Reference resources are authoritative works that help you find summaries of information about people, things, and events. Reference resources often contain definitions, facts, timelines, and other helpful information. They are not comprehensive but provide great introductions to a topic. They're a great place to start your initial research and will help you find out more about your topic or idea. Many reference resources also link or refer you to additional information.
Credo is a vast, online reference library, providing access to the full text of hundreds of highly regarded and popular titles. Credo Reference contains dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopaedias, quotations and atlases, plus a wide range of subject-specific titles.
Britannica Academic delivers fast and easy access to high-quality, comprehensive information. The rich combination of the venerable Encyclopædia Britannica plus Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, magazines and periodicals, and many other research tools provides the variety of reliable sources that students need to consult when conducting thorough collegiate research—all from one resource.
Reference books in the areas of health, history, literature, and science.
The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities. The Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.
New platform to access data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau. The vision for data dissemination through data.census.gov is to improve the customer experience by making data available from one centralized place so that data users spend less time searching for data content and more time using it.
GDP and economic accounts data and publications. Includes historical and current National Income & Product Accounts (NIPA) tables, state and county personal income data, and full text of Survey of Current Business.
The Congressional Research Service, a component of the Library of Congress, conducts research and analysis for Congress on a broad range of national policy issues. The Federation of American Scientists endeavors to provide current, regularly updated public access to as many non-confidential CRS reports as possible. These reports are provided without congressional or CRS authorization as a public service.
Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union situated in Luxembourg. Its task is to provide the European Union with statistics at European level that enable comparisons between countries and regions. Eurostat offers a whole range of important and interesting data that governments, businesses, the education sector, journalists, and the public can use for their work and daily life.
Social Explorer is an online demographic research tool. It provides hundreds of interactive data maps of the United States. In addition to being a premier research tool, it is an ideal teaching resource thanks to its engaging visual approach to demographic information.
The numerous databases, tables and glossaries containing over 60 million data points cover a wide range of themes including Agriculture, Crime, Education, Employment, Energy, Environment, Health, HIV/AIDS, Human Development, Industry, Information and Communication Technology, National Accounts, Population, Refugees, Tourism, Trade, as well as the Millennium Development Goals indicators.
The Demographic Yearbook disseminates statistics on population size and composition, births, deaths, marriage and divorce on an annual basis. Demographic Yearbook special topics issues cover a wide range of additional topics including economic activity, educational attainment, household characteristics, housing, ethnicity and language, among others. Yearbooks from 1948 on are available.
The United Nations Statistics Division is committed to the advancement of the global statistical system. It compiles and disseminates global statistical information, develops standards and norms for statistical activities, and supports countries' efforts to strengthen their national statistical systems. It facilitates the coordination of international statistical activities and supports the functioning of the United Nations Statistical Commission as the apex entity of the global statistical system.
