ABSTRACT

If the Internet fulfilled all its promises it would never be necessary to leave your desk in search of information again. Whether this would be a positive change is a matter for debate, but one thing is certain: we are not there yet. Having a few decent reference books to hand and a good library to call upon is still often likely to produce higher quality results in less time. However, the Internet has expanded to become a major source of reference information. Internet users may now gain access to online reference works, such as dictionaries and encyclopaedias, access to geographical and travel information, such as maps and timetables, directory data, for example yellow pages, and users may even express their needs at online reference desks. This chapter will concentrate on these groups of resources, introducing some discrete, freely available, desktop reference materials that will help to answer specific factual queries.