Reference Librarians Resources

• AcqWeb -- "links to information and resources of interest to librarians with acquisitions or collection development responsibilities."

• Based on the Book -- answers the questions "What book was this based on?" and "Did somebody make a movie of this book?".  From Mid-Continent Public Library.

• BlogBib -- "An Annotated Bibliography on Weblogs and Blogging, with a Focus on Library/Librarian Blogs."

• Book Finder -- lists the top ten most requested out-of-print  books ordered in different subject areas. A what-not-to-weed tool!

• Collaborative Live Reference Services -- Bernie Sloan has compiled yet another useful directory on digital reference, which links in real-time reference services offered jointly by two or more libraries.

• College & Research Libraries -- all issues further back than six months are now available full-text!

• COUNTER: Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources -- is an international initiative designed to serve librarians, publishers and intermediaries by facilitating the recording and exchange of online usage statistics.

• Digital Reference Pages

• Direct Search--links you directly to the search engines for important informational sites like Morningstar Mutual Funds Service, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Funding Opportunities Database, US Budget, Public Laws, Edgar SEC filings, the British Library catalog

• Directory of Open Access Journals -- covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. They aim to cover all subjects and languages.

• Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies--from Marylaine Block. 

• Freepint -- "a network of over 76,000 information researchers globally." Lots of informative articles and tips.

• GODORT -- Subject guides for government documents from the ALA round table group.

• HighWire - Free Online Full-Text Articles -- "HighWire Press is the largest archive of free full-text science on Earth! As of 4/30/03, we are assisting in the online publication of 536,590 free full-text articles and 1,435,816 total articles" -- searchable here. Not every one i tried was free, but it is another option in a librarian's bag of tricks.

• INFOMINE: scholarly Internet resource collections

• Internet Library for Librarians -- For Reference and Ready Reference.

• Internet Public Library Reference Desk

• Library Job Postings on the Internet

• Library Journal--online, including job listings

• Library Link -- Sign up for daily e-mail notification of "the latest library news, good reads on the web, and other valuable resources that a library knowledge worker should know about." Previous links are archived here.

• Library Philosophy and Practice -- a full text journal online.

• Library Reference Center--courtesy of Ebsco. It indexes 30 library periodicals for the past 5 years.

• Library Statistics and Measures -- This site offers lots of resources for documenting the work you do. Click here for the neat larger site which includes these Statistics and Measures.

• Medical Reference for Non-medical Librarians

• Memory of the World -- sponsored by UNESCO, this website offers access to over 160 digitized collections from around the world, including art, literature, newspapers, music, etc.

• MGPL Webrary -- lists of books organized by setting, character, genre, authors, audience, etc.

• Multilingual Glossary: Language Table -- Multilingual glossary of library terms for international students, as created by the Instruction Section of ACRL.  Languages are French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

• ODLIS: Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science

• Online Reference -- A wiki of resources, discussion and examples with links. See what others are doing!

• Periodical Titles in OCLC FirstSearch--Use this service to find specific periodical titles in FirstSearch databases or to generate lists of titles for those databases. 

• the Post September 11th Environment: Access to Government Information -- a list of those Government documents that have been taken off the Web due to security concerns. A good place to go if you have been wondering "Now where was that govdoc site I found just last week?"

• PubList.Com--bibliographic information and links where available for 150,000 serial publications. They are enhancing their site and may not have full abilities yet. 

• Ready Reference Files -- from Santa Cruz Public Libraries, searchable.

• Reference Resources in Spanish -- the annotations are in English.

• Search Engine Watch--excellent comparative data on how the different search engines search, their frequency of updating, etc.

• Sitelines- Ideas about Web Searching -- A weblog by Rita Vine, librarian and web search trainer, "to help web searchers stay up to date on key search tools and developments." An excellent site.

• Tips and Techniques of Library Instruction - an excellent site for beginners AND veterans.

• Understanding Call Numbers-- explains the Library of Congress system. Click here for the Dewey Decimal system explanation.

• Video Librarian Online--a very comprehensive site for finding video reviews. 

• Virtual Reference -- courtesy of  Bernie Sloan - "more than 700 items listed in this bibliography relate to the topic of online or virtual or digital reference services, i.e., the provision of reference services, involving collaboration between library user and librarian, in a computer-based medium. These services can utilize various media, including e-mail, Web forms, chat, video, Web customer call center software, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), etc."

• FirstGov Search Interface

• WebJunction -- "is an online community of libraries and other agencies sharing knowledge and experience to provide the broadest public access to information technology." This is a good one, folks.

• Where to do Research -- over a 100 categories with links.

Library Fun:

• Dictionary of Imaginary Places -- invites additions from readers.

• Edgar Governo, Historian of Things That Never Were -- Includes timelines of events in Oz, DiscWorld, Dune, Lord of the Rings, Tarzan, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and more. Also has timelines drawn from games (Battle Tech, Castle Vania, Mario, etc.), comics (Spiderman, the Justice League, etc.), movies (Star Wars, Mad Max, Freddie Krueger, etc.), and TV shows (Alias, West Wing, Dr. Who, etc.).

• Invisible Library -- a catalog of books that exist only in fiction (like "The History of Magic" featured in the Harry Potter books).  Also includes information about the Fortsas Collection Hoax.

• A Librarian's Alphabet 

• Library Anecdotes, facetiae, satire, etc -- a nice directory to sites that celebrate some of the more amusing aspects of our profession. It's also a guide to many of the librarian-produced weblogs and zines.

• Peeps and Library Research -- this one is purely for fun and pretty weird

• Unshelved -- a comic strip for and about librarians

• Warrior Librarian Weekly -- Library humor, an excellent resource.

• Zen Librarian -- koans to enlighten you and your patrons