CALCULATORS

Convert It  Converts weights and measures including length area, metrology, U.S. fluid or liquid, volume, capacity, mass equivalents, velocity, acceleration, pressure energy, work, and power equivalents.

Martindale’s Calculators Online  Calculators for every need: business, finance, banking, investment, insurance—everything from architecture to weather.

News Engine Inc. Free Tools  Cost–of–Living calculator. Convert dollar values between any two years to adjust for inflation.

COUNTRY INFORMATION

Background Notes  Long an indispensable print resource from the U.S. Department of State, Background Notes online provides basic information on countries of the world.

Country Briefings  From the Economist, News, country profiles, forecasts, statistics and more on countries from Algeria to Vietnam.

World Factbook  Country profiles include geography, people, government, economy, etc.

Library Resources

• Europa World Year Book
  This two volume set contains detailed country profiles listed alphabetically along with narratives about their history, economic figures, and key facts.
   
• Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries (Morrison)  Cultural overviews, behavior styles, negotiating techniques, protocol, and business practices.
   
• McGraw–Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology 
  Contains articles ranging from quick facts on countries to thorough discussions of the latest technological advances.
   
• Statesman's Year-book 
  Brief description of each county's economic, social, and political make-up.  Statistics, essays on current affairs, major world organizations (e.g. Council of Europe, League of Arab States, OPEC, etc.). Annual chronology.

Euro  Information on every aspect of the Euro, including conversion rates.

OANDA Currency Converter  Converts 164 currencies.

Universal Currency Converter  Easy to use converter. Just highlight the "convert from" and the "convert to" countries and click.

• Standard & Poor's Statistical Service 
  Monthly, annual, and historic exchange rates.
   
• Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times 
  All three have current exchange rates, typically in their business sections.

Acronym & Abbreviation Finder  Searchable database of more than 202,000 abbreviations and acronyms about computers, technology, telecommunications, and military acronyms and abbreviations.

Britannica.com  Britannica offers some information free of charge or the entire encyclopedia online for a subscription fee. Also free of charge on the page are Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus.

Campbell R. Harvey's Hypertextual Finance Glossary  2,500 financial terms alphabetically arranged.

Canadian Encyclopedia Online  Excellent resource for information on our neighbor to the north. Articles vary in length. Easy to search. Excellent information.

Concise Columbia Encyclopedia  Offers more than 50,000 articles on a variety of general subjects. Articles are brief.

Encarta  Good for brief information on lots of subjects.  Easy to use and conveniently arranged with article outlines that permit the user to skip to specific parts of longer articles and links to "Related Items." 

Encyclopedia for the New Economy  Sponsored by Andersen Consulting and published by Wired, the Encyclopedia for the New Economy discusses terms and concepts of a rapidly changing economy. 

Encyclopedia Smithsonian  Based on questions frequently asked of the Smithsonian, this site provides a set of answers, suggested readings or links to relevant Smithsonian or other Internet pages.

Information Please Almanac  Current events, people, sports, education, statistics, science, business—the same information as the print version. Search by keyword in the almanac, encyclopedia, or dictionary or all three.

Marketing Manager's Plain English Internet Glossary  Easy to understand definitions of common terms. In frames.

Merriam–Webster Online Language Center  The popular collegiate dictionary and thesaurus online. More than 1,250 business terms, organized and cross-referenced.

O'Reilly Dictionary of PC Hardware and Data Communications Terms  Complete descriptions of personal computer and network terms.

Washington Post Business Glossary  More than 1,250 business terms, organized and cross-referenced.

• Dictionary of Banking Terms (Fitch)  Pocket sized dictionary with complete definitions of terms in the banking industry.
   
• Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources  (Gale Research)  More than 1,100 industries organized alphabetically with the titles and brief descriptions of abstracts and indexes, almanacs, databases, directories, financial ratios, handbooks, periodicals and newsletters, research centers, statistics, etc., that are relevant to that particular industry.
   
• Talking business in . . .   (Barron's Educational Series)  French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, etc. These handy guides provide the basic structure of a language and the specific words and phrases needed to communicate in the business world.

FAX

Fax4Free  Compose new faxes online or upload existing fax documents and send to anyone in the U.S. free.  Site offers other services for a fee.

FaxWave  FaxWave doesn't send fax but routes faxes to the users' email box. Allows users to receive faxes that have been converted into image files and may be printed from the computer. The site sells other services to clients.

Efax  Efax is also for receiving fax only but allows users to send fax for a fee.  Requires a special viewer to view large compressed files.

J2.com  J2 offers integrated Internet messaging services. Free service allows the user to receive voicemail and fax in the user's email inbox.  The integrated services, for a fee, allow the user to send fax and voicemail messages via email; get email messages via touch-tone phone and a toll-free number; make email inboxes a single repository for incoming email, fax, and voicemail.

FORMS

Business at Findlaw.com  Go to the Business section of the Findlaw page and select your subtopic: Business Formation, Finance, Tech Deals & Contracts, Human Resources, etc. Each subsection provides applicable forms. Very useful site with much to offer.

Entrepreneur.com  Look under the Small Business heading for the link to "Tools & Services." Although the form section is a bit difficult to locate and the numerous ads on every page are annoying, the site is worth checking. There are a variety of useful forms and samples for business and legal use.

Small Business Administration  From the SBA Library a complete set of forms to be used when dealing with the SBA. Forms are in PDF format and a handy link to downloading the Acrobat Reader is included. Each forms is marked to indicate whether it is for business or lender and to indicate if it may be completed online using the Acrobat Reader or if it may be filled out online and saved using Acrobat Business Tools.

Library Resources

• Legal Guide for Starting and Running a Small Business by Steingold and The Complete Book of Small Business Legal Forms You'll Ever Need by Sitarz
  Two examples of the many books of ready–to–copy business forms. Forms presented include business operations agreements, contracts, leases, releases, purchase and sale of goods, collections, credit and financing, etc. Advice and instructions on using forms is given.
   
• West's Legal Forms (West Publishing Co.) 
  This multivolume set from the well–known legal publisher gives the wording for just about every imaginable type of business form. Not ready–to–copy forms, just the legal language to allow the user to format his/her own form.

There are also many books with examples of forms useful for specific types of business, for example, Business and Legal Forms for Crafts or Business and Legal Forms for Photographers by Crawford or The Biz: the Basic Business, Legal, and Financial Aspects of the Film Industry by Moore. 

MAPS

Atlapedia Online  Profiles and maps of every country in the world.

How Far Is It?  Provided by Indio.com, a company representing Indonesia, this service uses data from the US Census and a supplementary list of cities around the world to find the latitude and longitude of two places, and then calculates the distance between them (as the crow flies). It also provides a map showing the two places. 

Maporama  Offer maps and itineraries all over Europe, the USA, and Canada.  Search by country and city.  Also offers a business telephone directory.

MapQuest  Enter an address and retrieve a map of that area. Look for up-to-date maps of national and international cities and towns. Email maps to friends or colleagues.

Maps On Us  Advanced mapping and driving directions throughout the U.S.

MapStats  Quick demographic and business statistics for the U.S., states, counties, congressional districts. Excellent resource with up-to-date information.

• California Road Atlas & Driver's Guide (Thomas Brothers Maps) 
  Another Thomas Brothers product, this guide contains major metro highway maps, state highway maps, detailed street maps for larger cities, and driving tours.
   
• Rand McNally Road Atlas: Unites States, Canada, Mexico 
  Driving maps plus more detailed maps for larger cities.
   
• Rand McNally Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide 
  Annual with maps of each state and countries of the world. Marketing information includes population, income, and sales data for each country, basic trading areas, MSAs, and a wide variety of other demographic data. Other useful data includes zip codes, postal regulation and rates, railroad and highway distances, etc.
   
• Thomas Brothers Street Atlas  (Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, San Diego, Golden Gate, Marin, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo)
  Thomas Brothers maps are famous as detailed and accurate street guides. The Census Tract edition is useful for marketing as well.

Guide books, such as Fodor's, are also good sources of city and country maps, although they are not always as detailed. 

PASSPORTS & VISAS

U.S. State Department Passport Services  How to apply in person for a U.S. passport, apply for a passport renewal, replace a lost or stolen passport, get your passport in a hurry, obtain copies of your passport records—or download printable passport applications.

Library Resources

• Foreign Consular Offices in the United States
  Lists all the foreign embassies in the U.S. by country.
   
• United States Government Manual (Government Printing Office) 
  Lists Passport Office Field Offices with addresses and telephone numbers.

Links to World-wide Postal Information  The page is a bit confusing so be sure to scroll down far enough to find the postal information. Country information arranged alphabetically.  Each country offers different sorts of information--some give postal codes only, some give codes and postal rates, some have English pages and some are only in the native language.  

Universal Postal Union Addressing Formats  Proper postal addressing assures quick and efficient mailing for letters. The site provides proper addresses in the manner requested by the postal administration of the country of destination and gives additional information on a country's addressing system and postal operations.

U.S. Postal Service  Stamps, rate calculator, zip codes, change of address, express mail tracking, and more.

• Canadian Postal Code Directory (Canadian Postal Corp.)
  Lists zip codes for Canada.
   
• National 5-Digit Zip Code & Post Office Directory (U.S. Postal Service)
  Lists zip codes for the United States.
   
• World Almanac  
  Lists current postal rates and information.

RESEARCH TOOLS

Research & Reference Gateway Research Guides: Business  Rutgers University Library offers guides to researching business topics. Topics include accounting, banks and financial services, company research, electronic commerce, industry research, international business, market research, entrepreneurship, and more. Each category presents handbooks, professional associations, indexes to professional literature, information servers, government sites, annual reports. Some of the citations are to print resources but the majority are to free, online resources. An excellent site for anyone wishing to learn the resource tools of a particular business area.

• Associations Unlimited
  Search for trade associations and professional organizations. This is the online counterpart to the Encyclopedia of Associations.
   

• Business & Company Resource Center
  An extensive business, company and industry database with news, articles, financial documents, rankings, company histories, industry reports, and more. Searchable by company, industry, or article keyword.
   

• Infotrac OneFile
  A large periodicals database featuring the full text and citations for newspapers and magazines with many business publications.
   

• Newsbank
  Consists of two databases: America’s Newspapers, which indexes the full text of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Orange County Register, San Diego Union-Tribune, USA Today, the Washington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle from roughly 1985 to the present; and Noticias en Español, which provides full text articles in Spanish.

Go to the Library's databases

TECHNICAL REPORTS

Department of Energy Information Bridge  The DOE Information Bridge provides free and convenient access to full-text and bibliographic records of Department of Energy (DOE) research and development reports in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental sciences, energy technologies, engineering, computer and information science, renewable energy, and other topics.

DOD Scientific & Technical Information Network  This site, from the Department of Defense, provides access to citations to unclassified unlimited documents that have been entered into DTIC's Technical Reports Collection since December 1974 as well as some full text reports for those citations.  It is free of charge and only requires registration upon document ordering. It is possible to order documents online.

HUD Environmental Maps  Information on air releases, water discharges, hazardous waste, superfund sites, toxic releases, public housing, multifamily housing, etc.

National Technical Information Service  NTIS is the largest, central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information available. It provides businesses, universities, and the public access to well over 2 million publications covering over 350 subject areas. Order online, by phone or fax.  Price schedule available online.

TIME

U.S. Naval Observatory Time Service  Master clock for U.S. and Pacific time zones.

World Time Server  Search by country for the current time there.

Library Resources

• Hotel & Travel Index  
  Check the time while selecting a hotel: world time chart plus time (compared to GMT) for each city, state, and country.
   
• Information Please Almanac  
  Explains different kinds of time (military, civil, solar, etc.) and gives chart for cities of the world. Includes legal holidays for U.S. and some abroad.

TRAVEL

Web Resources

Air Traffic Control System Command Center  Part of the FAA and an excellent resource for flight delay information and weather conditions at larger airports. The site takes a long time to load but the information makes it worth one's time to be persistent.

Biztravel.com  Biztravel is designed to to help frequent business travelers plan and book business trips quickly and easily. Offers reservations, tracking of frequent flyer miles, city information, and an online travel magazine. Features travel tips and travel bargains and special offers.

FAA  Use the "FAA Traveler Info" link for all sorts of tips on air travel, including preparing for a trip, travel and safety tips, airline safety records, and safety assessments for foreign countries. 

OAG Online  Information on cities around the world, such as airline service, car-rental agencies, major attractions, convention facilities. More extensive information available with subscription.

Travelers' Health  The National Center for Infectious Diseases provides health information on specific destinations around the world.  Includes information on recommended vaccinations, outbreaks of diseases of concern to travelers, insect protection, safe food and water, traveling with children, and more.  Reference materials such as the "Yellow Book" (Health Information for International Travel) and the "Blue Sheet" (Summary of Health information for Travel) are available.

U.S. Department of State Travel Warnings  "Travel Warnings are issued when the State Department decides, based on all relevant information, to recommend that Americans avoid travel to a certain country. Countries where avoidance of travel is recommended will have Travel Warnings as well as Consular Information Sheets."

USA Today's Travel Section  In cooperation with Web travel service, Travelocity presents business travel news, values, weather reports, converters, and much more.

WebFlyer  Free, updated information on most frequent flyer programs.

There are many online travel services available including Travelocity, Expedia, CheapTickets, and Sabre (for companies, not individuals). None is intended to be an endorsement by the Library.

• Hotel & Travel Index 
  Lists hotels worldwide with contact information and rates. Published quarterly so information is current. Additional information on group travel, meetings, and incentives; convention and tourist offices; hotel reservation services; air travel time chart; currencies and exchange rates; and world time and telephones.

WEATHER

CNN National and International Weather  Search by city, state, or country.

Weather Channel  Breaking weather, U.S. and international city forecasts, maps, golfing, boating and aviation guides.

Weather Underground  Current conditions and forecasts for the U.S. and around the world.

Library Resources

Travel guides such as Fodor's, Frommer's, Lonely Planet, or Let's Go Guides provide information and advice about weather and what to wear throughout the world. Check the Library online catalog by subject for guidebooks available for each country.  For example: "Greece--Guidebooks" or "Japan--Guidebooks."

Go to the Library catalog

Online databases provide newspaper weather pages and recent articles on travel to various locations.  Use InfoTrac OneFile or Business & Company Resource Center for information on countries, cities, etc.  Topics under each subject may include "airports," "hotels," "international trade," "prices and rates," or "travel."

Go to the Library's databases