Reference Links

Northern Waters Library Service  

Dotdash (formerly About.com)

Digital Public Library

New York Public Library Reference Links

Internet Archive:  Includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages and provides specialized services for adaptive reading and information access for the blind and other persons with disabilities.

Information Please Almanac:  Brief facts on many topics, searchable by subject or keyword. 

InfoPlease -This Day in History:  Significant events by date, searchable by month, date, and year.

Directory of Best Online Almanacs - RefSeek: RefSeek is a web search engine for students and researchers that aims to make academic information easily accessible to everyone. RefSeek searches more than one billion documents, including web pages, books, encyclopedias, journals, and newspapers.

Chilton Library: OEM repair, maintenance, and service information on most cars, trucks, vans, and SUVs. Provides step-by-step procedures, diagnostic and troubleshooting help, and a video library.

Small Engine Repair Source: Detailed, user-friendly repair guides for all manner of small engines.

Biography.com 

Historical Figures in Wisconsin: Learn about the lives of your favorite Wisconsin historical figures, from the famous to infamous, and their contributions to our state's history.

Presidential Biographies

The Free Library  The Free Library has free, full-text versions of classic literary works. Recently, the Free Library has been expanded to include publications covering Business and Industry, Communications, Entertainment, Health, Humanities, Law, Government, Politics, Recreation and Leisure, Science and Technology, and Social Sciences.  This collection includes millions of articles dating back to 1984 as well as newly published articles that are added to the site daily.

Google Book Search  Google’s Library project.  Books in the public domain are available in “full view” and free for download.  For in-print books where permission has been granted, the number of viewable pages is limited to a “preview” set.

Hathi Trust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries to create full-text digital copies of items in the public domain.

Project Gutenberg offers over 38,000 free ebooks.

Fast Food Nutrition Facts: For fast food products.

Financial Calculators:  Calculators for loan rates, mortgages, refinancing comparisons, amortization, debt consolidation, and more.

The Inflation Calculator

What is a Dollar Worth?

MegaConverter2:  Convert Anything: Length, time, distance, weights & measures, and more.

OANDA Currency Converter:  Easily convert between any of 164 currencies.

Calendar Zone:  Links to hundreds of calendars, including celestial, event, cultural, daily, and interactive.

TimeandDate.com:  Offers a variety of calendars and clocks for reference or personal use.

World Time Server:  See current time and deviation from GMT for all countries and many large cities.

Library of Congress Country Profiles:  The profiles offer brief, summarized information on a country’s historical background, geography, society, economy, transportation and telecommunications, government and politics, and national security. 

Flags of the World:  Each country's flag is pictured in color, with a description of the significance of the colors and symbols, and a brief history. 

Nationmaster.com:  NationMaster is a central data source to graphically compare facts about nations. 

Nations of the World:  Provides links to each country's constitution and selected legal guides along with access to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. 

American History:  United States history and historical documents.  Learn more about the history of the U.S.

FSI Language Courses: This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely available in an electronic format. These courses were developed by the United States government and are in the public domain.

BBC Language Courses: Audio and video courses for beginners and intermediates in 36 languages.

Acronym Finder: With more than 1,000,000 human-edited definitions, Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms.

Quotations at Bartleby.com:  The 120,000 most authoratative quotations on the web, with 50,000 other short selections.

Merriam Webster's Dictionary:  This easy-to-use dictionary includes multiple meanings (including British usage), as well as etymology and pronunciation of words. 

The American Heritage Medical Dictionary: New treatments, new tests, and new insights into health and disease have resulted in an unprecedented explosion in medical terminology. The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary provides students, health care professionals, and general consumers interested in medical vocabulary with a comprehensive reference that reflects the most recent developments in medicine and health care delivery.

Thesaurus.com: Find similar words.

Transparent Languages Online: Available to all Northern Waters Library Network cardholders, Transparent Languages Online offers FREE language courses and supplemental resources in 110+ languages and can be accessed anytime, anywhere, on almost any device. Sign up with your library card to get started.

Wordsmyth:  A dictionary/thesaurus with exceptional searching capabilities for hard-to-spell or frequently misspelled words and over 50,000 entries.

YourDictionary.com:  Links to 1,500 dictionaries covering 230 separate languages, from Afrikaans to Xhosa, plus specialized dictionaries, multilingual dictionaries, verb conjugators, translators, thesauri, synonyms and homonyms, quotations, etymology, and more.

American Rhetoric:  This site is a valuable resource for finding some of the most famous -- and infamous -- speeches ever made. 

Encyclopedia Britannica:  Links to Encyclopedia Britannica articles and similar web sites, by general category or specific search topic.

Encyberpedia: The Living Encyclopedia:  A voluminous listing of online encyclopedias.

A-Z of Manners and Etiquette:  This simple, straightforward easy to read guide to community matters, manners and etiquette will help us to learn the basics.

Workplace Etiquette:  Tips for the workplace.

Douglas County, Wisconsin - Genealogy Club: The Douglas County Genealogy Club is a group of people from varied backgrounds that share a common interest in both seeking information for their family tree and supporting others that are researching their families.

Newspapers by Ancestry World Collection:  (BadgerLink Resource) Historical newspapers archive from the
1700s - 2000s containing thousands of well-known regional, state, and small local newspapers in the United States and other countries

HeritageQuest: (Badgerlink Resource) 

RootsWeb.com:  The oldest and largest free genealogy site. 

Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet:  Categorized and cross-referenced links and more!

Find A Grave: Find A Grave is a resource for anyone in finding the final disposition of family, friends, and 'famous' individuals. Search 132 million grave records.

Family Search:  Search for ancestors on the LDS website.

Ellis Island Historic records:  Records from the historic New York immigration portal are now available. View images of ship documents indicating where an individual came from, whom they were with at time of entry and who was meeting them at their destination. 

Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR): DAR members come from a variety of backgrounds and interests, but all share a common bond of having an ancestor who helped contribute to securing the independence of the United States of America. Any woman 18 years or older, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution is eligible to join.

USGenWeb Project:  Search by state.

MyCareerTools- Online Tools To Upgrade Your Skills:  Take advantage of our free Career Tools that will help you to upgrade your skills by preparing you for the tests, get a better job or negotiate the better salary. Whether you are just leaving school, searching for new opportunities or facing unemployment, this may be the right time to consider upgrading your skills.

Khan Academy: Reach your learning potential.  For free.

Open Yale Courses: Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.

National Archives: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever.  Those valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family’s history, need to prove a veteran’s military service, or are researching an historical topic that interests you.

Wisconsin Historical Society: This organization preserves and promotes the cultural heritage of Wisconsin.

Chronicling America - The Library of Congress: Historic American Newspapers.  Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1822 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

Job Seeker Website: Wisconsin libraries and the Department of Public Instruction are very pleased to announce the new Job Seeker website, tailored to Wisconsin residents, businesses and communities. Users can browse one list to see the 100+ resources selected for inclusion in the site. They can choose specific types of job postings or resources on building job-related skills. If you would like additional information on the site, have feedback or questions to share, please contact Martha Berninger-martha.berninger@dpi.wi.gov

Legal Tune Up Tool: Free help for Wisconsinites with common legal needs. Use Legal Tune Up to find out what legal problems you can fix without paying for a lawyer. Common situations include consumer debt help, child support, suspended driver's licenses, and more.

Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ):  This resource is designed to assist you with information covering all aspects of the role of the Department – from legal services to consumer help for seniors to crime prevention and law enforcement services, victims rights and environmental enforcement.

Wisconsin Court System for the Public:  Wisconsin Court System designed this web site for use by people representing themselves in divorce/separation, complaints against judges, complaints against interpreters, lawyer regulation, and more.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Created in 1972, is a federally funded resource offering justice and substance abuse information to further support research, policy, and program development worldwide.

Google Street Maps:  Physical and geographic country maps.

Microsoft Live Maps-Bing Maps:  Search for business, people, collections and places. Get directions. Add your own information about a place. 

Atlapedia Online:  Physical and geographic country maps, complete with statistics and factoids. 

Distance Calculator-How Far Is It?: The Distance Calculator can find distance between any two cities or locations available in The World Clock.  The distance is calculated in kilometers, miles and nautical miles, and the initial compass bearing/heading from the origin to the destination. It will also display local time in each of the locations.

MapQuest!:  Interactive street atlases of the continental United States gives you mileage, door-to-door or city-to-city, and street maps with driving directions. 

The National Map:  The National Map is now offering a collection of small-scale datasets that can be downloaded for free. 

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection:  Historical, countries and world.

US Topo:  US Topo maps are a graphic representation of The National Map digital data, presented in the familiar USGS quadrangle format.

United States Geography:  USGS geographers monitor the changes on the land surface by observing the Earth with remote sensing satellites, studying the connections between people and those changes with careful geographic analysis, and providing society with relevant science information they can use to manage the consequences of those changes.

Google Earth:  Google Earth puts a planet's worth of imagery and other geographic information. Free program that must be downloaded but worth the effort. High speed internet access and a monitor resolution of at least 1024 by 768 is needed.

On-line Medical Dictionary Use this free online medical dictionary search engine to research and learn about medical terminology, pharmaceutical drugs, healthcare equipment, health conditions, medical devices, medical abbreviations and more. 

Health Finder:   U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sponsored source for reliable health information.

Kids Health:   If you're looking for information you can trust about kids and teens that's free of "doctor speak," you've come to the right place. KidsHealth is the most-visited site on the Web for information about health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years.

Mayo Clinic:   More than 3,300 physicians, scientists and researchers from Mayo Clinic share their expertise to empower you to manage your health.

Medline Plus:  Trusted health information sponsored by U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health.

Medscape Medical Search:  Articles, News, Conference coverage, Clinical overviews and drug reference.

Drugs.com:  Prescription Drug Information, Interactions, and Side Effects.

Clinical Trials:  ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry of federally and privately supported clinical trials conducted in the United States and around the world. ClinicalTrials.gov gives you information about a trial's purpose, who may participate, locations, and phone numbers for more details. This information should be used in conjunction with advice from health care professionals. Sponsored by U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Eldercare Planning / Long Term Care:  Comprehensive resource for Eldercare, Senior Services and Care Planning.

Healthcare.gov :Gain information and sign up for healthcare coverage

International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) Portal The Petrucci Music Library contains freely available music scores and recordings of compositions in the public domain.

National Jukebox-The Library of Congress The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge.  The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives.

Science Daily:  ScienceDaily is one of the Internet's leading online magazines and Web portals devoted to science, technology, and medicine.

Directory of Open Access Journals Free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages.

PubMed Central PMC is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM).

Wisconsin State Government:  Links to Wisconsin State offices, public services, state facts and more. 

50 States and Capitals: Information for all fifty states and seven territories, including state flags (picture and description), state symbols, political and geographical information, and a direct link to the state's official web page. 

Official City Sites:  Links to official state and city web pages in the U.S. and several European countries. 

Sperling's Best Places:  Compare over 3,000 U.S. cities in housing, costs of living, crime, education, economy, health and climate. 

Townhunter:  Compare over facts about U.S. cities.

Consumer Price Index:  Get the most current CPI press release, or look at an overview of CPIs from 1913-present.

Demographic Services Center:  (WI Dept. of Administration) Links to Wisconsin demographics, including WisStat.

Wisconsin Labor Market Information:  Access statistics about the Wisconsin work force, including the county snapshots, County Workforce Profiles of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Office of Economic Advisors:  The Office assists economic data users to better understand the relationships between labor markets and other economic and demographic specifics.

U.S. Data and Statistics:  Find data about the U.S., such as maps and population, demographic, and economic data.

Nationmaster.com:  NationMaster is a central data source to graphically compare facts about nations.

United States Census Bureau:  Searchable site with many statistics for the U.S. Visit data.census.gov to access data profiles, tables and maps, and other data.

U.S. State Fact Sheets:  Basic and agricultural statistics on every state in the U.S., compiled by the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

University of Michigan Documents Center's Statistical Resources on the Web:  Provides links to many of the same sources as the U.S. Census Bureau and FedStats. 

Wisconsin Blue Book:  The Blue Book contains facts and statistics on Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Health Statistics:  A-Z listing to find the data or statistics-related information that you are looking for.  Included is information on Births, Deaths, Health Insurance Status, Marriages, Divorces and etc.

Big Charts:  Provides interactive charts for stocks and mutual funds, as well as current and historical quotes. 

Reuters:  Thorough and detailed quote coverage.

Babelfish translator 

WorldLingo (Translation, Localization, Globalization) 

Symbols.com:  Common symbols from a variety of cultures are searchable by graphic element or meaning.

National Weather Service Radar Image  

National Weather Service Telecommunication Operations Center 

Weather Channel 

Historical Climate Summaries:  (Midwest Regional Climate Center) The information provided is free, but users must create an account to access it. Information includes raw climate data, rankings of climate information, thresholds, growing season tools, maps, graphs, and much, much more.

Wisconsin State Climatology Office 

Wisconsin Road Conditions:  From the Dept. of Transportation. Not updated during the summer.

Wisconsin Roadwork/Closures