Before starting my business in 2000, I worked as a reference librarian at a small liberal arts college, where I helped our students put the research into their research papers. All reference librarians have a handy ready-reference shelf behind their desks, a small collection of dictionaries, almanacs, and other tools used to answer quick questions that don’t require more in-depth research. This month in ResearchNOTES, I’ll share with you few websites that are on my online "ready-reference shelf":

More and more of us are doing business across multiple time zones. World Time Server, at www.worldtimeserver.com, lets you check the current time in just about any location, not just in major cities. It tracks Daylight Savings/Summer Time so you won’t ever miss a conference call, and you can even read the local news.

In my research reports, I frequently have to look up historic monetary exchange rates. For this task, I head to FXConverter at  www.oanda.com/convert/classic, which converts 164 currencies.  FXConverter is available in seven languages. Just enter an amount, a date, and the currencies—and you’ll quickly get your answer.

I have two favorite sites that are actually collections of some essential ready-reference tools. Bartleby.com, at www.bartleby.com/reference offers links to The World Factbook 2008, Roget’s International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, and other classics. LibrarySpot, at www.libraryspot.com, has links to several online almanacs, encyclopedias, and other reference-related sites. They also link to articles that answer such common questions as "Where can I find information on swine flu?" or "Where can I volunteer in my community?"

What’s in your ready-reference collection?

Regards—Marcy

Marcy Phelps
Phelps Research
Author, Research on Main Street: Using the Web to Find Local Business and Market Information (Forthcoming)
+1 303.239.0657                        Email: mphelps@phelpsresearch.com
Web: www.phelpsresearch.com     Blog:  www.MarcyPhelps.com