• LOC.gov lets you not only ask a librarian for help but also search catalogs of libraries from all over the world. This is truly a huge resource that should be on your Top 10 best research sites list. Anything from Academica Sinica in Taiwan to Yale University in the U.S. is here and ready to be searched.

• ReferenceDesk.org: Dubbed “The Internet's Best Reference Source,” this web directory is an extremely useful site that provides everything from business and finance information to federal government resources, scholarship details, links to newspapers and calendars, search engines, and more.

• NASA’s Ask An Expert: NASA’s site for space and science research help; search the archives of answered questions to see if your question has been addressed, or use the drop-down menus to browse through missions, topics, etc.

• USA.gov: This is where you should start when looking for specific government information.

• Reference.com: Extremely simple to use with a basic layout, this reference website lets you browse by category or search by keywords to research everything from food and health to history, beauty, education, technology, vehicles, art, and more.

• Refdesk.com: Billing itself as the internet’s fact-checker, this reference site includes in-depth research links to breaking news, editorials, Today in History, Word of the Day, Daily Pictures, and other references.

• Encyclopedia.com: The number one online encyclopedia that lets you search over 200 reference books and encyclopedias at once.

• Encyclopedia Britannica: One of the world’s oldest encyclopedias online; has featured posts and category listings.

• Purdue University Quick Reference: Research site with tons of information that includes resources specific to Purdue University and surrounding areas in Indiana. It also includes an Ask a Librarian service.

• Prescriber’s Digital Reference: A wonderful research tool when gathering detailed medical information.

• iTools.com: Serves as a gateway for reference and research links.

• FOLDOC: Free Online Dictionary of Computing is a detailed computing dictionary for researching the meaning behind computer-related tools, standards, jargon, languages, and more. Depending on the type of research you're doing or how you need to reference the information, you may need quick access to books. There are lots of places to download free books online, plus sites with free textbooks and free educational movies.

• The Virtual Learning Resources Center (VLRC) is an online index hosting thousands of scholarly websites, all of which are selected by teachers and librarians from around the globe. The site provides students and teachers with current, valid information for academic projects using indexes gathered from research portals, universities and library internet subject guides.

• The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users world-wide will find information to assist with many writing projects. For more information about services for the Purdue community, including consultations and conversation groups, please visit the Writing Lab site.

Finding Sources

• WorldWideScience, which refers to itself as “The Global Science Gateway,” is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. It hits databases from over 70 countries and returns English and translated results from related journals and academic resources.

• Science.gov is operated by the Office of Science and Technical Information. It pulls from over 60 databases, 2,200 websites, and 200 million pages of journals, documents and scientific data. Filter by author, date, topic, and format.

• Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine—type a topic or a question (“What is the function of the pancreas?”) and get an answer without scrolling pages of results—great for math help.

• Refseek focuses on scientific and academic results—more results from .edu/.org and encyclopedias, plus a direct documents search for PDFs of academic papers.

• The U.S. Department of Education’s ERIC hosts 1.3M+ bibliographic records of articles and online materials. With 8M+ searches each month, it’s a go-to source for education research.