be very careful in double-checking information from this. Strong points are its coverage of obscure and up-to-the-minute topics.