Articles

Electronic Resources


Library Catalogs


Merlin Local Library Catalog

Merlin is the shared catalog of NWLS member libraries. With a library card patrons can directly request, renew, and can check the status of items either checked out or on hold.

OverDrive Digital Media Catalog

The Wisconsin Public Library Consortium (WPLC) offers an OverDrive catalog of downloadable ebooks, videos, music and audiobooks that can be reserved and/or checked out on your library card. To get started, click on the Help link at the top of the catalog.

WisCat State Library Catalog

WisCat is the Wisconsin library catalog that can be browsed when the Merlin catalog doesn't have what you're looking for. Contact your librarian to request items from WisCat.

WordCat Global Catalog
WorldCat is a worldwide catalog of library collections that includes more than 67 million bibliographic records with items in many different formats. Patrons can access this database at any library or at home with a user-friendly search page.


Library Databases


Ancestry Genealogy Database

Ancestry Library Edition is an extensive library genealogy research tool. Access is limited to in-library use. Promotional and training materials are available.

BadgerLink Discovery Databases

BadgerLink contains thousands of newspaper and periodical titles, image files, and other reference materials. EBSCO (BadgerLink) offers over 6,000 magazine and journal titles, over half of which are available in full-text, and an online support center. BadgerLink, available to everyone in Wisconsin without a password, is a project of the Department of Public Instruction's Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning for the citizens of Wisconsin. Funding is provided through the Public Service Commission Universal Service Fund. BadgerLink promotional materials are available.

Learning Skills Database

LearningExpress Library is a learning center for people of all ages and education levels interested in learning extra skills for school or work. Visit the help resources to get started.


 

Reference Links

Quick Reference and Fast Facts

Almanacs | Biographies | Calculation and Measurement | Calendars/Time Zones | Countries | Dictionaries/Language | Encyclopedias | Etiquette | Genealogy | General Reference| GED/Education | Health Care | History | Jobs/Careers | Law/Legal | Maps and Locators | Science | States and Cities | Statistics and Profiles | Stock Quotes | Translators | Weather

General Reference
Northern Waters Library Service
AllRefer
About.com
Librarian's Index to the Internet
Internet Public Library
New York Public Library Reference Links

Almanacs
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.

Biographies
Biography.com
Wisconsin History: The dictionary gives brief lives of more than 2,000 famous Wisconsin people (and many not so famous).
Biographical Dictionary: This biographical dictionary covering 28,000+ personalities has advanced search capabilities.
Presidents of the United States: Research your favorite President on the Internet.
Virtual Reference-Science & Technology- Biographical Sources:A directory of biographical information about scientists and mathematicians.

Calculation and Measurement
Calorie And Fat Gram Chart For 1000 Foods: Includes fat, calorie, and cholesterol counts for common foods.
Fast Food Facts: For fast food products.
Financial Planning Toolkit: Financial Calculators: Calculators for loan rates, mortgages, refinancing comparisons, amortization, debt consolidation, and more.
The Inflation Calculator
What is a Dollar Worth?
MegaConverter2
Conversion of Anything: Convert length, time, distance, weights and measures, and more.
OANDA Currency Converter: Easily convert between any of 164 currencies.

Calendars/Time Zones
Calendar Zone: Links to hundreds of calendars, including celestial, event, cultural, daily, and interactive.
Virtual Perpetual Calendars: Includes calendars for every year in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as holiday dates, leap year information, and more.
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.

Countries
Global Road Warrior: The Ultimate Guide to the World. Use Library card number for access.
Economist.com Country Briefings: Country Briefings section provides news, profiles, forecasts and statistics on 60 major countries.
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.
Portals To The World: Offers selected links to 214 countries, chosen by LOC subject specialists.
World Factbook: U.S. government profiles on countries, complete with small map and picture of flag.
Library of Congress American Historical Information: Profiles of books on American politics, arts, culture, architecture, etc..

Dictionaries/Language
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
Bartleby.com: Find quotations, poetry, English language style and usage, thesauri, encyclopedias and much more in this comprehensive reference resource.
The Glossarist: Topical dictionaries and glossaries for many different subjects.
Merriam Webster's Dictionary: This easy-to-use dictionary includes multiple meanings (including British usage), as well as etymology and pronunciation of words.
On-line Medical Dictionary
Quotations: "Key word, author, title and subject access to a number of major quotation sources in the public domain, including Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the King James Bible, Roget's Thesaurus and others."
Roget's Internet Thesaurus
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.
Language Maker: Fun site for language conlangs, neologisms, babel texts and neographies.
Banished Word List: Words and Phrases Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.

Encyclopedias
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.

Etiquette
The Knot: Wedding etiquette.
Getting Through Customs: International customs for business travel.

Genealogy
Vilas County Genealogy Project: This site provides access to various genealogy projects in Vilas county.
EBSCOhost: (BadgerLink Resource) From home, search for newspaper and magazine articles. For those with ISPs not listed, such as AOL or Verizon DSL. Especially useful is Newspaper/Archive.com: Try your ancestor's hometown as a search term!
ProQuest: (BadgerLink Resource) From home, search for recent newspaper articles (around 1998 - present). Great for obituary lookups! For those with ISPs not listed, you must contact BadgerLink at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. '; document.write(''); document.write(addy_text44370); document.write('<\/a>'); //-->\n This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to request a user name/password.
Ancestry Library Edition: An extensive library genealogy research tool. In library use only or by accessing the library's wireless network.
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!
Family Search: Search for ancestors on the LDS website.
USGenWeb Project: Search by state.
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.
Ancestor Hunt: A very comprehensive genealogy site.

GED/Education
Comcourse GED program: The Comcourse's GED program is available for free for students seeking to enter college. The system provides a complete course of study in all of the subject areas. It is self-paced and requires only an Internet connection. It is open to anyone.

History
National Archives Footnote: For genealogists, history buffs, and even the average Web passerby, Footnote is working with the National Archives to digitize and upload every document it houses. You will find anything from handwritten notes from the Continental Congress to Project Blue Book UFO sightings.

Jobs/Careers
Learning Express: Whatever your goal, LearningExpress Library's resources will help you succeed. Each of our Learning Centers offers the practice tests, exercises, skill-building courses, and information you need to achieve the results you want—at school, at work, or in life. Looking to land a job? You'll find an entire Learning Center dedicated to helping you get the one that's right for you. Note: User Name is your Lake Plum Lake Library card number.

Law/Legal
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.

Maps & Locators
Google Street Maps:Physical and geographic country maps.
Microsoft Live Maps: Search for business, people, collections and places. Get directions. Add your own information about a place.
Topo Maps: Topo maps of country.
Atlapedia Online: Physical and geographic country maps, complete with statistics and factoids.
How Far Is It?: This easy-to-use site calculates distance (as the crow flies) between any two points in the world and includes a map for further reference.
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.
National Atlas: Create your own maps based on information such as agricultural production, crime, geographic features, population, and more.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Historical, countries and world.
TerraServer-USA: Free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States."
Topozone: Every USGS topographic 1:100,000, 1:25,000, and 1:24,000 scale map for the entire United States.
Topographic Map Symbols: Help in interpreting the maps.
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.

Medical
On-line Medical Dictionary
Health Finder: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sponsored source for reliable health information.
Medicine 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.
RxWiki: Drug reference information maintained by Pharmacists.
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.
Marshfield Clinic Health Information Center: Marshfield Clinic's Health Information Center supports individuals in developing an approach to life that includes educated decisions and actions to create a balanced and fulfilling lifestyle. There is a great deal of health and wellness information, including articles on nutrition, fitness, patient education, and mental and sexual health.
Eldercare Planning / Long Term Care: Contained here are 34 in-depth chapters, totaling over 690 printable pages, from 9 experts and covering all areas of long-term care planning, or as it's more commonly called, elder care planning.

Science
Science Daily: ScienceDaily is one of the Internet's leading online magazines and Web portals devoted to science, technology, and medicine.
Other science subjects: Link to other subjects in this web site

States and Cities
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.
United States Gazetteer: Locate a city, township or county by name or zip code. Brief data includes 1990 population, as well as an interactive map of the area.

Statistics & Profiles
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.
FedStats: Statistics from 70 U.S. government agencies, searchable by keyword and agency.
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., including the State and Metropolitan Data Book and the Fact Finder: Contains, under "Other Official Statistics," links to state and international data centers, and the department of commerce. For the latest 1990 census reports see Census 2000 Gateway.
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: Statistics on Cancer, Health Care Providers, Health Surveys, Health Insurance, Population, and Vital Statistics (Births, Deaths, Marriages, Divorces, Life Expectancy).

Stock Quotes
Big Charts: Provides interactive charts for stocks and mutual funds, as well as current and historical quotes.
Quote.com: Thorough and detailed quote coverage.

Translators
Babelfish translator
Free Translation
WorldLingo (Translation, Localization, Globalization)
Symbols.com: Common symbols from a variety of cultures are searchable by graphic element or meaning.

Weather Forecasts and History
National Weather Service Radar Image
National Weather Service Point Forecast
National Weather Service Telecommunication Service Center
Weather Channel
Historical Climate Summaries: (Midwest Regional Climate Center) Historical highs, lows, and precipitation records from weather stations around the Midwest.
Wisconsin State Climatology Office
Wisconsin Road Conditions: From the Dept. of Transportation. Not updated during the summer.
Wisconsin Construction and Detours
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