The Valley of the Shadow project has been on the Web for nearly five years and is one of the most stunning digital archive success stories going. Under the aegis of the University of Virginia and the leadership of professor Edward L. Ayers, the archive contains some 5000 pages of digitised photographs, newspaper articles, records, wills, census figures, and diaries covering the years 1857 to 1870 and issuing from two representative counties, on in Pennsylvania and on in Virginia. In an article, historian Jeffrey Young characterises it as a do-it-yourself history kit, where users can let their own research into the sources lead them to their own conclusions. With the boon of database searching, modern users can find connections that might have taken pre-Valley researchers and entire sabbatical to cobble together. As Young also points out, the sources themselves take a refreshingly wide cross-section, from a slave woman's letter to her husband on her impending sale to traders, to the insipid diary entries of an upper-class teenager. valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/Browser2/frbrowser/vsjul64.html
This site is yet another reason that from now on no crossword will go uncompleted, any speech will by you will not mesmerise any audience or any family argument over literature cannot be resolved. There are hundreds of searchable full text works of classic fiction, popular fiction, short stories, drama, poetry, dictionaries, research and religious texts, including Brewer's Phrase and Fable, and Reader's Handbook, Webster's Dictionary, The Koran, The Hobson Jobson Dictionary of Anglo-India Terms, Simonds History of American Literature, Dictionary of Synonyms, Dictionary of Quotations, Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. Roget's Thesaurus, A Dictionary of Quotations, more... A superb resource. www.bibliomania.com
The Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody Wyoming created this site to portray the life of William F Cody the celebrated scout and buffalo hunter who herded cattle, mined for gold and presumably helped make beans a dietary staple. There's something endearingly American about the site's veneration of old Bill- he was a star-struck cowboy who toured the world with a cabaret show. There is plenty of disarming trivia, too. Our man is said to have boosted Anglo-American relations when his Wild West show performed for a bemused Queen Victoria at her jubilee in 1987. www.bbhc.org
This organisation is a leading provider of economic, financial, and industry research designed to meet the diverse planning and information needs of business organisations, governments, and professional and personal investors world-wide. We were one of the first to provide high quality, proprietary business information on the Internet to business users and investors. Their core assets of proprietary editorial and research content and economic and financial databases are a well-recognised source of information on national and regional economies, industries, financial markets, and demographics. They have a dedicated and experienced staff of economists, data specialists, programmers, and online producers who create proprietary web and print content and databases. Information and services are used in a variety of ways, including strategic planning; product and sales forecasting; risk and sensitivity management; and as investment research. Clients include the largest commercial and investment banks, insurance companies, financial services firms, money managers, mutual funds, U.S. state and Canadian provincial governments, U.S. federal government agencies, utilities, and industrial and technology companies. Their economists are frequently quoted in the national news media. Publications that have recently quoted their economists include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Week, Fortune, Money, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily, Newsweek, and the American Banker, among others. www.economy.com
Launched as a cyber-branch of the Hubble Telescope project, the site hosts a stunning array of out-of-this-world photographs, including black holes, galaxies, star clusters, cosmic silhouettes and the odd 1,000 mph storm on Saturn. With its easy-to-understand science speak the site explains away the most complex intergalactic phenomena under headline such as " young stars found in cosmic dance" or "star tears neighbourhood apart." Of course, if you want to know how The Hubble, or telescopes in general work. http://hubble.stsci.edu/
A global research gateway with a unique portal giving single-point access to the full text of the complete catalogue of books, reports, statistics and journals published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD). This site also has a link to over 2,800 academic and professional journals and over a million articles online. www.ingenta.com
This site harks back to these early pioneers of mapping. They are related to the Corps of Discovery, the expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to chart the vast expanses of unknown territory in in western America from 1803 to 1807. Discover the ritual the explorers used when they encountered native Americans. Find out what life was like for York, Lewis's black slave, during the expedition. Or lead your own expedition in the interactive feature Into the Unknown. www.pbs.org/lewisandclark www.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/lewis_clark
This site contains 675 plates of the moon compiled by David Bowker and Kenrick Hughes in 1973. The images of this photographic atlas are sometimes austere, and the definition could surely be bettered today. The site nevertheless paints a glorious picture not only of the moon itself but of the pioneering sprit of space travel in those not-too-distant days. www.lpi.usra.edu/research/lunar_orbiter
This site now offers ATHENS-based user authentication for Emerald ( Electronic Management Research Library Database), comprising 130 journals. ATHENS is the the UK national authentication system of UK Higher Education institutions, giving "single sign-on access to numerous datasets and information services for the academic community. www.mcb.co.uk
This site is designed to cover the world of Internet research. To that end this site provides almost daily updates on search engines, new data managing software, browser technology, large compendiums of information and Web directories. If in doubt, the final question is, Would a reference librarian find it useful? If the answer's yes, in it goes! The site was originally started as a support site for Official Netscape Guide to Internet Research, which came out in April 1998 (and is therefore very out of date.) Now, however, it is a standalone resource www.researchbuzz.com
If you are writing about counter terrorism, special military forces, or clandestine operations this site will get you into the websites of the worlds elite military units. We must confess a little bias in using this site of the Royal Marines Special Boat Service as the portal to the other sites as the owner of this sites father was a highly decorated member of this unit, which is often overshadowed by its cousin the SAS. The Special Boat Service (SBS) is a naval special forces group and considered one of the best naval special forces teams in the world. There is a minimum requirement of two years service in the Royal Marines before being eligible for SBS service. Like many other teams, the SBS are proficient at demolitions, diving, and parachuting; unlike other teams, much of the above is done with the two-man (one of the training events is a timed five mile run with a disassembled canoe, with each operator carrying about a 60 pound load).The SBS are organised into at least three groups; C, M, and S Squadron. C Squadron is responsible for swimmer/canoe operations. M Squadron is the anti-terrorist and shipboard operations. Within M Squadron is the small Black Group, the counter-terrorist team that uses heliborne assaults. SBS specialises in small water borne craft and minibsub insertions and operations. www.specialoperations.com/
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