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Beyond Wikipedia - A Guide to Research for Discerning Writers

Summary:

A list of references and links for authors and researchers, as part of the panel "Beyond Wikipedia" for 221B-Con 2015

Work Text:

 

 

General Research Sources

Books and eBooks

Forgotten Books - World's largest online library of books on demand, including Intelligent Bookshelf to personalize your reading collection; also provides advanced analytical data - http://www.forgottenbooks.com

Google Books Library Project - Largest project to digitize books, they provide pdfs of books in the Public Domain, as well as links to libraries and bookstores - http://books.google.com

Project Gutenberg - Offers over 45,000 free ebooks - http://www.gutenberg.org/

Project Muse - Leading provider of digitized humanities and social science publications -  http://muse.jhu.edu

 

Dictionaries

Oxford Dictionaries: Among its other virtues, this source lets you quickly determine whether a word or phrase is British, American, or both. Is "hammered" an informal synonym for "drunk" in British English? It is. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com

Best of British - An American's guide to speaking British, a good source for colloquial terms - http://www.effingpot.com/

British Military Terminology, published by the US Military Intelligence Service in 1943, presumably written for American soldiers to understand the British terminology in relation to the American.

 

Maps, Atlases, Directories

Google Earth and Google Maps

Historical Maps for various parts of Scotland, as well as some of England and Wales

Interactive map of London

Mapping London:   Highlighting maps - current, historical, hobby, tourist, and many more.  Want to know which areas of London support which football clubs?  What England looked like during World War II?  Where the Spanish Flu pandemic hit hardest?  Where the craft breweries are located?  Where cholera was most frequent?  And adding more monthly.

Yelp

 

Search Engines and Websites

ANC Writing Resources - a lovely Tumblr site that posts weekly links to resources for specific things, like writing historical novels, or writing about war, or high school - http://ancwritingresources.tumblr.com/

EBSCO - Ebooks and research databases - https://www.ebsco.com

Galileo - Scholarly search engine from the University of Georgia - http://www.galileo.usg.edu

Google Scholar - Google's search engine for research - http://scholar.google.com

iBiblio - Search engine and digital book collector from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - http://ibiblio.org 

The Internet Archive - Home of the Wayback machine, it is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, and more - https://archive.org

ProQuest - World's largest collection of dissertations and theses, plus 3 centuries of newspapers, scholarly journals, and digitized historical collections from libraries and museums- http://www.proquest.com

Web of Science - World's leading source of scholarly research data - http://wokinfo.com

Weather Underground - Find detailed, daily historical weather information here, going as far back as 1945 - http://www.wunderground.com/history/

Perfume & Cologne Database (thank you, PrettyArbitrary!) 

 

 

Historical Reference Sources

History of Women - British Women's Emancipation since the Renaissance -http://www.historyofwomen.org/

The National Archives - Find records from The National Archives and over 2,500 archives across the UK  - http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland - http://www.rcahms.gov.uk/

Slang (or How to make sense of all those sayings in the novels) - http://regencyassemblypress.com/Regency_Lexicon.html

 

 

Sherlock Holmes Specific References

Sherlock Holmes News and Events, Blogs, and Podcasts

The Best of Sherlock Holmes - News and review - http://www.bestofsherlock.com/

I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere - News and information about Sherlock Holmes in popular culture - http://www.ihearofsherlock.com/

 

Stories and Collections

Art in the Blood - Text and artwork from the canon, as well as maps and other information - http://www.artintheblood.com

Sherlock Holmes Companion - http://sherlockian.info

 

Beekeeping and Other Occupations

Buzzfeed, UK version - A search on the word "London" yields such insider information as 25 Essential Tube Hacks From Londoners and 15 Bizarre Museums In London That You Should Definitely Visit. A great source of interesting details for fiction taking place in contemporary London. - http://www.buzzfeed.com/?country=uk

Empire Apiaries - Information for the hobby beekeeper - http://www.empireapiaries.com/

Honeybee Suite - Information about beekeeping - http://www.honeybeesuite.com/

Mayo Clinic - Your nonprofit guide to sounding like John Watson - http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions

 

 

Do Your Research Quiz from 221B-Con

How good are your research techniques?  Take the Do Your Research! quiz and find out!