Dean Tudor at the University of Toronto compiled this list, so it's heavy on Canadian sources. It's a good place to look for mailing lists and discussion groups., among other things.
Limited, but useful searchable database of links. Browse alphabetically or by Library of Congress Subject Headings. Better for research pros than amateur searchers.
Kitty Bennett of the St. Petersburg Times compiled this list of links to directories of experts for their Intranet, and was generous enough to share it with the SLA News Division.
Find experts on almost anything, mostly university professors. Usually, you e-mail a question and they forward it to the list; if you're a legitimate journalist or researcher, you can expect an answer from someone in a couple of days.
Not necessarily experts in the legal or journalistic sense of the word, these volunteers will attempt to answer questions within 1-3 days. An interesting experiment, although obviously of questionable reliability.
Gary Price, a Librarian at George Washington University, has compiled an incredible list of links to lists of various kinds, from the "Top 50 Independent Crop Consulting Firms" to the "Forbes Power Celebrity 100"
Free Online Lookups from Melissa Data Corp., used to promote their pay services and products (natch), but the free stuff here is pretty good. Look up zip codes, addresses, non proits, area codes, and more.
Hidden deep in the census site is this useful page with a gopher-type menu (for you Internet oldsters) of links to text pages, each of which contains the population count for each county of an entire state for every census from 1900 to 1990. The files are in the form "mo190090.txt" -- with the first two letters being the abbreviation of the state. It's not as easy to use as the main web pages with the graphics and buttons, but it is potentially very useful for historical perspective.
From U. of Mo., and therefore limited to the state of Missouri for the most part; some demographic analysis of data here as well as useful lookups of various datasets brought together in one handy place.
Information about all the nations in the world, compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency. Nothing secret or classified here, but the best source for this sort of information.
This service uses data from the US Census and a supplementary list of cities around the world to find the latitude and longitude of two places, and then calculates the distance between them (as the crow flies). It also provides a map showing the two places, using the Xerox PARC Map Server.
A much more complicated, but very useful site. More limited in years (1913-1998, but some data only good back to 1957), but you can use specific geographic locations, or not count food and energy costs.
Mathematical Tables and Formulas - the largest prime number less than 100? What's the decimal equivalent of 7/16 of an inch? How many millimeters is that? How many miles in a league? You can find quick answers to these and other perplexing questions for mathphobes at S.O.S. Mathematics -- a site that brings together logarithmic tables, conversions charts and even a multiplication table to make dealing with figures easy for those of us who managed to get through college without taking any math.
OK, not likely to be journalistically useful. But fun. "Each day an event from American history is illustrated by digitized items from the Library of Congress American Memory historic collections." (from their META file)
"Look up words in dictionaries and thesauruses. Translate words, phrases, documents and web pages to other lanugages. Everything language-related in one place." (from their META file)
"More than 1300 pages on the origins, history, evolution and idiosyncrasies of the English language worldwide. New words and words in the news are regularly featured." (from their META file)
Named for Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide" magic translation tool, this is the original on-the-fly Web translator. Type in a URL to translate a page or paste a batch of text to translate it directly.
Resources for writers "Writers Write is a professional resource for editors, journalistsand writers which provides information, markets, job listings,writing news, events and discussion." (from their META file)
From an English professor at Capital Community College - "The Guide to Grammar and Writing contains scores of digital handouts on grammar and English usage, over 170 computer-graded quizzes, recommendations on writing" and more (from their META file)
I used to use these a lot more back when we had a dozen or so quote books in our library here at the newspaper. Now that we have over 50, I use the Web for this a lot less.
One of the oldest and largest of the many web pages devoted to quotations. Their META files says it contains approximately 20,000 quotations in total, across 30 indexed collections.
This service uses data from the US Census and a supplementary list of cities around the world to find the latitude and longitude of two places, and then calculates the distance between them (as the crow flies). It also provides a map showing the two places, using the Xerox PARC Map Server.
Similar site. 326 cities in its database, except it computes Great Circle distances. If your city isn't one of the 326, you have to know exact latitude and longitude.
"Welcome to the starting point when beginning to track down sources of mostly on-line and mostly free U.S. geospatial and attribute data." (from their META file)
From the World Bank - provides economic data for over 100 developing nations and six regions of the world. Brief descriptions of economic conditions and tables of key indicators are available for each country (Adobe Acrobat required to view tables).
Information about all the nations in the world, compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency. Nothing secret or classified here, but the best source for this sort of information.
An incredibly huge repository of useful information for those seeking family history. Registration is required and some stuff is subscription only, but a lot of stuff is free. Several similar sites, including genealogy.com and family.com, are all owned by one company, which sells some web services and also sells software for compiling family trees.
A database of folks for whom SSI death benefits have been paid. Lists birth and death dates, residence at time of death, SSN and state SSN was issued, which can be helpful tracking geneaologies.
Someone has begun indexing the classified death notices from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Only a few years are available, but this is the beginning of a wonderful geneaological resource.
" Publishers of cemetery transcriptions and other information pertaining to cemeteries, for genealogists, cemetery enthusiasts, taphophile, and funeral professionals" (from their META file). A surprising number of cemeteries are available here, with index lists not only to who's buried there, but where in the cemetery the grave is located.
An alternative to Google, nearly as comprehensive, slightly different sorting algorithm. Advanced search lets you use Boolean logic. See http://www.alltheweb.com/help/faqs/query_language.html for advanced search syntax
Used to be my first choice, back when dinosaur's roamed the earth and Netscape still ruled the Web. Still pretty good. Advanced search not only allows Boolean but allows "NEAR" as a connector plus lots more. See http://www.altavista.com/help/adv_search/syntax for advanced features
A really neat search engine with cool features like suggestions to refine your search and resources from experts that seem to be in the field you're looking for (and they do a remarkable job of matching these); not quite as comprehensive or as fast as Google, but otherwise in some ways actually better.
Web search engine exists to promote automatic categorization and content integration software; groups hits into folders by topic created on the fly to help you narrow down your search.
I don't use this much, but it's always good to have a lot of search engines handy, as there are still a surprising number of sites that show up on only one of the major search engines and not any of the others.
In the early days of the 'net, this was my #1 site, but it's been through a lot of changes. Rated worst on one recent study. On the other hand, you can use it to search for only pictures, which can be handy. (Alta Vista has the same capability, but they turn up very different results.)
If you can't find it anywhere else, try here. I don't like its sorting algorithm - the pages I want seem to never be right on top, but they're usually there if I'm willing to slog through a couple of pages of links.
Formerly The Mining Co. A portal with sites chosen by "guides," or you can search the whole 'net (except then it really goes through Looksmart).
Specialized
There are two different kinds of sites here. Some of them are web searches like Google or Alltheweb, but they search databases of a select few websites on specialized topics. Others are huge databases with search engines like the famous Internet Movie Database. The first few are search engines and/or directories that specialize in specialized search sites.
Search the granddaddy of electronic information databases, the Educational Resources Information Center, which has been archiving abstracts of academic publications and other important documents since the 1960s.
This amazing, comprehensive, even exhaustive resource is a good example of the whole Web in microcosm - a collaborative effort greater than any individual or company could possibly accomplish.
Search the abstracts of over 11 million medical jounals, including sometimes (though rarely), links to the full text at the participating journals website (more often, you have to order the journal text separately for a fee, but at least you can get the citation).
Wonderful legal research tool, including links to lots of information, like decisions from appellate courts, that you might otherwise pay huge amounts of money for elsewhere.
Rates the search engines in various ways. Good to keep up with who's on top -- or who's in second place, these days, since Google always comes out on top.
The Guide to Search Engines, Portals, and Directories - A collection of over 3,000 specialized search sites that is itself searchable as well as categorized.
Bill Dedman, who won a Pulitzer for a computer-assisted story way back in 1989 and has been a CAR evangelist ever since, put together this comprehensive site that includes instructional material as well as the usual link resources.
The local branch of the Society of Professional Journalists, only sporadically updated. In fact, I have it all the way down here because the front page hasn't been updated since at least 2000, inviting people to the Regional Conference held here that year, although I found some current information linked from elsewhere on the site..
A list of all the departments of the St. Louis City government, with links to web pages that at least have basic address and phone number contact information, and many departments have more.
"For complete St Louis, Missouri travel information for visitors, group tour planners and meeting planners and resources and planning assistance." (from their META file)
"St. Louis County, with an 2000 population of 1,016,350, is the largest county in Missouri. Once a bedroom community,St. Louis County is now the economic heart of the St. Louis region." (from their META file)
"St. Louis County Council Page, with links to Council Members home pages, current agenda and journal and searchable archive of ordinaces, resolutions, agendas journals since 1988." (from their META file)
The St. Louis County Police Department, which patrols those areas of the county that aren't in an incorporated municipality, plus several municipalities that contract with them for protection.
Many of these aren't actually links I use to do research, but are "fun" links I include here to provide local color, particularly to prospective visitors.
Bob Bob Cassilly's giant indoor/outdoor playground - "City Museum is unlike any museum you've seen, offering hands-on activities, off-beat collections, exhibits made from recycled materials, and a circus." (from their META file)
"The Basilica of St. Louis, the King, in St. Louis Missouri. The oldest Catholic Cathedral west of the Mississippi, founded in 1770 and present Church dedicated in 1834. Information on History, Mass times and Sacraments. The current week's Bulletin is online." (from their META file)
The "New" cathedral, also a Basilica ("The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis", as opposed to "The Basilica of St. Louis, the King"), confusingly enough, and not at all new any more, having begun construction in 1907 and opened in 1914. It's true, though, that the last of the world-famous mosaics, said to be the largest collection of them under one roof, wasn't completed until 1988.
Although owned and operated by the city, the airport is technically located in St. Louis County, so I've put it here. Aside from its obvious use as a transportation hub, it's a fun place to go to watch planes take off, to see one of Charles Lindbergh's planes (though not the Spirit of St. Louis) and two stunning murals depicting the history of American aviation and black Americans in flight.
Several homes displaying architecture and designs from various periods of St. Louis County's early development have been relocated and restored. Also in Faust Park
And also in Faust Park is the 1920 Carousel from the old St. Louis Highlands, a small amusement park across the street from Forest Park at the current location of Forest Park Community College in the city. A fire destroyed most of the Highlands in 1963, and it was purchased and donated to the County Park system. It was restored and moved indoors in 1987
The local equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce, the movers and shakers who often make the real decisions. They represent not just the city, but the entire area. From their META file: "RCGA is the chamber of commerce and economic development organization for the Greater St. Louis region which includes St. Louis City; the Missouri counties of St. Louis, St. Charles, Lincoln, Warren, Franklin, and Jefferson; and the Illinois counties of St. Clair, Jersey, Madison, Clinton and Monroe."
"The Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. corporate site. Financial information is available along with information on Anheuser-Busch's companies and business interests. Learn Anheuser-Busch's rich history and explore employment opportunities." (from their META file)
MEMC is a leading supplier of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry. Silicon wafers are the fundamental building block on which nearly all microelectronic applications are made. These devices, or chips, are found in nearly all computers, cars, consumer electronics, and automation systems." (from their META file)
" Gateway Guide is MoDOT's new program designed to improve roadway efficiency and safety through a vast communications network. Aimed at reducing traffic congestion, Gateway Guide utilizes a variety of state-of-the-art devices to provide you with all the tools and resources you need to effedtively navigate in and aroung St. Louis" (from their META file)
One of the oldest amateur troops in St. Louis. An early version of "The Glass Menagerie" called "The Magic Tower" won their annual one-act play contest back in 1936 and helped launch Tennessee Williams' career.
Addresses and phone numbers for art galleries and museums in St. Charles, St. Peters, Southwestern Illinois and, for some reason, the St. Louis Art Museum.
Home Remodeling
Some sites devoted to or useful for those involved in St. Louis' second-favorite sport (after baseball). No, really, I don't know anybody who's living in the city who's not involved in some kind of rehab project, including myself.
" Napoleon's Retreat Bed & Breakfast St. Louis, Missouri. Napoleon's Retreat Bed & Breakfast, in historic Lafayette Square, is conveniently located just 1 1/2 miles from downtown St. Louis, the Convention Center and Arch." (from their META file)
"Metropolis St. Louis is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating and promotingan environment in the City of St. Louis that attracts and retains young people." (from their META file)
" Independent Schools of St. Louis includes 36 independently governed elementary and secondary schools throughout the metropolitan St. Louis region. These schools provide a complete range of educational opportunities for students in k through grade 12." (from their META file)
Search the granddaddy of electronic information databases, the Educational Resources Information Center, which has been archiving abstracts of academic publications and other important documents since the 1960s.
" Independent Schools of St. Louis includes 36 independently governed elementary and secondary schools throughout the metropolitan St. Louis region. These schools provide a complete range of educational opportunities for students in k through grade 12." (from their META file)
"Principia is a private college (both undergraduate and adult continuing-education programs) and school (from infant/toddler/parent education through 12th grade) for Christian Scientists." (from their META file)
St. Louis' alternative weekly - "The Riverfront Times was founded in 1977 as St. Louis's alternative newsweekly. Since then, we've cultivated an audited weekly circulation of 100,000. Because of the pass-along nature of the RFT, our weekly reach is more than a quarter of a million readers. The Riverfront Times focuses on the issues that are important to St. Louis's young adults. Each week, hundreds of thousands of readers turn to the RFT for award-winning journalism, powerful investigative reporting, news and commentary on local politics, and the most comprehensive arts and ... " (from their META file -- apparently they ran out of room, and I'm not surprised; it's the longest META file description I've ever read, and I included it here in toto mostly for giggles for that very reason)
" The St. Louis American Newspaper is the ultimate online resource for African-American news in the Greater St. Louis area. Includes local and national news, business, sports, entertainment, employment and editorial commentary." (from their META file)
Links to the Lebanon Daily Record, Pulaski County Democrat, Ozark County Times, Richland Mirror, Trout Talk, Guidon. Coming soon, the Webster County Citizen and the Weekly Trader. All published by the Lebanon Publishing Co.
Free Online Magazines - "Over 1000 FREE online magazines. Just click on any magazine on the virtual magazine rack. They all have free and current articles to read online." (from their META file)
"The Ezine Directory lists over 1,000 of the best ezines available on the internet today. Search, browse, or add your ezine today! The web's best ezine directory." (from their META file)
Wonderful legal research tool, including links to lots of information, like decisions from appellate courts, that you might otherwise pay huge amounts of money for elsewhere.
From the Library of Congress - "The Guide to Law Online is an annotated compendium of sources accessible through the Internet. Links provide access to primary documents, legal commentary, and general government information about specific jurisdictions and topics." (from their META file)
In some ways, this is better than the court's own site. You can often find new decisions here that the court has on their own site but not yet linked to their search engine or front page, for example
Contains information about everyone who has ever served in Congress - including the Continental Congress, back to 1774, and delegates to Congress from U.S. territories.
From the Air University Library, "a subject index to significant articles, news items, and editorials from English language military and aeronautical periodicals." Updated quarterly and indexed back to 1990.
"The Federal Register, on GPO Access, is the daily publication for Rules, Proposed Rules, and Notices of the Federal Government." (from their META file)
Hey, it's an institution. Seriously, no introduction should be needed here. I know it's not really part of the government, but neither is the Post Office anybore, and I thought it belonged here more than anywhere else.
Part of the Oak Park Shopping and Community Information site from 3planets.com
Business
The categories are a little eclectic, but they're almost all types of business that are or have been important locally. I thought of ordering them by importance, but decided with this many I'd better stick to alphabetical.
Primarily a source of information on pensions and such, but also a good source of basic information like tax identification numbers) about most large public corporations.
Search IRS 990 forms and other information on most recognized nonprofit organizations (excluding churches) - "The leading source of information on U.S. nonprofits. A searchable database of more than 850,000 IRS-recognized nonprofit organizations." (from their META files)
"We provide convenient, free access to all the important financial and investment information on the Internet. Read our profiles of fast-growing companies and order annual reports for high growth companies. Browse our list of public corporations offering DRIPs. You can access the SEC's EDGAR server, stock quote servers, financial publications and investment newsletters, plus investor information from futures to mutual funds. We link to online banks, small cap companies, large companies and IPOs. We offer rapidly growing lists of online publicly traded companies, including those on the NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ (NMS, SMC and OTC-BBS)." (from their META file)
" Founded in 1917, the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) is the national trade association representing the advertising agency business in the United States." (from their META file)
"The AAF protects and promotes the well-being of advertising through a unique, nationally coordinated grassroots network of advertisers, agencies, media companies, local advertising clubs and college chapters." (from their META file)
"The International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) assists developing countries in bringing about lasting improvements in the performance of their national agricultural research systems and organizations. It does this by promoting appropriate agricultural research policies, sustainable research institutions, and improved research management. ISNAR's services to national research are ultimately intended to benefit producers and consumers in developing countries and to safeguard the natural environment for future generations." (from their META file)
National Automobile Dealers Association - "NADA, founded in 1917, represents more than 19,700 new car and truck dealers, both import and domestic, with more than 49,300 separate franchises." (from their META file)
"The Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. corporate site. Financial information is available along with information on Anheuser-Busch's companies and business interests. Learn Anheuser-Busch's rich history and explore employment opportunities." (from their META file)
" MEMC is a leading supplier of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry. Silicon wafers are the fundamental building block on which nearly all microelectronic applications are made. These devices, or chips, are found in nearly all computers, cars, consumer electronics, and automation systems." (from their META file)
"The Insurance Industry Association For Benchmarking is an association of insurance professionals in companies that conducts benchmarking studies to identify the practices that improve the overall operations of the members." (from their META file)
My wife's employer - "Marsh Inc. is the world's leading risk and insurance services firm. Our mission: To create and deliver risk solutions and services that make our clients more successful." (from their META file)
"The Motley Fool exists to educate, amuse, and enrich the individual investor. To propose from personal finance to the stock market, the key to investment success is doing one's homework; and to show that homework can be fun." (from their META file)
"TheStreet.com provides a mix of financial features, commentary and breaking news that's updated multiple times during the trading day." (from their META file)
Historical Quotes from Big Charts. You have to know the stock ticker symbol, but with it you can get ending-day quotes for any date the stock was traded on back to January 2, 1970.
Stocks, Mutual Funds, Investing and Personal Finance - Get stock and mutual fund quotes, research reports and tools for making better investing and 401k decisions." (from their META file)
"The National Mining Association (NMA) is the voice of the US mining industry in Washington, D.C. NMA is the only national trade organization that represents the interests of mining before Congress, the Administration, federal agencies, the judiciary and the media. Our membership includes more than 325 corporations involved in all aspects of the mining industry" (from their META file)
" Office of Surface Mining (OSM) is a bureau of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior with responsibility, in cooperation with the states and Indian Tribes, to protect citizens and the environment during coal mining and reclamation, and to reclaim mines abandoned before 1977." (from their META file)
Makers of, among many other things, Listerine, invented in St. Louis (it has no connection with the famous pioneer of the germ theory of disease, except for being named in his honor by a doctor who was an early supporter of that theory).
Retail Statistics Studies and Retail Industry Market Research from About.com. I don't have too many About.com pages here, because their pop-ups are extremely annoying, but they do have some good pages.
Yeah, the industry category is "Footwear" and it should be in the Fs, but everybody calls them "shoes," and besides, it fits the old joke about the Browns.
"The Technology and Business Publication for Communication Professionals, covering service provider technologies and applications worldwide for more than 30 years. Telecommunications Online is the telecom industry's first resource for accurate, reliable technical telecom information." (from their META file)
The official name of this organization is "NASTD - The Association for Telecommunications and Technology Professionals Serving State Government." I tried looking at the "History" section of their website and several other places, but could find no indication anywhere of what, if anything, NASTD originally stood for.
Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, founded in 1995 by a merger of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU).
Unofficial but very reliable site put together by a couple of form FEC employees who got tired of the agency's foot-dragging on getting the information up on the web. The official site now resembles this, but this one's still better.
A good resource for journalists - not only access to campaign financing info, but tips on how to use it. - "The Campaign Finance Information Center is administered by IRE and the National Institute of Computer-Assisted Reporting. It's dedicated to helping journalists cover campaigns more in-depth by following the campaign money trail." (from their META file)
Links to the texts of the scriptures of nearly all the religions in the world -- except for the one that jealously protects the copyright status of its sacred scriptures -- plus similar basic information on mystery traditions and the like.
"An encyclopedia of information about Judaism, Jewish practices, holidays, people and beliefs. For beginners, intermediate or advanced readers." (from their META file)
"Humanistic Judaism is a nontheistic alternative in contemporary Jewish life. It was established by Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine in 1963 in Detroit, Michigan." (from their META file)
"Learn about the way of Life called Islam. This site contains many links for you to find information on God, Jesus, Bible, the Quran, Muslims, etc." (from their META file)
"Hinduism Today Magazine, affirming Sanatana Dharma and recording the modern history of a billion-strong global religion in renaissance." (from their META file)
Original data from the Environmental Protection Agency on 582 individually listed chemicals and 30 chemical categories (including 3 delimited categories containing 58 chemicals).
Search the abstracts of over 11 million medical jounals, including sometimes (though rarely), links to the full text at the participating journals website (more often, you have to order the journal text separately for a fee, but at least you can get the citation).
Interactive lessons from the BBC - A fully interactive online first aid course from the BBC that informs, educates and entertains whilst leading you towards taking a recognised first aid qualification." (from their META file)
From KidsHealth.org - "Keeping your child safe is your top priority. Learn how to protect your child inside the house and out, what to do in an emergency, how to stock a first-aid kit, where to call for help, and more." (from their META file)
A non-profit consumer health web site that provides high quality information created and evaluated by medical and health professional faculty at the University of Cincinnati, Case Western Reserve University, and Ohio State University.
Andrew Weil was a pioneer in acceptance of wellness issues and an open-minded approach to traditional and homeopathic remedies among the established medical profession. His website is a little on the commercial side, but there's some good stuff here.
Disasters/Emergencies
The specific disaster types are chosen and arranged by their likelihood to be dealt with here in the St. Louis area.
From the Army Corps of Engineers, the highest official stage reading for the Mississippi River for the city of St. Louis for each day from 1/1/1861 through 12/31/2001 (as of the date of this description), with mean, maximum and minimum figures for each month.
"The Tornado Project is a small company that researches, compiles and makes tornado information available to tornado and severe weather enthusiasts, the public, the meteorological community and emergency management officials in the form of tornado videos, tornado books, and tornado posters." (from their META file)
From Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, "a university research consortium dedicated to exploring the Earth's interior through the collection and distribution of seismographic data."
"NetFactual.com is the most accurate, real-time provider of internet, domain and network statistics, reports, trends, analysis. NetFactual is also dedicated in provding reliable marketing lists focusing on growth, leads, hotlists, and prospecting for the global business." (from their META file)
"Nua online internet surveys portal for market research, statistics, demographics, metrics, surveys and web trends from across the globe." (from their META file)
"Zooknic is a leading source of information on the diffusion, use and geography of the Internet. Zooknic specializes in analysis of growth of domain names and the dynamics of the domain name market" (from their META file)
A source for information on the Open Internet. "The Open Internet is the extension of the Internet from its original inception as a voluntary cooperative for global computing communications to a force supporting the free and open exchange of information and technology." (from their main page)
Whois Resources
Just the other day, a reporter told me he couldn't find who owned a domain name using whois. Only two of my six had it. That's why I have six of them.
From the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana -- where Mosaic, the predecessor of Netscape, was born
"The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) focuses public attention on emerging civil liberties, privacy, First Amendmen issues and works to promote the Public Voice in decisions concerning the future of the Internet." (from their META file)
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From 20,000 B.C. -- currently only to 1600, as the sections after that are apparently still under construction. Click a tab or select alphabetical index.
"The official web presence of the American Society for Aesthetics, this site is for anyone interested in philosophy of art, art theory or art criticism." (from their META file)
"Laumeier Sculpture Park is a 96 acre outdoor museum designed to encourage creative thinking through exhibitions, educational programs and contemporary art experiences in a park setting." (from their META file)
" The British Museum has outstanding collections that cover world cultures from Prehistory to the present day. Visit our website for information about the galleries, collections, special exhibitions and events. View the collections and take online tours." (from their META file)
"The Metropolitan Museum of Art Web site features information on upcoming museum events, fine art exhibits, special exhibitions, the Met collection and art galleries online." (from their META file)
"The V&A is the world's greatest museum of design and the arts: its collections cover two thousand years up to the present, in virtually every medium and from Britain, Europe and Asia." (from their META file)
"The Museum of Modern Art Web site provides information on current and upcoming art, film and media, and online exhibitions, highlights from MoMA's unparalleled collection of modern and contemporary art, and listings of education and family programs open to the public." (from their META file)
How-To Articles, Practical Tips, Projects, Inspiration. I don't have too many about.com pages here, their quality is uneven and their pop-up ads are infintely annoying, but this one's pretty good.
From the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Not strictly just a painting site, but a general pictorial arts instructional site that I put here because it fits here better than any of my other categories.
Remember that bushy-haired guy on public television who used to tell you to go into your own little world and paint "happy little trees"? He died in 1995, but his wet-on-wet technique, and his television show endure, and as this website shows his marketing machine does pretty well, too.
By Charles Harrington, a step-by-step demonstration of the creation of one particular painting; one of the "dead liniks" on the "Watercolor-Online" site because it's moved.
"Laumeier Sculpture Park is a 96 acre outdoor museum designed to encourage creative thinking through exhibitions, educational programs and contemporary art experiences in a park setting." (from their META file)
"International directory of sculpture parks and gardens by Benbow Bullock, metal sculptor. Offers listing of parks around the world that are open to the public or by appointment." (from their META file)
"America's First Look into the Camera: Daguerreotype Portraits and Views, 1839 - 1864, collection contains 600 portrait photographs, including many by the Mathew Brady Studio; architectural views; outdoor scenes; and occupational portraits." (from their META file)
Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490-1920 - "An American Ballroom Companion presents a sampling from the collection of overtwo hundred social dance manuals at the Library of Congress." (from their META file)
Broadway Theater information source that emulates the IMDB - "The official source for Broadway information, statistics, dates, cast, crew and creative staff credits, roles and related facts" (from their META file)
One of the oldest amateur troops in St. Louis. An early version of "The Glass Menagerie" called "The Magic Tower" won their annual one-act play contest back in 1936 and helped launch Tennessee Williams' career.
This and the next link are a good matched pair. This concentrates on the '50s and early '60s and essentially treats rock as dead before the Beatles show up . . .
This amazing, comprehensive, even exhaustive resource is a good example of the whole Web in microcosm - a collaborative effort greater than any individual or company could possibly accomplish.
My own personal, though very, very outdated, list of worthwhile books-with-comics-in-them (which I argue should be logically called "comic books" rather than using that term for flimsy magazines) from my old semi-defunct but still operational "Steve's Reads" site
As of this writing (8/2003) this is very badly in need of updating; I don't read all these comics anymore, and none of the Modern Tales sites are even on there, but this used to be the page I went to everyday to link to all the comics I read on the Web, and I still read half a dozen of them religiously.
In a way, this genre is the opposite of science fiction, but it is based (though sometimes very loosely) on science and it is inevitably speculative, so I count it as a sub-genre of sci-fi.
Obviously, I have the hometown team. Why don't I have all of them? I can reach any of them through the MLB main page. I have our division and a few other teams of personal importance to me.
Links to .pdf files of the record books for all the NCAA sports, including past years back to 2001 and a historical men's basketball book published in 1998. Not easy to use if you don't know what you're looking for, relatively little in the way of search capabilities, but the information's all here, or you can order the books from this site as well.
" Hard-core insider's coverage of boxing including columns, world rankings, knockout photography, fight breakdowns and anaylsis, television schedules and classifieds ads." (from their META file)
" HBO's boxing website: previews of upcoming fights, post-fight results and analyses, fight schedule, latest rankings by weight class, expert columns, a boxing bbs and special web events concurrent with boxing telecasts." (from their META file)
Obviously, the sciences tend to flow into each other and interconnect. The Periodic Table is Physics as well as Chemistry, but I've just put it under the latter. I've gone with the most obvious category for most links, and while some of them are duplicated elsewhere on the list I tried to avoid putting links in two different subcategories here.
From the Internet Public Library. I happen to know from e-mail that some people have this site bookmarked for their kids' homework help. This one's just for that audience.
Research funding, expertise, abstract "publishing for academia and industry" - A site for scientists and members of the media that has all kinds of information. It requires registration, but it's free. Among the offerings are a grants database that lets you find out whose gotten grants for how much based on topic or location. You can also access experts.
Gee, can you tell this is one of my favorite subjects? The order is general, local (including American Indians, because of the local Cahokia site), then more-or-less chronological (stone age through Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome). That's why Stonehenge and the megaliths are nowhere near Hadrian's Wall, as they would be in a geographic sort.
"Abzu is a guide to the rapidly increasing, and widely distributed data relevant to the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East via the Internet."
Bruce Hartzler has created an impressive collection of interactive panoramas that allow you to view ancient Greek archaeological sites using Quick Time.
Online version of "Handbook of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics" from Cambridge University Press. It's the 2nd Edition, so it's a little out of date (1990) but this is still a wonderful resource.
Original data from the Environmental Protection Agency on 582 individually listed chemicals and 30 chemical categories (including 3 delimited categories containing 58 chemicals).
Original data from the Environmental Protection Agency on 582 individually listed chemicals and 30 chemical categories (including 3 delimited categories containing 58 chemicals).
"Basic Geology and Surface Geochemical Exploration on the World Wide Web." There are those who say we should ignore everything on the web that doesn't come from "official" sources, but some of the inspired and dedicated so-called amateurs are every bit as qualified and reliable, as this excellently put-together and well-referenced shows. Excellent starting place.
I don't know who Algis Ratnikas is, or what his qualifications are, but he has compiled an excellent history resource called Timelines of History. If you're writing about something that happened in 1959, for instance, and you want to know what else was happening then, you can click on that date and find a list of important events. While compiled by an individual hobbyist, it is pretty well referenced and my spot-checking hasn't turned up any clunkers so far, so I think it's probably pretty reliable.
"The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library walls you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound." (from their META file)
Files from the From the National Security Council (NSC) Institutional Files from the Nixon Administration, most just recently declassified, available at the National Archives and Records Administration website.
From the "Teaching Politics" maintained by William J. Ball, at the College of New Jersey. Unlike most such images on the Web, these are available in sizes we can actually use in the paper, plus they're all public domain. Most of them are black and white, and a lot of them are drawings, or scans of handbills and such, but there are quite a few historical photos.
Free and low-cost tutorials and training in everything from basic file management to Java programming. You will have to have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat to use the site. There are lots and lots of free courses here. It does require you to read the lessons online - you can't print out an entire training session. If you just have to have something printed, they will link you to a similar book, usually by the same author, at amazon.com. Of course, that's not free. Still, it's amazing what they're able to offer here for no money at all. The interface is fairly simple and consistent across lessons. Highly recommended
Links to live cameras showing everything from the dazzling to the mundane - "Since 1995 this award winning page contains a constantly updated list of live cams on the internet throughout the world in an easy to use geographical format showing sites by location." (from their META file)
View "real" evidence of murder cases and help solve them - from the Yoknapatawpha County sheriff's department (NOTE: Yoknapatawpha is the fictional county from the works of William Faulkner).
This is an incredibly large page (over 4 MB without any graphics - just a list of links!). When I first discovered it, it bombed out three times using Opera 3.5, the last after I'd just restarted the machine, so I never tried it again with newer versions of that browser. Netscape handled it OK, but it took about 10 minutes to load across a 33,600 connection with a 8.5K/sec average download rate. Nowadays, with a T1 and IE 5.5, it "pops right up" in a still-glacial 45 seconds (remember, this for a page with NO PICTURES!!). It's a remarkable testament to how fast the Web grew -- how much was already out there as of 1997, just four years after the release of Mosaic. Other than that, it's not very useful or anything, just one individual's esoteric WWW travel diary, so to speak, and by now I'm sure most of the links are dead.
Home page of the creator of the "All the World-Wide Web sites I've visited as of Sunday, June 8, 1997" page, which, he proudly points out, the New York Times called "the Web equivalent of your neighbor's vacation slides from hell" (January 2, 1996, p. C16).