Best Free Reference Web Sites 2009

The Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association just published a list of the best free reference websites of 2009. This includes some wonderful sites with great information such as ePodunk, PubChem, and Lexicool. Lexicool is a searchable directory of more than 6000 free online bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries. PubChem is a search tool for free chemistry information which divides the information into 3 areas: Compounds, Substances, and BioAssays. Finally, ePodunk is an aggregate of easily browsable city and county profiles - a wonderful source of local data. You may want to consider linking to any of the RUSA recommended sites in your classes, and the ECC Librarians would be happy to provide in class or online library instruction to educate your students about any of these resources and more.

Visualizing the Quality of the Information

Wired,com's Wired Science Blog, published a quick overview of a new service on Wikipedia called WikiTrust. Content will be color coded based on a formula related to the reliability of the writer, and the number of reviews it has passed by editors. Don't know how it will play out in the context of ADA, but definitely will be worth a look when it goes live as a tool to evaluated information.

Although WikiTrust has been available as an add-on to the MediaWiki since November 2008, This current movement is to incorporate it into the live Wikipedia. Didn't see a date, but definitely something to watch for.