On the Internet: Simply looking “on the internet” will not be efficient; if you want to use the internet, here are some good places to begin.

• Quick facts & ready reference collection: The Virtual Reference Collection provides connections to web sites that give you quick facts and ready reference information on a wide variety of topics. Subject categories include Biographies, Dictionaries & Encyclopedias, Government Information, Legal Resources, Maps, and Statistics.
• Guide to Internet Searching: This guide will be helpful unless you are a very experienced internet searcher. You'll find  ways to refine your searches, making them specific enough to return a reasonable number of hits.

• Atlases & gazetteers: Besides general atlases, which provide maps of countries and regions of the world as they are today, you can find many specialty atlases: historical atlases, atlases of geology, commercial atlases, political atlases. Gazetteers, such as the Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World, describe the location of thousands of places (towns, rivers, mountains, etc.) and often include the latitude and longitude as well.
• Dictionaries: If you need to find a definition, most English language dictionaries have a call number that begins with PE 1625. To find call numbers for dictionaries in other languages, search in Blais by subject: for example, to find French dictionaries, search for French language--dictionaries.
• Directories: The telephone book is perhaps the most familiar directory. You can find many different kinds of directories in the Reference Collection including directories for organizations, such as The Encyclopedia of Associations, and directories for companies, such as The Million Dollar Database.
• Encyclopedias: There are general encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia Americana and Encyclopaedia Britannica, as well as subject-specific encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Encyclopedias can give you an overvierw of a topic, which can be very valuable if you don't know a lot about your research subject. Remember to use the index volume of the encyclopedia if you don't find your topic in the alphabetical subject arrangement.
• Handbooks: Handbooks provide a compilation of miscellaneous, factual data organized in a straightforward way.  Handbooks are often the quickest way to find formula or tabular data.
• Statistical abstracts: Statistical abstracts, such as The Statistical Abstract of the United States, are one of the many sources for statistical data you can find in the Reference Collection. Many different organizations, especially government organizations (local, state, national, and international), collect statistics.

Need more help?

When you need help on your research project, talk to your professor, stop by the Reference Desk at one of the Libraries, make an appointment to talk with a Reference Librarian, or talk with someone in the Writing Resource Center on your campus.