A Few Tips on How to search for information.

For the electronic equivalent to the "ready reference" shelf of resources that most librarians keep hidden behind their desks, check our RefDesk. It is particularly good for answering factual questions- Where do I get the new Windows XP Service Pack? Where is the 386 area code? How do I contact my member of Congress?

Another resource for lots of those quick-fact questions is InfoPlease, the publishers of the Information Please almanac. Right now, it's full of Olympics data, but it also has links to facts and factoids that you would look up in an almanac, atlas, or encyclopedia.

If you want numbers, start with the Statistical Abstract of the US. This source, produced by the U.S. Census Bureau, gives you everything from the divorce rate by state to airline cost indexes going back to 1980. Its a virtual "secret weapon" for pulling numbers together quickly.

My favorite question is "how does that work?" Haven't you ever wondered how they get that Olympic torch to continue to burn while it is being carried by runners from one city to April 16, 2009 spacecraft? For answers, check out the appropriately-named How Stuff Works.

For questions about movies, my first resource is the Internet Movie Database. It is easy to search, is such a popular site that mistakes are corrected quickly, and is a fun place to catch trailers of both upcoming movies and those dating back to the 30s.

When I need to figure out who said what, I still tend to rely on the print sources such as Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. No, the current edition is not available on the web, I also see a source of the quote. There are far too many quotes being attributed to a celebrity, but with no indication of the source where the quote originally appeared.

Take, for example, the much cited quote of Margaret Meade, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has!" Then see the page on the Institute for Intercultural Studies site, founded by Meade, and read its statement that it has never been able to verify this alleged quote from Meade.

While there are lots of web-based sources of quotes (see QuotationsPage.com and Bartleby, for example), unless the site provides the original source for the quotation, I wouldn't rely on the citation.

And of course, there is always Google!. Here are a few tips by google itself.