Databases

Literature Resource Center - GaleNet
Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and literary criticism of authors from every age and literary discipline. A valid library card number is needed to access this database from home.

LitFINDER
LitFinder (includes poems, stories, plays, essays, & speeches) - An index to thousands of poems, short stories, plays, essays and speeches. Includes many in full-text, plus explanations, biographies, pictures, and more.

Novelist
An electronic readers’ advisory resource which assists fiction readers in finding new authors and titles.  A valid library card number is needed to access this database from home.

Language

Booknotes
Companion web site to C-SPAN series. Contains searchable archives of author interviews back to 1989 and schedules of upcoming shows.

Byki Language Learning
Byki (Before You Know It) is a powerful language-learning system that uses flashcards to teach you a set of words or phrases. It is the fastest possible way to lock foreign words and phrases into your long-term memory.

Ethnologue:  Languages of the World
The electronic version of the Ethnologue, the Ethnologue Language Name Index, and the Ethnologue Language Family Index, with information on 6,703 languages.

Google Language Tools
The award-winning search engine offers language tools which will translate phrases and even whole web pages.

Guide to Grammar & Writing
Almost everything you need to know about English grammar, about writing and formatting research papers and essays, and about improving your writing style. Take quizzes to test your knowledge.

Guide to Writing a Basic Essay
Find help on choosing a topic, then follow simple steps which will guide you through the process of writing from outline to finishing touches.

iLoveLanguages
More than 2,000 links to language-related web sites. Language lessons, translation dictionaries, native literatures and almost anything relevant to human languages.

OneLook Dictionaries
Search over 500 online dictionaries with over 2,800,000 words from this one site.

Phrase Finder
Searches from a database of 2,000 phrases from key words you submit. Some listings include origins for the phrase.

Roget's Thesaurus
The University of Chicago's searchable public domain thesaurus.

Say "Hello"
Learn how to greet others in over 700 languages.

USA Learns
A free site for adults to learn English or improve basic reading, writing, speaking, and life skills.

World Wide Words
Find information, articles, or submit questions about English words, phrases and usage. Subscribe to a weekly newsletter and find links to many related web sites.

WWWebster Dictionary
Merriam-Webster looks it up and tells you what it means (also gives etymology and links to synonyms).

yourDictionary.com
Has links to over 2,500 dictionaries for more than 300 languages and in 90 specialty areas including medicine, law, finance, sports, thesauri and rhyming. Links to numerous sites on linguistics, writing systems, endangered languages and to an archive of articles.

Literature

The Academy of American Poets
Biographies and photos of over 200 poets; collection of nearly 1,000 poems; "Listening Booth" of poems, many read by the author; poetry awards and exhibits.

Bartleby.com: Great Books Online
Searchable database containing the full-text of fiction, nonfiction and reference books and poetry, including all 70 volumes of The Harvard Classics & Shelf of Fiction, free of charge.

The Booklist Center
Enjoy browsing hundreds of categorized book lists, including comprehensive listings of award winners, at this site which claims to be "The Web's Largest Collection of Book Lists."

Bookwire
Find more than 5,000 links to book and publishing sites. The Menu on the far left of the screen or the Search icon at the top of the screen will guide you to over 18,000 links to the book industry, including author information, reviews, publishers, reading lists, literary events, statistics and much more.

Gale Literary Index
A searchable index to the various criticism series found in many libraries.

Glossary of Poetic Terms
Features phonetic pronunciations, definitions, examples, poetic quotations, writers guidelines and links to other useful poetry sites.

Internet Public Library Literary Criticism Collection
Enter search terms to locate websites containing literary criticism and authors' biographies, or browse by author, title, nationality or literary period.

The New York Review of Books
Contains the current issue, plus a searchable index of the magazine's contents from 1963 to the present, with full text of all articles published in the Review since November 1996.

Overbooked
Web site for "ravenous readers." It has links to authors' web pages, annotated reading lists of books which received starred reviews, reading lists by theme and genre, lists of new and "hot" fiction, reviews.

Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is the place where you can download over 33,000 free ebooks to read on your PC, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, Android or other portable device.

Reader's Advisory
A collection of useful web resources courtesy of the Palm Beach County Library System.

Webrary Fiction Lists
Lists of various specialized genres collected from the "Fiction_L" listserv.

Biography

Biographical Dictionary
A searchable biographical dictionary of over 25,000 individuals.

Dead People Server
Living and Dead Celebrities: tries to answer the question, "isn't he dead, already?"

Find A Grave
A searchable database with over 3 million graves, including many celebrity sites.