Online Reference Shelf
Online encyclopedias - dictionaries - and much more
Librarian
Help
Librarians are here to help you via live chat, email, and virtual appointment. Click on the ASK US button found in the lower right-hand corner of the library web page. Live chat is available during regular library hours. You may call us (269 471 3267) or email us! (circulation @andrews.edu).
Quick Online References
These links can quickly take you to specific reference websites. Use the tabs to the left to scan the categories and find the website that will best help you.
Abbreviations
- Acronym Finder Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms. Combined with the Acronym Attic, Acronym Finder contains more than 5 million acronyms and abbreviations. You can also search for more than 850,000 US and Canadian postal codes.
- GovSpeak: A Guide to Government Acronyms & Abbreviations This guide lists acronyms and abbreviations commonly used by the United States federal government. Each acronym is defined and links to the home page (or best alternative) of the identified department, agency, office, program or publication. While Appendix A of the U.S. Government Manual provided the foundation of GovSpeak, this expanded list includes hundreds of acronyms not included in that publication; most have been discovered by manual reviews of department websites. Links are checked and updated monthly.
Almanacs
- Census Bureau of the United States Compilation of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the U.S.
- CIA: World Factbook Country-specific information compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency.
- Country Studies Current geographic, social, economic, and political summaries by country.
- Fact Monster Almanac and reference site for children.
- Fed Stats Easy access to official statistical information from numerous agencies.
- Infoplease Almanac Comprehensive collection of statistics on arts, business, sports, and more.
- Nation Master Contains country statistics, maps, flags, and graphs.
- Old Farmer's Almanac Since 1792. Tide tables, sunrise times, weather forecasts, etc.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Directory of international statistical agencies, courtesy U.S. Department of Labor.
- American Fact Finder From the United States Census Bureau, American FactFinder provides access to data about the United States, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas. The data in American FactFinder come from several censuses and surveys.
Associations
Biographies
- American National Biography Online Over 19,000 biographies of significant, influential or notorious figures from American history written by prominent scholars
- Biographical Dictionary This dictionary includes over 28,000 notable men and women who have influenced history from ancient times to the present day. It is searchable by years of birth and/or death, positions held, professions, literary and artistic works, achievements, and other keywords.
- Biography Biography.com captures the most gripping, surprising and fascinating stories about famous people. The last fateful day. The decision that changed everything. The moment of cheating death. The biggest break. The defining opportunity. The most shattering failure. The unexpected connection. With over 8,000 biographies and daily features that highlight newsworthy, compelling and surprising points-of-view, we are the digital source for true stories about people that matter.
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Search for members of Congress from 1774 to the present.
Citation Guides
- OWL Purdue MLA Formatting and Style Guide MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (8th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.
- OWL Purdue MLA Video Guides Videos by OWL Purdue on MLA Formatting
- OWL Purdue APA Formatting and Style Guide APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (6th ed., 2nd printing).
- OWL Purdue APA Video Guides Videos by OWL Purdue on APA formatting
Calculators and Conversion Tables
Dictionary and Thesaurus
- Collins Dictionary Ideal dictionaries for English or bilingual word reference, plus thesauruses for expanding your word power.
- Collins Thesaurus With more than 500,000 words, meanings, phrases, synonyms and antonyms, the Collins English online thesaurus is ideal for everyday use at home, for study, at the office and on the go.
Encyclopedias
- Columbia Encyclopedia Online Search Access more than 57,000 articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.
- Encyclopedia.com Encyclopedia.com has more than 100 trusted sources, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses with facts, definitions, biographies, synonyms, pronunciation keys, word origins, and abbreviations.
- Encyclopedia by TheFreeDictionary Containing over 100,000 terms, TheFreeDictionary's Encyclopedia is compiled from a number of sources, including The Columbia Encyclopedia®. The current Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia® contains nearly 52,000 entries and more than 84,000 hypertext cross-references, marshalling 6.5 million words on a vast range of topics. Comprehensively revised on a quarterly basis, the electronic edition is among the most complete and up-to-date encyclopedias ever produced. TheFreeDictionary's Encyclopedia also draws from the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, which includes nearly 28,000 entries on a broad range of topics, The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, which features 9,000 significant figures from all periods of American history, and Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, a handy fact finder with thousands of the facts and figures, and all the information you need everyday.
- Encyclopedia Mythica Encyclopedia Mythica is an internet encyclopedia on mythology, folklore, and religion. Everything from Aaron to Zygius, with thousands of articles in between.
- Ancient History Encylopedia We want to make history engaging and interesting for everyone, inspiring them to learn more. We target the digital generation by telling exciting historical stories using text, video, interactive features, social media and mobile apps.
Foundation Directory Online Professional
- Foundation Directory Online Professional Foundation Directory Online (FDO) objective is to deliver quality funding prospects. By combining exhaustive data with intuitive search functionality and informative data visualizations, FDO delivers the information you need to reach your fundraising goals quickly and efficiently.
History/Timelines
- Science Timeline Marks in the evolution of western thinking about nature
- Ancient History Encyclopedia We want to make history engaging and interesting for everyone, inspiring them to learn more. We target the digital generation by telling exciting historical stories using text, video, interactive features, social media and mobile apps.
Phonebooks and Directories
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Search for members of Congress from 1774 to the present.
- AnyWho White Pages The AnyWho People Search is updated weekly with phone numbers of individuals from across the nation. For best results, include both the first and last name when searching the AnyWho people search and, if you have it, the ZIP Code.
- Switchboard Find people, contact info, & background checks
- Adventist Directory The Adventist Organizational Directory provides an organizational locator and standard reference for Adventist organizations and entities worldwide.
Testing Preparation & Information
- Test Reviews Online Purchase Test Reviews Online - Test Reviews Online includes descriptive information on more than 3,500 commercially available tests, and more than 2,800 of them have reviews available for purchase.
- LearningExpress Library LearningExpress Library provides students and professionals with eLearning supports with academic skill-building, standardized test prep, career certification test prep and more.
Weather
- Weather Underground - Historical Weather Find historical weather by searching for a city, zip code, or airport code. Include a date for which you would like to see weather history. You can select a range of dates in the results on the next page.
- National Centers for Environmental Information NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is responsible for preserving, monitoring, assessing, and providing public access to the Nation's treasure of climate and historical weather data and information.
- Past Weather by Zip Code - Data Table The Global Historical Climatology Network includes daily observations from automated and human-facilitated weather stations across the United States and around the world. The GHCN-Daily dataset includes observations from World Meteorological Organization, Cooperative, and CoCoRaHS networks. If observed, each station dataset includes daily max and minimum temperatures, total precipitation, snowfall, and depth of snow on ground.
- World Weather Information Service This global website presents OFFICIAL weather observations, weather forecasts and climatological information for selected cities supplied by National Meteorological & Hydrological Services (NMHSs) worldwide.The NMHSs make official weather observations in their respective countries. Links to their official weather service websites and tourism board/organization are also provided whenever available. Weather icons are shown alongside worded forecasts in this version to facilitate visual inspection.
- Satellite Images These images are the most recent from NOAA geostationary (GOES) satellites. There are two GOES Imagers: East and West.
- Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) The Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) is an integrated database of climate summaries from land surface stations across the globe that have been subjected to a common suite of quality assurance reviews. The data are obtained from more than 20 sources. Some data are more than 175 years old while others are less than an hour old. GHCN is the official archived dataset, and it serves as a replacement product for older NCEI-maintained datasets that are designated for daily temporal resolution (i.e., DSI 3200, DSI 3201, DSI 3202, DSI 3205, DSI 3206, DSI 3208, DSI 3210, etc.).
- Phone: 269-471-3158