How to Use this Page

I've arranged the information sources on this page according to a series of levels that will take you from the initial exploration of a research question to later stages of retrieving more detailed and specialized (also more scattered) information.

If you need to know more about a country, you may want to start by viewing a map and reading about the country in The World Factbook ( Level 1 ). The surest route to locating useful material for research is to search library catalogs and Northern Light (Level 2). Search engines are often valuable if used selectively (Level 3). At the other levels (Level 4 - Level 6) you'll find a wide range of items -- some of them helpful and some not for your research assignments.

Maps and Country Profiles

If you don't know where your country is and need basic information about social, political, economic and demographic factors, go to The World Factbook, where you can find separate maps and profiles for each country.

More expansive maps than you'll find in The World Factbook are available from the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. These maps locate countries and major cities within their continents. The maps are large and slow to download, but it's worth it!

Encyclopedias and More

The Encyclopedia Britannica is online, and it is an excellent reference resource. You'll also find a search engine here along with a useful news service.

You may find useful information in the Encarta Brief Encyclopedia . NOTE: If you use the Encarta Encyclopedia, you'll have to select the "Back" button -- perhaps more than once -- to return to this page.

Search Article Titles

Search Full Text

Infoplease.com. The "Search Infoplease" window near the bottom of the home page will allow you to access basic information about countries and a great deal more. For biographical information, use the "Search Biographies" window. There is also a broad assortment of information about many other subjects, as you can see from the entries that are listed on the home page.

Libraries

Libraries are storehouses of knowledge, ideas and possibilities -- just waiting to be explored at your pace and applied to your own questions. Where else can you browse through entire sections of books that are catalogued by subject -- new books and old, popular books and more specialized ones? Nowhere else. There are a number of great libraries in the United States, one of which is the Library of Congress. Walk into the Main Reading Room, in the Jefferson Building, and you'll instantly sense the power of a great library and the learning that such institutions make possible. This isn't an illusion, as you'll soon see if you dip into some specialized parts of the library's extensive collection. The Web's an appetizer. The main course is in libraries.
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The Library of Congress. Visit the library in person if you can; it's a treat. Alternatively, the searchable catalog is extensive and can alert you to what you may be missing elsewhere. For searches, go to "Research Tools" at the bottom of the home page, and click on the "Go" button beside "Library of Congress Catalogs.

Harvard University Library Union Catalog (HOLLIS). The Harvard holdings are vast. The link that's provided here will take you to the catalog, but you can also find additional good things at this site if you explore.

Libraries Online (presented by LibrarySpot ^(TM). This site has been designed "to break through the information overload of the Web to bring the best library and reference sites together with insightful editorial in one convenient, user-friendly spot."

The Internet Public Library. This is "a very respectable digital research venue, where you can find extensive links to online reference material, newspapers, search tools, and online texts. To check it out, visit the site at http://www.ipl.org, where a simple introductory screen invites you to click to any of its collections (Reference, Exhibits, Especially for Librarians, Magazines and Serials, Newspapers, Online Texts, or Web Searching) or its facilities designed specifically for teens or youths."***

Northern Light

Northern Light is a standout example of the potential that's there, with Internet technology, to bring library holdings straight to your computer. But unfortunately, it has become too expensive recently to be a good choice for many purposes. It's worth looking at, though; that part is still free! You may find something that you're willing to pay for (usually $2.95 or more per article).

Northern Light is a search procedure, but unlike HotBot or AltaVista, it searches hundreds of journals (and other sources as well) and gives you the actual articles. Lots of journals are included that you can use well in this course -- and also others. There's no charge for searching, and the system returns not only a listing of titles and authors but also very brief introductory "descriptions" of most articles. Most of the journal articles that are accessible through Northern Light go back only to about 1996; that's a limitation to keep in mind.

I've found it useful to limit Northern Light's searching to their "Special Collection" sources rather than also bringing Internet sources into the search. To do that, choose the tab that says "Power Search" at the top of the Northern Light home page, and then select "Special Collection" from the list of choices below the windows where you are asked to enter your search terms. Limiting your searching in this way keeps out lots of clutter -- things that will show up with HotBot, anyway -- Level 3, below -- if you want to find URLs rather than journal articles.

The good thing about search engines is that they can connect you to millions of pages. The frustrating thing is that those millions of pages aren't arranged in any particular way, and they include everything from excellent articles and research reports to personal web pages with vacation photos!
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To use search engines effectively, you need to know how to enter search terms that will maximize your chances of finding what you need, and you have to be proficient at picking out useful URLs as you quickly scroll through page after page of entries. Using search engines well takes skill -- skill that you need to have in this era of the Internet. But the search engines that are discussed below aren't your best source for every research topic. Library resources and Northern Light (a powerful searach engine in its own right) are better for some purposes.

HotBot, Google! and AltaVista are excellent choices for many search engine tasks. MSN Search is also worth trying.

HotBot is especially valuable when you're using advanced search terms (for example: "john brown" and "harper's ferry"; capitalization isn't necessary). Also, one of its advantages over some other search engines is that it returns results sorted according to their relevance, with the most relevant returns at the top (most relevant as HotBot sees it...). HotBot is one of the most comprehensive of the search engines, and its compatibility with Boolean searching plus its ability to sort results by relevance makes it a standout choice for many purposes.

Google! has an advantage that makes it a good alternative to HotBot for many searches. It's very good at narrowing the millions of web pages out there to a manageable number based on a single search word, or a series of words. Google! is a Stanford University project that is based on a unique principle for determining the relevance of web sites to your particular search query. Here's the way it is described by one reviewer:

Google's process is a little different. It ranks sites both on the basis of key words and how many other sites with those words link up to that site. The result is like taking a poll of the entire web community as to what sites are most important on any given subject, from people who know or care enough about that subject to set up a web page themselves. -Jack Bryar, Andover News Network

Unlike HotBot and AltaVista, Google! doesn't allow you to group words together with quotation marks to create a multiple-word phrase. The Google! Help page offers these searching instructions:

To enter a query into Google, just type in a few descriptive keywords and hit "search." That's it! Google does not require some of the complicated search operators found in other search engines. No "" operator needed. Google automatically prefers pages where the query terms are found in close proximity. Thus, we do not require the use of quotation marks to denote phrases.

It's a different kind of system from those that are offered by the "big two," and it often yields impressive results!

AltaVista compares favorably with HotBot in scope, and it has several features that make it attractive -- a lanaguage translator, for example. For advanced searching, with complex search terms, HotBot is often better because of its feature of attempting to sort returns according to their relevance to your search. AltaVista allows you to enter a search term as a straightforward question in its standard (not advanced) search procedure, however, which offers an intriguing alternative for some searches.

MSN Search (Microsoft) uses a combination of methods to make searching more effective. It's worth checking out.

When searching with either HotBot or AltaVista, you will often find it useful to submit complex search statements, with "and," and if necessary, with quotation marks. Be sure to read the tutorials in HotBot or AltaVista that describe techniques for effective searching -- in HotBot, the Getting Started page, for simple searches, and also the Advanced Search Features List; and in AltaVista, the Help pages (both basic and advanced). Also check out the Searching section of the Exchange Internet Cafe.

If you would like to learn more about specific features that are available with different search engines, and to access reviews that describe advantages and disadvantages of each, you may want to look at Search Engine Showdown: The Users' Guide to Web Searching. It's a good resource. It's also a bit technical in places.

U.S. government information is a category unto itself, and there are special search engines to help you locate needles in the mammoth U.S. government documents and data haystack:

The Federal Web Locator. The Center for Information Law and Policy at Villanova University states that this resource "is intended to be the one stop shopping point for federal government information on the World Wide Web."

FedWorld.gov. This site is managed by the National Technical Information Service (U.S. Department of Commerce) and provides links to U.S. government web sites. Sites are categorized by subject, and a search engine is also available.

FEDSTATS. Here's a self-description from the home page: "More than 70 agencies in the United States Federal Government produce statistics of interest to the public. The Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy maintains this site to provide easy access to the full range of statistics and information produced by these agencies for public use. Please use the feedback button to indicate how well this site meets your needs and any suggestions for improvement."

The sources that are listed below will give you a mixed bag of URLs. You may find some of them useful for particular research subjects. If you become familiar with them you'll soon know what kinds of possibilities each one has to offer.

The Washington Post ("World" section). About two-thirds of the way down this page, you'll see a heading that says "Search the World." You can either enter the name of a country in the box or click on the first letter of the name of the country that you're studying. You'll end up on a page with several kinds of links that will provide you with information about that country (including a link to The World Factbook, which is referenced above).

The World Factbook. Includes basic and useful country-by-country information -- data about each country's people, government, economy, communications systems, transportation networks, and more.

United Nations Member States. This web site lists all member countries of the U.N. and the date each country became an U.N. member. It also has links to official web sites of many country -- some of them more useful than others.

InfoNation. From the home page: " InfoNation is an easy-to-use, two-step database that allows you to view and compare the most up-to-date statistical data for the Member States of the United Nations."

The Economist. The online version of this weekly news magazine has lots of good information, and from time to time the company offers free trial access to the searchable archives. If you aren't familiar with The Economist, don't be thrown off by the name. It's about a great deal more than economics, with broader and more detailed coverage than you'll find in most other news magazines.

Asiaweek. A useful news magazine for Asia, in online form with supplements that go beyond hard copy.

Foreign Government Resources on the Web (University of Michigan Documents Center). There's a wealth of country-by-country information here on a variety of subjects.

Background Notes, U.S. Department of State. This resource includes some of the same information that you'll find in The World Factbook, but the two works diverge in some subject areas. To use this resource, first select a geographic region and then a country.

The Library of Congress Country Studies web site. There's some excellent material here. (It's better for some countries than for others.) Once you select a particular country, you can keyword-search the documents that are available.

WWW Virtual Library. This service, which is administered by the Australian National University, currently has 275 different "Virtual Libraries." Each "Virtual Library" is a subject, and many countries of the world are listed as Virtual Libraries (but some aren't). Once you access the home page, you can click on the first letter of a country's name, and on the page that will come up you can see if the country you're researching has a Virtual Library entry.

The World: Countries and Continents. Sprint, Lycos and Carnegie Mellon University have assembled some good URLs that focus on different countries. (Scroll down to Lycos Worldwide to select a country.)

OECD in Figures. There are 29 member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. These countries are among the world's richest. The "OECD in Figures" web page has useful statistical information about each member country in tables that are identified by subject. The larger OECD web site has other documents that you may find useful, also. You may want to check out the "Free Documents" page, which is accessible from the OECD home page.

U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base

City.Net. You'll find an assortment of links here, country-by-country. Some are useful, and some are just for tourists. It's worth checking out.

FEDSTATS A to Z. U.S. government statistical information on many subjects.

OneWorld Online News by Country

Foreign Governments page. A group within the American Library Association has compiled and maintains (with frequent updating) a listing of documents that are available from governments around the world. Some of the materials at this site are very worthwhile. The subjects that are covered range widely, depending on the particular government. Some are of better quality than others, as you would expect. It's well worth looking at, and for some countries, it's an excellent resource.

"National" and International Sources

Now that you're a licensed Netscape navigator, you're the one in charge here -- not network news producers and anchors, as before. Earlier, they decided what you'd learn from the mass media and when you'd learn it. Finally, you can decide. You can get as much information as you want about the particular subjects that you're interested in, and skip what you don't care about. And there aren't any pesky commercials that can't be easily ignored.

When using the web sites listed below, use the search procedure that each makes available. The search engines have different formats, but there's usually a description of how each one works. (Some sites don't have them at all.)

American Outlook. You'll have to look through the issues one-at-a-time.

The American Prospect Online. Check out both the current issue and archives.

Atlantic Unbound | The Atlantic Monthly.There are many excellent articles here on a variety of subjects. Select "Archive" to search back issues of The Atlantic Monthly, or "Search" for a more general search.

BBC News. This is an outstanding source of news information, with broader international coverage than you will find with most U.S. media organizations.

Commentary. Many articles are thoughtful. You can search issue-by-issue, or you can use the site search procedure with keywords.

FT.com. Financial Times on the Web. More than money. Where else can you get a British slant on what's news and new in politics and economics, and for free? Nowhere better than here.

Forbes.com. Not to be ignored.

The Nation. There are useful articles here, and the archive search will help you find them.

The New Republic. You never know what you'll find here...

Newsweek.com. Includes all Newsweek articles and additional features as well.

The New York Times on the Web.Why not be extravagant, and after you've accessed the Post, then subscribe to the New York Times on the Web? Once you're linked, follow the instructions for becoming a new subscriber, which will include providing your e-mail address and later checking your e-mail "in" box for an electronic letter back from the NY Times people who'll be registering you.

Reason Online. Potpourri!

TIME.com. You know the hard copy Time. This online variant includes a magazine section with the same articles -- archived so that you can easily access back issues. There's also more.

The Times and The Sunday Times (London). This is an excellent Internet resource. You have to register to use the main sections of this web, and then use your user name and password every time you return to the site. It's free. I've linked this page to the "Library" section (above), where back issues can be found, and where links to other webs can also be accessed with the search procedure that's at the bottom of the page. Notice that an advanced search procedure is available here, also. So far, at least, you can get to this page through the "back door" and access the links that are available here without registering. (It may not stay that way; I think it's an oversight!) There are some excellent resources at this location. And if you'd like to access the home page to see what all this web has to offer, just click here.

Wall Street Journal. This resource isn't free, but it has a very good search engine which is a nice supplement to Northern Light for newspaper articles and reports from government agencies and private foundations. It's quite a lot more expensive than Northern Light, but the interactive edition of the WSJ is free for a two-week trial. If you sign up, you need to remember to cancel after two weeks, or your credit card will be billed. The first 10 articles that a person retrieves during the trial are also free. The place for searching is the "Publications Library."

The Washington Post. This is one of the best all-around sources of national and international news and other good current events information that's being published in the U.S. on the Internet. You can get an Internet version of nearly everything in the Post (except for the ads) any time you want to connect, and it's updated frequently throughout the day.

There's a lot here, and a little exploration will teach you how to get to what you're most interested in, whether it's national news, international developments, sports, weather, or whatever. There are also intriguing "safaris" in the on-line Post to lots of WWW outposts that you'll find informative and helpful. You'll see that there are lots of ways to get around in this web; its architecture is "user friendly."

The Wilson Quarterly Online. There are some excellent articles here, but finding the right article for a particular subject is a hit-and-miss operation.

Wired News. You'll find a wealth of intriguing information here -- maybe...

Local Newspapers

Now, The New York Times isn't the best place to go for local information (unless you're a New Yorker!) Many newspapers offer a web version. You can find newspapers state-by-state and city-by-city at the E&P Media Links: U.S. Newspapers and also one at U. S. News Archives on the Web (maintained by the Special Libraries Association). The first site lists several categories of media, not just newspapers, while the second gives detailed information about the availability and cost of articles from each newspaper whose stories are archived.

Newspapers from Foreign Countries

What have I left out? A great deal! There's no need to be ethnocentric here--not with the World Wide Web at your fingertips! Look over the Internet Public Library: Online Newspapers. From there you can get to Le Monde in Paris, Nezavisimaia gazeta in Moscow, and other newspapers around the world--all in their actual languages. The E&P Media Links database will also link you to newspapers around the world.

Parlez-vous francais? Vous aimeriez aller a http://www.lemonde.fr/ (Le Monde).

Amusez-vous bien!

Television and the Web

The webs of ABC, CBS and NBC aren't as informative as newspapers, if you're looking for solid current information. They're more about entertainment. FOX is even more so. CNN is better, and I'd rank the new hybrid from Microsoft and NBC second (MSNBC). Tune in for yourself. And in the process, you may want to sign up for CNN's personalized news service -- "all the news that you want printed..."

Global Beat. This site is intended for journalists who cover international news. It comes from the Center for War, Peace, and the News Media at New York University's Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, and while it is intended for specialists, it often includes articles that are useful for others as well who are interested in international developments. The site is updated weekly. Don't miss the search engine and archives.

The University of Michigan's Documents Center is a valuable resource for many kinds of information, with links to a wide variety of government agencies and other organizations. Links are categorized by subject. The Documents Center is self-described as "a central reference and referral point for government information, whether local, state, federal, foreign or international. Its web pages are a reference and instructional tool for government, political science, statistical data, and news."

Public Agenda Online is an excellent source for public opinion data and analysis on a variety of current subjects, from "abortion" to "welfare." Here is an extract from Public Agenda's self-description: "Public Agenda has addressed a wide range of issues through its research and citizen education work including school and health care reform, national security, AIDS, crime, economic competitiveness and the environment. . . . Public Agenda maintains a nonpartisan balance in all of its work. Its materials have won praise for their credibility and fairness from elected officials from both political parties and experts and decision-makers across the political spectrum."

The Social Statistics Briefing Room includes both U.S. and country-by country data in four general areas: crime, demography, education and health. Here's how the authors of this site describe it:

The purpose of this service is to provide easy access to current Federal social statistics. It provides links to information produced by a number of Federal agencies. All of the information included in the Social Statistics Briefing Room is maintained and updated by the statistical units of those agencies. All the estimates for the indicators presented in the Federal Statistics Briefing Rooms are the most currently available values.

Interested in locating new and interesting web sites on a wide range of topics? Check out The Weekly Bookmark, which gives brief descriptions of webs in fifteen-plus categories and furnishes active links. A newsletter of newly catalogued sites is published weekly, and archives are available.

The New York Times' "Navigator" section provides worthwhile lists of web sites in several different categories. The Times staff describes "Navigator" as "the home page used by the newsroom of The New York Times for forays into the Web." Its chief purpose is "to give reporters and editors new to the Web a solid starting point for a wide range of journalistic functions without forcing all of them to spend time wandering around blindly to find a useful set of links of their own" (quoted from "A Selective Guide..." at the above-linked "Navigator" site, bookmark "#about"). You may find it informative, too.

References

* Brent Schlender, "Larry Ellison: Oracle at Web Speed," Fortune, May 24, 1999.

** Tom Spring, "Looking for Stuff in All the Wrong Places?" PC World, January, 2000, p. 66.

*** Charles Bowen, "Web Library Is Wealth Of Research Tools: Internet Public Library Started As Academic Project," Editor & Publisher, August 21, 2001.