CountryWatch
CountryWatch.com provides up-to-date information and news on 191 countries of the world. Also available is access to a substantial set of geopolitical, economic, business and environmental background information and data on the countries of the world.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica is the world's most comprehensive reference product, a distinction it has held since its first publication in 1768.
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online includes the complete encyclopedia, as well as Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, Britannica Student Encyclopedia and the Britannica Book of the Year. Also included is an Internet directory that includes more than 300,000 links to Web sites selected, rated, and reviewed by Britannica editors. Available through this service are more than 118,000 articles, updated and revised by Encyclopaedia Britannica editors and contributors; over 14,000 illustrations, including photographs, drawings, maps, and flags; and more than 215,000 entries--including definitions, pronunciation guides, and word histories--from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus.
Beginning in 2002, the Britannica Online will include articles from Britannica Intermediate and Britannica for Kids, a new database feature, Britannica Heritage, which explores articles, images and media from past editions of the encyclopedia and access to 150 full-text periodicals.
netLibrary
With other libraries in the Michigan Library Consortium, Alma College Library subscribes to the netLibrary eBook service. This is a new concept in providing books in electronic form. The Library also owns some of these electronic books in print form. As part of our membership, netLibrary offers an extensive collection of public domain eBooks (the Public Collection). While many of these eBooks come from sources such as Project Gutenberg netLibrary has enhanced these eBooks to integrate them into the netLibrary collection and to facilitate better online searching and reading. The Michigan Library Consortium has also purchased eBooks from the Private Collection. The Private Collection includes thousands of eBooks from the world's leading authors and publishers. eBooks in the Private Collection come complete with illustrations and photos.
Oxford English Dictionary Online
This is the online version of The Oxford English Dictionary, the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. The OED is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. The OED covers words from across the English-speaking world, from North America to South Africa, from Australia and New Zealand to the Caribbean. It also offers the best in etymological analysis and in listing of variant spellings, and it shows pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
