Health and Human Services Library

Quick Reference Tools

Our Favourite Search Tools

Dictionaries & Encyclopedias

• One Look Dictionairies - 130 dictionaries searched at once
• encyclopedia.com
• Encyclopedia Brittanica Online

Directories

• Associations of Canada
• BC Government Directory
• B.C. Health Units
• Telus Phone Books
• Canada 411
• Directory of Community Services for the Capital Region
• Global Phone Directories
• Postal Code Lookup
• Red Book Online (online guide to community, social and government agencies and services across the Lower Mainland)
• U.S. Associations
• World Pages

Government

• Governments on the WWW (International)
• http://www.whitehouse.gov
• United States - State and Local Government on the Net Directory

Guides for Citing Sources

• National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation:
• Print copy: Patrias, Karen. National Library of Medicine recommended formats for bibliographic citation. Bethesda (MD): The Library; 1991 Apr. [Available from Library. Call no.: WZ 345 P314 1991 Ref]
• Supplement: Internet Formats, July 2001. [PDF, 411 Kb]
• Citing the Internet: A Brief Tour [article summarizing main points of the supplement]
• Vancouver Style - Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals
• On-line Resources for Documenting Electronic Sources (Purdue University Online Writing Lab)
• Health Services Research/Public Health Journals (formerly Instructions to Authors from Health Services Research/Public Health Journals) (University of Washington)
• Instructions to Authors in the Health Sciences (Medical College of Ohio) Lists links to Web sites which provide instructions to prospective authors for hundreds of different journals in the health sciences.

Legislation

• Access to Justice (federal law, regs, debates, etc. & all provinces
• Canada: Statutes and Regulations
• Canadian Legal Information Institute - links to federal and provincial courts, statutes, Supreme Court, etc.

Maps

• Altapedia - full colour physical and political maps and statistics of countries worldwide
• BC Geography and Maps
• Atlas of Canada
• MapQuest - interactive mapping tool

Newspapers

• Newspapers in Canada
• Canada's Community Newspapers
• Vancouver Sun and Province
• Globe and Mail
  

Research and Writing Aids

• OneLook Dictionaries - Search more than 130 dictionaries at once.
• Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
• Business English Online - extensive list of resources to help you read, write, speak, and listen in business English; help with business presentations, multi-lingual assistance, and business writing. Resources range from glossaries of accounting definitions to vocabulary quizzes of real estate terms.
• Bartleby.com - claims to be the most comprehensive web reference site, offering free access to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition; The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition; Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition; Simpson's Contemporary Quotations; The American Heritage® Book of English Usage; Bartlett's Familiar Quotations; Strunk's Elements of Style; Fowler's the King's English, Second Edition; Emily Post's Etiquette; the Cambridge History of English & American Literature; and Fannie Farmer's Cookbook.
• Elements of Style (William Strunk, 1918)
• Glossary of Health Care and Health Care Management Terms (University of Washington)
• Public Health and Related Definitions (School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington)
• Roget's Thesaurus (Version 1.02, Supplemented 1991)

Quick Facts

• Acronym Finder
• BC Stats
• Biography People Finder
• CIA World Fact Book
• ICD-9-CM International Classification of Diseases
• Measure 4 Measure - tables, translations, etc.
• Atlas of Canada
• U.S. EconData - regional economic data
• Statistics Canada
• Virtual Reference Library

Search Engines

• Google - Tip: add a Google button (Netscape) or Google Toolbar (Explorer) to make searching quick and easy.
• AltaVista (tip: use "+" sign beside each search term, and enclose phrases in " ", e.g., +"british columbia" +diabetes). [More search tips]
• Yahoo - one of the oldest search tools and still one of the best. Drill down through subject categories to locate web sites on a particular topic. [Search tips]
• ResourceShelf (extensive list of useful search tools and databases containing info that isn't searchable through standard search engines)
• Colossus - index of country-specific search engines