Where To Look For Information You Need

By Jason Slater
Monday, 29 June 2009

The internet is a big place and we spend ages sorting through heaps of information trying to find real information about subjects that matter to us, whether it is searching for a friend or work colleague to trying to find out more information about the population of Yemen. This article will aim to identify information sources and places to look to find the information you need.

This is a list of places to go to find good information about important things, this list will be updated as more sources are discovered and identified. If you know of any reliable and useful sources of information please let me know and I will add them to the list.

Last updated: 28th June 2009

Information About People

123people – “123people is a real time people search tool that looks into nearly every corner of the web.”, Read our article: Who Are You? Find Out With 123people

Ancestry.co.uk – “Launched in 2001, Ancestry.co.uk’s extensive collection enables members to explore their family history using censuses, birth, marriage and death records, passenger lists, the British phone books, military and parish records.”

Facts and Figures

Wolfram Alpha – “Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone.”, Read our article: Wolfram|Alpha Is Not A Web Search Engine

XE – “Provider of Internet foreign exchange tools and services”

NIST – “Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures”

Information about Words and Meanings

Dictionary.com – “Dictionary.com is a multi-source dictionary search service”

Wordnik – “An ongoing project devoted to discovering all the words and everything about them”, Read our article: Stuck For The Word?

Encyclopaedic Information

Encyclopedia.com – “Verified facts, information, and biographies from trusted sources”

Wikipedia – “Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”

World Information

CIA: The World Facebook – “The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.”

The British Library – “We hold 14 million books, 920,000 journal and newspaper titles, 58 million patents, 3 million sound recordings, and so much more.”

Entertainment Information

BFI – “Since 1933 the BFI has been collecting information about film and television from around the world, with records dating from the beginning of film production to the present day.”

IMDB.com – “The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a HUGE collection of movie information”

Gracenote – “Music-related information including artist, title, tracklists, lyrics, and others”

Project Gutenberg – “Project Gutenberg contains a huge collection of free electronic books and eBooks.”, Read our article: Stuck for Something to Read?

Information about your Credit rating

CreditExpert – “CreditExpert is the online credit monitoring and identity fraud protection service from Experian”

Equifax – “We leverage one of the largest sources of consumer and commercial data, along with advanced analytics and proprietary technology.”

Experian UK and Ireland – “Experian helps consumers to monitor their credit reports and delivers critical information that enables them to make financial and purchasing decisions with greater control and confidence”

Information about Websites and Technology Companies

Quarkbase – “Quarkbase is a database of website information, where you can share knowledge, express your views, connect yourself to websites and find up-to-date information. Website information is contributed by website owners & lovers, and the Internet community.”

Crunchbase – “CrunchBase is the free database of technology companies, people, and investors that anyone can edit.”