Cyward Internet Education
Search Engines & Specialized Directories
compiled by Nancy Picchi, Librarian                              Updated January 24, 2009

Ask A Question Services
Fast Information
Major Search Engines
Metasearch Engines
Minor Search Engines
Search Engine Roundup Sites
Search Engines for Children
Search Engines for Teens
Specialized Directories

Ask A Question Services
Internet Public Library - Ask A Question: http://www.ipl.org/div/askus/

Fast
Google Reference: http://www.google.com/Top/Reference/
Infoplease: www.infoplease.com
Internet Public Library - Ready Reference: http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/ref00.00.00
RefDesk: www.refdesk.com
Search.Langenberg.com: www.langenberg.com
Yahoo Reference: http://dir.yahoo.com/Reference/

Specialized Directories & Search Englines (in alphabetical order)
Altavista Babelfish Translation: http://babelfish.altavista.com/
American Journalism Review (Index of Newspaper sites): http://www.ajr.org/Newspapers.asp?MediaType=1
Ancestry.com Message Boards: http://boards.ancestry.com/
Answers Yahoo: http://answers.yahoo.com
Bartleby.com Reference: http://www.bartleby.com/reference/
Catalist: The Official Catalog of Listservs: www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html
Dictionary.com : www.dictionary.com
Federal Citizen Information Center: http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov
FirstGov: http://www.firstgov.gov/
Gigablast Search: http://gigablast.com/
Gigablast Web Directory: http://dir.gigablast.com/
Google Blog Search: http://blogsearch.google.com/
Google Book Search: http://books.google.com/
Google Directory: http://www.google.com/dirhp
Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/
Google Image Search: www.images.google.com
Google Language & Translation Tools: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/
Google News Search: http://news.google.com/
Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/
Healthfinder: http://www.healthfinder.gov/
How Stuff Works: http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Infomine: Visual & Performing Arts Index: http://lib-www.ucr.edu/vpainfo.html
Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/index.php
Internet Archive for Audio: http://www.archive.org/details/audio
Internet Archive for Moving Images: http://www.archive.org/details/movies
Internet Archive Wayback Machine: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Internet Movie Database: http://us.imdb.com/
Internet Public Library: http://www.ipl.org
Internet Public Library News Collection: http://www.ipl.org/div/news/
Internet Public Library Subject Collections: http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/
Intute Gateway: http://www.intute.ac.uk/
Intute - Science, Engineering, Technology: http://www.intute.ac.uk/sciences/
Librarians’ Index to the Internet: http://lii.org/
Library of Congress Catalogs: http://catalog.loc.gov/
Library of Congress' Minerva Internet Archives: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/minerva/html/minerva-home.html
Libraryspot: http://www.libraryspot.com
Library Servers Via WWW: http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/
National Geographic Maps: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/
New York Times Movie Reviews: http://movies.nytimes.com/ref/movies/reviews/
Online Books Page: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
Open Directory: http://dmoz.org/
RefDesk: http://www.refdesk.com
Project Gutenberg: http://promo.net/pg/
Scirus Science Search: http://www.scirus.com/
Translation: Altavista Babelfish: http://babelfish.altavista.com/
Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/
WWW Virtual Library: http://vlib.org/
Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/
Yahoo Directories: http://dir.yahoo.com/
Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/
Yahoo Maps: http://maps.yahoo.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com

Major Search Engines
AOL Search : http://search.aol.com/
Altavista: www.altavista.com
Ask.com: www.ask.com
Exalead One Websearch: http://www.exalead.com/search
Google: www.google.com
Open Directory: http://dmoz.org/
Windows Live Search (formerly MSN Search): http://www.live.com/
Yahoo: www.yahoo.com

Minor Search Engines
About.com: www.about.com
Founded in 1996 and originally named The Mining Company, About.com offers a searchable network of specialized sites created by over 750 guides, who are experts in their chosen areas. About.com is now owned by the New York Times Company, which acquired it in March 2005.
AlltheWeb: http://www.alltheweb.com/ (now powered by Yahoo!)
Cuil: http://www.cuil.com
Exalead One Websearch: http://www.exalead.com/search
Excite: www.excite.com
Gigablast: http://gigablast.com/
Go.com: http://go.com/  (formerly Infoseek, now owned by Walt Disney Companies & powered by Yahoo! Search)
Lycos: www.lycos.com (now owned by Daum Communications Corp.)
Mahalo: http://www.mahalo.com

MetaSearch Engines
Clusty.com: http://clusty.com/ (Owned by Vivismo)
Dogpile: www.dogpile.com
Ixquick: www.ixquick.com
Kartoo: www.kartoo.com
Mamma: www.mamma.com
Metacrawler: www.metacrawler.com
Webcrawler: http://www.webcrawler.com

Search Directories (subject-oriented categories)
Gigablast Web Directory: http://dir.gigablast.com/
Google Directory: http://www.google.com/dirhp
Librarians’ Index to the Internet: http://lii.org/
Internet Public Library Subject Collections: http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/
Open Directory: http://dmoz.org/
Yahoo Directories: http://dir.yahoo.com/

Search Engine Roundup Sites
Langenberg.com Search Page: www.langenberg.com
Looking for a site that provides a directory of specialized search engines? Then, look no further: Link to www.langenberg.com, where you'll discover over 20 subject areas ranging from Area Codes to Zip Codes, but also emcompassing Cooking, Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Government, Maps, and more!

Search Engines for Children
Ask for Kids: http://www.askforkids.com/
Kidspace (Internet Public Library): http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/
Yahoo! Kids (formerly Yahooligans): http://kids.yahoo.com/

Search Engines for Teens
Teenspace (Internet Public Library): http://www.ipl.org/div/teen/

Specialized Search Engines
Addresses, Email & Telephone Numbers
Anywho: http://www.anywho.com/index.html
Anywho Reverse Lookup: http://www.anywho.com/rl.html
Superpages: http://www.superpages.com/
Switchboard: http://www.switchboard.com/
Yahoo People Search: http://people.yahoo.com/
Yellow Pages: http://www.yellowpages.com/
Zoom Info:http://www.zoominfo.com/

Audio, Music, & Video
AOL Video Search: http://video.aol.com/
Altavista Audio Search: http://www.altavista.com/audio/default
Internet Archive for Audio: http://www.archive.org/details/audio
Internet Archive for Moving Images: http://www.archive.org/details/movies
Yahoo Movies: http://movies.yahoo.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com

Ask A Question Services - Staffed by Librarians
Ask a Librarian (Florida system): http://www.askalibrarian.org/aal.asp
Ask a Librarian (Library of Congress): http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/
Ask a Librarian (Nebraska): http://www.nlc.state.ne.us/ref/contactus.asp
Ask a Librarian Online (New York Public Library): http://www.nypl.org/questions/index.cfm
Ask Away Illinois: http://www.askawayillinois.info/
Ask Here PA (Pennyslvania): http://www.askherepa.org/
AskNow (administered by California State Library): http://www.asknow.org/
AskUsNow Maryland: http://www.askusnow.info/
Ask Why Kentucky: http://www.askwhyky.org/
- Ask A Question: http://www.ipl.org/div/askus/
MassAnswers (Massachusetts): http://www.massanswers.org/
NowItNow (Ohio): http://www.knowitnow.org/
QandA NJ (New Jersey): http://www.qandanj.org/

Ask A Question Services
Live Search QnA (Microsoft): http://qna.live.com/
Mahalo Answers: http://www.mahalo.com/answers/
: http://wiki.answers.com/
Yahoo! Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/

Bookmarking & Ratings (aka Social Bookmarking)
Delicious: http://delicious.com/
Digg.com: http://digg.com/
Magnolia: http://ma.gnolia.com/
StumbleUpon: http://www.stumbleupon.com/
Technorati: http://technorati.com/
Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/
Yahoo! Buzz: http://buzz.yahoo.com/

Business & Industry
CEO Express: http://www.ceo-express.com/default.asp
Looking for a one-page list of some of the best news and business information links on the Web? Look no further - you've found it here at CEO Express, which places a world of information at your fingertips.
Corporate Information: www.corporateinformation.com
The good news is that this site no longer requires registration. But, the bad news is that full company reports are no longer available without a paid subscription. Free Snapshot Reports are, as the name implies, available for free. Now owned by Wright Investors' Service, corporateinformation.com was begun in 1996 by George Regnery.
Edgar - SEC Filings & Forms: http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml
Google Finance: http://finance.google.com/finance
Hoovers Online: http://www.hoovers.com
Hoovers Online provides free company "snapshots" on over 43,000 public, non-public, US, and non-US companies.   Also, more in-depth reports are available for an annual---or monthly---fee. Many public libraries provide free access to Hoover's paid subscription database to their patrons.
Wall Street Journal's Research & Tools Section: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/0_0800.html?mod=topnav_0_0012
Yahoo Finance: http://finance.yahoo.com/
Yahoo Finance Help & Directory: http://help.yahoo.com/help/fin/

Dictionaries
Dictionary.com : http://www.dictionary.com
Medline Plus Medical Dictionary: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/
The Free Dictionary: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

Electronic Books - Books Online - Copyright Free
Bartleby Books Online: http://www.bartleby.com/
Bibliomania.com: http://www.bibliomania.com
Electronic Text Center: http://etext.virginia.edu/
Google Book Search: http://books.google.com/
Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org
iBiblio: http://ibiblio.org
Just Free Books: http://www.justfreebooks.info/
Knowledgerush Book Directory: http://knowledgerush.com/kr/jsp/db/directory.jsp
LibriVox: http://librivox.org/
Online Books Page: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
Online Medieval & Classical Library: http://omacl.org/
Open Library: http://openlibrary.org/
Page by Page Books: http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/
Project Gutenberg: http://promo.net/pg/
The English Server: http://eserver.org/
The Free Library: http://thefreelibrary.com/

Encyclopedias
Encarta Encyclopedia (from MSN): http://encarta.msn.com/
Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/
Now owned by Highbeam, Encyclopedia.com trawls over 57,000 updated articles/items from the Columbia Encyclopedia's Sixth Edition.
Encyclopedia Britannica : http://www.britannica.com/
Encyclopedia Smithsonian: http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/
LoveToKnow 1911 Encyclopedia: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org
Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Films - Movies
Internet Archive for Moving Images: http://www.archive.org/details/movies
Internet Movie Database: http://us.imdb.com/
Movies Yahoo: http://movies.yahoo.com/
New York Times Movie Reviews: http://movies.nytimes.com/ref/movies/reviews/

Forums & Groups
Ancestry.com Message Boards: http://boards.ancestry.com/
Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/
Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/

Genealogy
Ancestry.com Message Boards: http://boards.ancestry.com/
Census Finder: http://www.censusfinder.com/
Cyndi's List: http://www.cyndislist.com/
Ellis Island Arrivals: http://ellisislandrecords.org/
Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild: http://immigrantships.net/
National Archives for Genealogists: http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/
Roots Web: http://www.rootsweb.com/
USGen Web Project: http://www.usgenweb.com/

Government
Federal Consumer Information Center: http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov
FirstGov: http://www.firstgov.gov/
Launched in September 2000, Firstgov.gov bills itself as "the official U.S. gateway to all government information."
FirstGov en Español: http://www.firstgov.gov/Espanol/index.shtml
Internal Revenue Service: http://www.irs.gov/
Library of Congress Catalogs: http://catalog.loc.gov/
U.S. House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov/
U.S. Senate: http://www.senate.gov/
U.S. Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
The White House: http://whitehouse.gov

Health & Medicine
Healthfinder: http://www.healthfinder.gov/
Intute - Health & Life Sciences: http://www.intute.ac.uk/healthandlifesciences/
Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.com
Medline Plus Medical Dictionary: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html
PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/

How To
How Stuff Works: http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Image (Photographs & Graphics)
AltaVista Image Search: http://www.altavista.com/image/default
Ditto Visual Search Engine: http://ditto.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/
Google Image Search: http://www.images.google.com
Landscape-Architecture Image Resource: http://www.lair.umd.edu/default.htm
http://www.archive.org/details/movies
PicSearch: http://www.picsearch.com/

International News & History
All Africa: http://allafrica.com/
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Council on World Affairs: http://www.cfr.org/
Euroseek: http://www.euroseek.com

Job Search
Careerbuilder.com: http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Mamma Job Search: http://www.mammajobs.com/mammajobs.html
Monster: http://www.monster.com
Yahoo! Hot Jobs: http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/

Language Translations
Altavista Babelfish Translation: http://babelfish.altavista.com/
Free Translation: http://www.freetranslation.com/
Google Language & Translation Tools: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

Library Information, Library Science & Online Libraries
Internet Public Library: www.ipl.org
Librarians’ Index to the Internet: http://lii.org/
Library of Congress Catalogs: http://catalog.loc.gov/
Libraryspot: www.libraryspot.com
LibWeb: http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/
LWibWeb provides a searchable database to over 7900 pages from libraries in over 146 countries.
LISwiki: http://liswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
WorldCat: http://www.worldcat.org
"WorldCat connects you to the collections and services of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide."

Magazines & Journals
Internet Public Library News Collection: http://www.ipl.org/div/news/
Library of Congress' List of News & Periodical Resources on the Web:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/lists.html
Making of America Magazine Archives - Cornell University: http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/index.html
Making of America Magazine Archives - University of Michigan: http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/
Newspaper Archive: http://newspaperarchive.com
The Internet Library of Early Journals: http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ilej/

Maps & Directions
Google Earth: http://earth.google.com/
Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/
Mapquest: http://www.mapquest.com/
National Geographic Maps: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/
Rand McNally: http://www.randmcnally.com/
Yahoo Maps: http://maps.yahoo.com/

News
AltaVista News: http://news.altavista.com/
American Journalism Review (Index of Newspaper sites): http://www.ajr.org/Newspapers.asp?MediaType=1
Ask News: http://news.ask.com/news
Associated Press: http://customwire.ap.org/specials/bluepage.html
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Google News: http://news.google.com/
Google News searches over "4,500 news sources updated continuously."
IPL Newspaper Collection: http://www.ipl.org/div/news/
Lycos News: http://news.lycos.com/


Science & Technology
Catalist: The Official Catalog of Listservs: www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html
CNET: www.cnet.com
Intute - Science, Engineering, Technology: http://www.intute.ac.uk/sciences/
Search Jupiter Media Online : http://search.internet.com/
Scirus Science Search: http://www.scirus.com/
Science.gov: http://www.science.gov

Sports
Open Directory - Sports: http://dmoz.org/Sports/
Yahoo Sports Directory: http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Sports/

Usenet
Google Groups (previously Dejanews): http://groups.google.com/
Read/search the Internet's message boards. The search engine Google recently purchased the Usenet's archives.

Weather
Ask Weather: http://sp.ask.com/docs/about/site_features.shtml#weather
Weather Channel: http://www.weather.com/

Web Archives
Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/index.php
Internet Archive Wayback Machine: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Library of Congress' Minerva Internet Archives: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/minerva/html/minerva-home.html

Web Search Information & Updates
Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial - From UC Berkeley Library:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html
Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators: http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/index.htm
Search Engine Showdown: http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/ (Greg Notess' site)
Search Engine Watch: www.searchenginewatch.com
Search Engine Land: http://www.searchengineland.com (Danny Sullivan's current site)

Websearch on About.com: http://websearch.about.com
Bookmark this site and plan to visit it weekly to benefit from the very latest news on search engines that editor Wendy Boswell provides.

Please Note:  This list and commentary has been compiled by Nancy Picchi, Librarian.  The commentary is copyright, Nancy Picchi, 1995-2009.

© Copyright, Nancy Picchi 1995-2009

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Last Updated: January 24, 2009