This page lists Internet sources for "ready reference" or general information. Please check the topical Legal Research Guides for more in-depth, subject-related information. If you have a reference question, please use e-Reference, our e-mail reference service.

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Abbreviations & Acronyms

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• General
  • Acronym Finder
  • Acronyma
  • Internet Acronym Server
• Government
  • Abbreviations and Acronyms of the U.S. Government
  • Canadian Government Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Initialisms
  • Interactive Terminology for Europe (IATE)
    EU inter-institutional terminology database.
  • ONTERM: Ontario Terminology
• Law
  • Lexpert Abbreviations & Acronyms

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Almanacs & Fast Facts

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• Canadian Information by Subject
  Developed by the Library and Archives Canada to provide links to information about Canada from Internet resources around the world.
• Information Resources
  Compiled by the Special Libraries Association's Information Centre.
• ipl2
  Merger of the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians' Internet Index (LII).
• Open Directory Project
• Virtual Reference Library
  From the Toronto Public Library. A subject-based, reliable, Internet information source with special focus on Canadian and Ontario information.
• Wikipedia
  An open source collaborative encyclopedia. Includes information more often associated with almanacs and gazetters, as well as coverage of current events.
• World Fact Book
  Published annually with periodic updates by the CIA.

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Biography

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• Biographical Dictionary
• Canadian Genealogy Centre
• Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
  From Library and Archives Canada. Provides access to the 15 volumes already in print and to a selection of biographies from unprinted volumes.
• Distinguished Women of Past and Present
• National Inventors' Hall of Fame
  Established by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and what is now the National Council of Intellectual Property Law Associations.
• Time Person of the Year

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Calendars & Dates

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• Calendar Converter
• Earth Calendar
  Daybook of holidays and celebrations around the world.
• Parliaments since 1867 and Number of Sitting Days
  House of Commons Practice and Procedure, 2000 ed.
• Roman Numeral Converter
• Public Holidays and Other Important Dates
  Canadian Heritage site.
• Table of Regnal Years of British Sovereigns

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Citation, Legal Writing/Research & Style Guides

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• Citation
  • Abbreviations: Selected Law Reports
    A list of the most frequently used law reports from Canada, Great Britain and the United States from Osgoode Hall Law School library.
  • Abréviations juridiques / Legal Abbreviations
    From CAIJ.
  • Bluebook Abbreviations of Law Review Titles
    Abbreviations of U.S. legal periodicals.
  • Brief Guide to Citing Canadian Government Documents and Statistics
    From Queen's University.
  • CanLII Citation
    A unique and stable identifier for judicial decisions available in the public domain.
  • Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations
    Search for legal abbreviations of mainly U.K., Commonwealth and U.S. law reports and periodicals.
  • How to Cite Statistics Canada Products
  • ICLL Periodicals List
    Index to Canadian Legal Literature periodicals list from Westlaw Canada.
  • Introduction to Basic Legal Citation
    Based on the Bluebook and ALWD Citation Manual. 
  • Journal Abbreviation Sources
    A registry of Web resources that provide access to the full title of journal abbreviations by subject.
  • Legal Citation
    An introduction to the citation of cases, statutes and regulations, books and journal articles, and Internet documents from Queen's University.
  • Liste des abréviations juridiques
    From the Université de Montréal. Abbreviations of frequently used Quebec, Canadian, American, French and international law reports and journals.
  • Neutral Citation Standard for Case Law
    Endorsed by the Canadian Judicial Council in 1999, the standard is being implemented by courts across Canada.
  • Oxford Standard Citation of Legal Authorities
    A system of citation for use in legal writing, covering abbreviation, punctuation, cross-referencing, the use of headings, and other topics. Complete Big OSCOLA (103 pages) and the outline Little OSCOLA (32 pages) available in PDF format.
  • Sweet & Maxwell Abbreviations List
• Legal Writing/Research
  • British Columbia Courthouse Library Society Research Resources
  • Doing Legal Research in Canada
    Multi-part guide for non-Canadian researchers, including of print and online resources.
  • Gender-Free Legal Writing: Managing the Personal Pronouns
    From British Columbia Law Institute.
  • Legal Research Manual
    Manual designed principally for use with the first year legal research classes at Queen's University Faculty of Law.
  • Plain Language and the Law
    Articles and links from the Plain Language Association International.
  • Research Guide for Beginners
    From Bora Lasking Law Library, University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
• Style Guides
  • Chicago Manual of Style Online
    Includes Chicago Style Q&A and Citation Quick Guide.
  • Fowler's King’s English, 2nd ed., 1908
  • Protocol
    Titles, styles of address, etc. from Heritage Canada.
  • Strunk's Elements of Style, 1st ed., 1918

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Converters & Calculators

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• Foreign Exchange Rates
  • Bank of Canada Currency Converter
  • Bank of Canada 10-Year Currency Converter
  • Bank of Canada Exchange Rates 10-Year LookUp
  • Euro Calculator
  • Federal Reserve Board Statistics: Releases and Historical Data
  • Universal Currency Converter
• Measurements & Calculators
  • Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator
    Uses monthly consumer price index data from 1914 to the present to show changes in the cost of consumer purchases.
  • Bank of Canada Investment Calculator
    Shows the effects of inflation on investments and savings.
  • Compound Interest Calculator
  • Calculators On-Line Center
  • ConvertIt
    Quick measurement converter.
  • Measure Converter
• Temperature
  • Temperature Conversion Calculator
• Time
  • Countdown
    Enter two dates and times and calculate the difference in seconds, minutes, hours, and days.
  • Local Times around the World
  • Official Times across Canada
  • Official U.S. Time
  • time and date.com
  • Time Zone Converter

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Dictionaries, Translation Tools & Thesauri

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• General
  • Cambridge Dictionaries Online
    Includes British English, American English, Business English, and Learner's dictionaries, and dictionaries of idioms and phrasal verbs.
  • Merriam-Webster OnLine
    Abridged dictionary and thesaurus.
  • OneLook Dictionaries
    Search hundreds of general and specialized English dictionaries simultaneously.
  • Oxford Dictionaries Online
    Search a comprehensive current English dictionary.
• Language & Translation Tools
  • Google Language Tools
    Multilingual. Searches across languages and translates text.
  • Grand dictionnaire terminologique
    French, English and Latin terminology.
  • Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid
  • List of Latin Abbreviations
  • List of Latin Phrases
  • Numbers in 5020 Languages
  • Bing Translator
    Multilingual.
• Law
  • Bilingual Lexicon of Legislative Terms
    Contains terminology used in Ontario's statutes.
  • Duhaime's Law Dictionary
    Written in plain language.
  • Findlaw Law Dictionary
  • Glossary of Conflict of Laws (P.I.L.) Terms
  • Glossary of Intellectual Property Terms
    From the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.
  • Glossary of International Conventions and National Laws of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the People's Republic of China on Maritime Law
  • Glossary of Maritime Law Terms
  • Glossary of Parliamentary Procedure
  • Glossary of Treaty-Related Terms
    From the B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, Treaty Mandates Branch.
  • JURIST Canada's dictionary of basic Canadian legal terms
  • law.com Dictionary
  • Legislative Indexing Vocabulary
    From the U.S. Congressional Research Service for use with legislative and public policy material.
  • Nolo's Plain-English Law Dictionary
  • Termes juridiques
    From Justice Québec. Indexes in French and English.
  • Treaty Reference Guide
    Definition of key terms used in the UN Treaty Collection and glossary of terms relating to treaty actions.
  • Wex
    A law dictionary and encyclopedia from the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School.
• Other Topical Dictionaries & Glossaries
  • ComputerUser Dictionary
  • GeoNames Ontario: Ontario's Geographic Names Database
    Electronic version of the Bilingual Glossary of Ontario's Geographic Names.
  • Glossary of Internet Terms
  • Glossary of Risk Management & Insurance Terms
  • MedlinePlus Medical Dictionary
    From the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
  • Multilingual Glossary of Technical and Popular Medical Terms
    Project commissioned by the European Commission in nine European languages.
  • Nasdaq Glossary
  • ODLIS: Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science
  • Ontario Environment and Energy Lexicon
    Bilingual terminology in the environmental and energy fields.
  • ONTERM: Ontario Terminology
  • Real Estate Glossary
    From the Nova Scotia Real Estate Commission.
  • Stock Market Terms
  • Symbols.com
    Word index or graphic search of symbols.
  • Terminology & Acronyms
    From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
• Thesauri
  • Legislative Subject Terms
    From the U.S. Congressional Research Service for use with legislative and public policy material.
  • Merriam-Webster Thesaurus
  • The Phrase Finder
    A list of the meanings and origins of phrases, sayings, quotes and cliches in English.
  • Roget's II: The New Thesaurus
    Houghton Mifflin, 3rd edition, 1995.
  • Roget’s International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
  • Thesaurus for the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN)
    Used for GLIN's multi-national database of legislation.
  • WordNet
    A lexical database of English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs organized into synonym sets from Princeton University.

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Directories

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• Courts and Tribunals
  • Canadian Courts and Judges
  • List of Ontario Court Addresses
• Government
  • Canada
    • Burolis
      Official directory containing information on all Government of Canada offices and points of service.
    • Government Electronic Directory Services (GEDS)
      Directory of all Canadian federal public servants.
    • Government of Canada Departments and Agencies
      Websites of Government of Canada departments, agencies and Crown corporations.
    • INFO-GO
      Government of Ontario Telephone Directory and Services and Offices Directory.
    • Provincial and Territorial Governments
      Official government websites.
  • Other Countries
    • Embassy World
    • Foreign Governments
      Links to the official websites of national governments.
    • Foreign Representatives in Canada
      Updated daily by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.
    • U.S. Government Manual
      Official handbook of the Federal Government.
    • World Leaders
      Published and updated weekly by the CIA.
  • International
    • Comprensive List of IGOs
    • United Nations
• Law Blogs
  • Canadian Law Blogs
  • Top One Hundred Law and Lawyer Blogs
• Law Schools
  • ABA-Approved Law Schools
  • Canadian Law Schools
  • Heiros Gamos Law School Worldwide Directory
  • UK and Irish Law Schools
• Law-Related Organizations
  • Canadian Legal Associations
  • Hieros Gamos Directory of National, State, Provincial and Local Bar Associations
  • Law Library Associations
  • Law Societies around the World
    The Great Library's links to the websites of law societies and similar bodies which regulate legal practitioners in other jurisdictions.
  • martindale.com: Bar Associations
    Links to U.S. state, national and international bar associations.
• Lawyers & Law Firms
  • Canadian-Lawyers.ca
    Martindale-Hubbell's Canadian directory.
  • Canadian Law List
  • Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory
  • FindLaw/West Legal Directory
  • Hieros Gamos Attorneys, Lawyers, Law Firms Worldwide
  • Law Society of Upper Canada Lawyer and Paralegal Directory
  • martindale.com: Lawyer Locator
    Martindale-Hubbell's international directory.
• Libraries
  • Canadian Law Libraries and Library Catalogs
  • Canadian Library Websites and Catalogues
  • Law Library Catalogues
    The Great Library's links to catalogues of law school, law society, and legislative libraries in Canada, selected catalogues in the U.S. and the U.K. and Ireland, and collector sites listing of links to catalogues around the world.
  • LibDex
    Worldwide directory of library homepages and catalogues.
  • LibraryCo
    Library system of Ontario county and district law libraries.
  • List of National Libraries
  • Metro Toronto Reference Library's Ask a Librarian
    E-mail quick reference service.
  • World Directory of Parliamentary Libraries
• Listservs
  • Catalist
    Search by country or subject.
• Newspapers
  • Canadian News Online
• Postal Codes
  • Canada
    • Canada Post: Postal Code Look-Up
  • U.S.
    • Zip Code Lookup
  • Other Countries
    • Australia Post: Postcode Search
    • Royal Mail Postcode & Address Finder
    • Universal Postal Union Postal Looking Up a Postcode: List of Sites by Country
• Publishers
  • AcqWeb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors
  • AcqWeb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors: Law Publishers
  • A Legal Publisher's List: Corporate Affiliations of Legal Publishers, 2d ed.
    From American Association of Law Libraries, Committee on Relations with Information Vendors. Publishers divided into five groups: Thomson, Reed Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, Other Publisher with Subsidiaries, and Independent Publishers.
• Telephone
  • Canada
    • Area Code Map
    • Canada 411
      Nationwide alphabetic directory of business and residential listings, including postal codes.
    • YellowPages.ca
      Classified and alphabetic directory of businesses and people in Canada.
  • U.S.
    • Infospace
    • Superpages.com
      U.S. business listings.
    • Switchboard.com
      U.S. residential and business telephone numbers.
    • Ultimate White Pages
      Search U.S. online residential telephone books.
    • U.S. Area Code Maps
  • Other Countries
    • Country Calling Code
      International yellow pages and white pages directories.
    • Infobel.com
      Links to online telephone, fax and business directories around the world. Includes white pages, yellow pages and toll free directories.
    • Infospace
      E-mail addresses worldwide.
    • World Directories
• Topical
  • Aboriginal Resources and Services: Directory of Resources
    Contains contact information for libraries, archives, cultural centres, educational institutions, associations, individuals and communities.
  • Canadian Environmental Network

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Encyclopedias

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• General
  • 1911 Edition Encyclopedia Britannica
    All 29 volumes of the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
  • Columbia Encyclopedia
    The sixth edition, 2001, of this one-volume desk encyclopedia.
  • Encyclopedia.com
    Updated articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th edition.
  • Wikipedia
    An open source collaborative encyclopedia. Includes information more often associated with almanacs and gazetters, as well as coverage of current events.
• Law
  • Cornell Legal Research Encyclopedia
  • Encyclopedia of Law and Economics
• Other Topics
  • Cambridge History of English and American Literature
  • MathWorld
  • MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia
  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • TechEncyclopedia

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Forms

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• Courts
  • Canada
    • Federal Court
    • Supreme Court
    • Tax Court
  • Ontario
    • Ontario Court Forms
      Ontario Court Services website.
      • Rules of Civil Procedure Forms
      • Family Law Rules Forms
      • Ministry of Community and Social Services Forms
        Related family law forms regulated by Family Responsibility and Support Arrears Enforcement Act, 1996
      • Rules of Small Claims Court Forms
    • Ontario Court of Justice: Rules of the Ontario Court in Criminal Proceedings
• Government
  • Canada
    • On-line Forms and Services
  • Ontario
    • Ontario Government Central Forms Repository

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Gazetteers, Maps & Weather

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• Gazetteers
  • Geographical Names of Canada
    Authoritative source of over 500,000 geographical names in Canada. Includes basic locational information and maps and calculates the distance from one point to another.
  • National Geographic: Maps and Geography
  • U.S. Gazetteer: 2010, 2000 and 1990
  • World Factbook, 2008
• Maps & Directions
  • Atlas of Canada
  • Bing Maps & Directions
  • Expedia Maps
    Maps and driving directions in North America and Europe.
  • MapQuest
    Interactive maps and driving directions worldwide.
  • Toronto Maps
• Weather
  • Environment Canada
  • Weather Network

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Internet Search Tools

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• Search Engines
  • AltaVista
    Only search engine offering truncation (*), proximity searching (near) and case sensitivity. Includes Babelfish translation tool. Choose country/interface language.
  • Bing
    Microsoft Web search engine. Launched in September 2006, it uses its own, unique database. Query building Advanced Search and full Boolean searching.
  • Google
    Top choice. Provides comprehensive coverage of the Web and good relevancy.
  • Google Language Tools
    Search specific languages or countries.
  • Teoma
    Has a smaller index of the Web than Google and AltaVista, but good relevancy. Refine feature offers suggestions on narrowing your search to specific topics.
  • Yahoo! Search
    Originally a subject directory of sites, it now is a search engine, directory, and portal. Full Boolean searching.
    
• International Search Engines
  • Search Engine Colussus
    International directory of search engines.
• Law Search Engines
  • Lawcrawler
    FindLaw's intelligent agent for searching legal sites.
  • Lawguru
• Meta Search Engines
  • Dogpile
    Searches Google, Yahoo! Search, Live Search, Ask.com, About, MIVA, LookSmart, and more.
  • ixquick
    A powerful metasearch engine with a choice of language options.
  • Surfwax
  • Yippy
    Searches Ask, Open Directory, Gigablast and others. Clustering engine organizes search results by topic.
• Subject Directories
  • Academic Info
    Index of gateway sites for students and researchers. Includes primary sources and digital collections.
  • BUBL Link
    Selected Web resources covering all academic subject areas. Useful feature is search by country.
  • Canadian Information by Subject
    Developed by the Library and Archives Canada to provide links to information about Canada from Internet resources around the world.
  • Catalaw
    Catalogue of catalogues of worldwide law on the Internet.
  • Google News
    Searches news stories in more than 4,500 English-language sources over past 30 days.
  • Google Scholar
    Search for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the Web.
  • INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections
    Resources include databases, maps, electronic journals, books and mailing lists.
  • Internet Scout Project
    Web current awareness project including weekly Scout Report and NSDL Scout Reports for Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Math, Engineering and Technology.
  • Intute
    Selected, high-quality information for researchers and practitioners in the social sciences, business and law. Part of the UK Resource Discovery Network.
  • Invisible or Deep Web
    What it is, why it exists, how to find it.
  • IPL2
    General interest directory with good website descriptions. Merger of the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians' Internet Index (LII).
• Archives
  • Government of Canada Web Archive
    Websites of the Federal Government of Canada harvested since December 2005.
  • Internet Archive Wayback Machine
    Web pages archived from 1996 to a few months ago.
  • OurOntario Government Documents
    Ontario government documents from the Legislative Library's collection since July 2000.

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Newspapers & News Media

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• Canada
  • Calgary Herald
  • Canada Newswire
  • Canada.com
  • Newspapers Canada
    Find a Canadian daily or community newspaper.
  • Canadian Press
  • Canoë (Québecor Média)
  • CBC Newsworld
    
  • Edmonton Journal
  • Federal News Releases
  • Financial Post
  • Globe & Mail
  • Halifax Chronicle-Herald
  • Hill Times
  • Le Devoir
  • Macleans
  • Marketwire
  • Montreal Gazette
  • National Post
  • Ottawa Citizen
  • Radio-Canada
  • Telegram (St. John's)
  • Vancouver Sun
  • Winnipeg Free Press
  • Legal News
    • Law Times
    • Lawyers' Weekly
• U.S.
  • ABC News
  • AP Associated Press
    Includes links by state to local newspapers.
  • Boston Globe
  • CBS News
  • Chicago Tribune
  • CNN
  • Economist
  • Financial Times
  • Los Angeles Times
  • MSNBC
  • New York Times
  • San Francisco Chronicle
  • Time Magazine
  • USA Today
  • Wall Street Journal
  • Washington Post
  • Washington Times
• Other Countries / International
  • ABC News
    Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  • Agence France-Presse (APF)
  • BBC News
  • Global New York Times
  • Jerusalem Post
  • Irish Times
  • London Telegraph
  • London Times
  • Le Monde
  • Reuters
  • United Press International (UPI)
• Newspaper Archives
  • Canadian New Archives
  • International News Archives on the Web
  • U.S. News Archives on the Web

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Periodicals

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• General
  • Canadian-Based Publications Online
• Law
  • Canadian Law Journals
  • Database of Law Journals Available Electronically
    Full-text law journals available on Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw, Westlaw Canada, University of Toronto Electronic Resources or the Internet.
  • Legal Periodicals Online
    The Great Library's annotated lists of law journals and other legal periodicals available on the Internet.

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Quotations

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• Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919
• Famous Quotations Network

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Statistics

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• CANSIM
  Statistics Canada's socio-economic database.
• GenderStats
  World Bank gender statistics by country or topic.
• International Energy Agency Statistics
• LABORSTA
  Labour statistics database from the International Labour Organization.
• SEDAC/CIESIN Gateway
  Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center archives of datasets and other searchable resources ranging from the Environmental Treaty texts to U.S. Census and World Bank materials.
• United Nations Statistics Databases
• U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base (IDB)  
• World Trade Organization Statistics Database