Biography

Online Databases

Biography In Context Search for people—both current and historic from all eras and fields of endeavor—based on name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, or gender.  You will find biographies, full-text articles,  images and links to websites.

Popular Catalog Searches

U.S. Presidents || Entertainment || Large Print

What’s New On The Shelf

Business & Consumer Resources

Online Databases

• EBSCOHost Master File This comprehensive source includes full-text magazine and journal articles, many with images. A great place to find a specific article, start a research project or look for what’s new on a topic. Includes fulltext access to Consumer Reports.
• InfoTrac® OneFile A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social science, sports, technology, and many general interest topics.
• Business Source Premier This source contains full text from the world’s top management and marketing journals as well as as country economic reports from the EIU, Global Insight, ICON Group and CountryWatch and detailed company profiles for the world’s 10,000 largest companies.
• Business and Company Resource Center
• Business Economics and Theory
• Small Business Collection
• Vocations and Career Collection

Periodicals at the library

Web Sites

• Better Business Bureau – Provides online access to business and consumer alerts, consumer news, consumer complaint forms and more.
• Central Register - The Central Register is the weekly source for information about state, county and municipal contracts being put out to bid for the design, construction and reconstruction of public facilities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
• Consumer.gov – “A ‘one-stop’ link to a broad range of federal information resources available online.” Organized by topics such as food, health, and product safety.
• Consumer Product Safety Commission – This independent Federal regulatory agency works to protect consumers and families from unsafe products.
• Consumer World – “a public service, non-commercial guide with over 2000 of the most useful consumer resources.”
• Goods and Services Bulletin – The Goods and Services Bulletin is a weekly publication containing solicitations for the procurement of commodities and services (which, generally, are unrelated to construction of public facilities).
• Google Business News – “a computer-generated news site that aggregates headlines from more than 4,500 English-language news sources worldwide.”
• Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries – This site provides a wealth of legal information. Among the highlights are Massachusetts laws by subject, how to find a lawyer, online Massachusetts forms and information on famous cases.
• Middlesex Community College Law Center – Middlesex Community College Law Center is a non-profit organization which works in cooperation with the Attorney General’s Office and provides free mediation services to consumers and businesses in the Greater Lowell Area including  Reading.
• Reuters – Business and finance news stories.
• For more information try these links selected by the North of Boston Library Exchange (NOBLE)

Business Resources |  Consumer Resources | Legal Resources

Food & Cooking

Catalog Searches

Baking || Christmas || Healthy || Italian || Slow Cooker ||   Southern || Weight Loss

Magazines at the Library

Web Sites

• Food and Nutrition Information Center — A collection of information from the United States Department of Agriculture
• Zeer — This site displays the nutritional information for over 100,000 different kinds of prepared and packaged food from the grocery store. Members can join group discussions, rate and review products, create shopping lists and more.
• Boston.com: Food –Recipes, articles, reviews and other food features from the Boston Globe
• New York Times: Dining and Wine — Articles, reviews, recipes and features on food, nutrition, entertaining and more.
• FoodNetwork — Recipes, articles, videos and other features
• RecipeSource — This huge collection of recipes includes categories for different types of food, ethnic groups, and even special categories like baby food, dog treats, and crafts recipes.
• GourmetSpot — A good starting point for information on cooking and fine dining
• Epicurious Food — This site from CondeNet includes a huge, searchable collection of recipes from Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines.
• Food from Family.com — Family.com’s Food page includes cookbooks to browse, a meal planner, and even a shopping list to take to the supermarket.
• AllRecipes.com — This popular site has a large collection of recipes, articles and special features on food, cooking and entertaining
• The Recipe Link — “Your guide to what’s cooking on the Net”– includes master index of over 6,000 food and cooking links.
• Vegetarian Resource Group — Information and links to vegetarian resources on the World Wide Web.

Health & Wellness

Catalog Searches

Nutrition || Cancer || ADHD || Exercise || Alternative Medicine

Online Databases

• Health and Wellness Resource Center
• Magills Medical Guide
• Medline
• Health Source – Consumer
• Health Reference Center Academic Provides access to the full text of nursing and allied health journals, plus a wide variety of personal health information sources.
• Health Source – Nursing/Academic
• Clinical Pharmacology

Magazines at the Library

Health Web Sites

• Top 100 List: Health Websites You Can Trust -  Put out by the Medical Library Association’s Consumer and Patient Health Information Section, this list provides a  limited number of current high quality resources.
• Health.com – This companion website to Health magazine features news, information about medical conditions, weight loss, nutrition and more.
• Healthfinder.gov – A gateway site to finding reliable health information from a variety of government and nonprofit organizations.
• National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine – NCCAM “is the Federal Government’s lead agency for scientific research on the diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine.”
• Boston Magazine’s Top Doctors Boston Magazines annual Top Doctors list showcases nearly 600 of the Hub’s finest doctors across 55 specialties.
• KidsHealth – “The most-visited site on the Web for information about health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years.”

Hobbies & Crafts

Catalog Searches

Knitting patterns || Antiques and collectibles || Crafts || Woodwork

Magazines at the Library

Web Sites

• Knitting Pattern Central – Free knitting patterns directory.
• KnittingHelp.com – “Learn how to knit with free knitting videos.”
• Quilting – This site, from About.com, features patterns, tips and techniques, forums, and more.
• WoodNet.net – This companion site to the magazines Woodsmith, ShopNotes and Workbench, features forums, patterns, tips and more.
• Threads – This companion site to the magazine Threads is a good resource for news, patterns, tips and techniques.
• AllCrafts – Crafting patterns, ideas, tips and techniques for a variety of different crafts, from basketry to woodworking and everything in between.
• All Guage Page – Model railroading information.
• American Numismatic Association – “a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to educating and encouraging people to study and collect money and related items.”
• Kovels.com – Provides prices on over 700,000 antiques, as well as other reference information such as a directory of appraisers.

Home & Garden

Catalog Searches

Kitchens || Baths || Home Decorating || Home Buying || Gardening || Lawn Care Read on …

Job Resources

** Job Search Skills Series

Wherever you are on your job search path, we welcome you to join our Job Search Skills Series.  Each month we’ll focus on a different topic and allow ample time for questions and group participation.  Series programs take place on the  first Wednesday of the month at 7:00 p.m.  in the Meeting Room

Books at Reading Public Library

Find Jobs || Changing Careers ||  Resumes || Cover Letters || Job Interviews

Online Library Resources

• Encyclopedia of Careers and Vocational Guidance Vol 1 covers industry overviews. Vols. 2-5 cover individual job descriptions. This set covers more than 750 jobs in 90 industries, giving a general description of the job or career field, the personal and professional requirements, salary statistics, work environment, future outlook for the field, and sources for more information. This set is also available in print at the Library.
• Business Source Premier This source contains full text from the world’s top management and marketing journals as well as as country economic reports from the EIU, Global Insight, ICON Group and CountryWatch and detailed company profiles for the world’s 10,000 largest companies.
• General BusinessFile ASAP Use this database to research all business and management topics. Includes directory listings for over 150,000 companies as well as investment analysts’ reports on major companies and industries. Go directly to “Advanced search” to locate investment reports by ticker symbol.
• Business and Company Resource Center
• Boston Public Library Business Databases Get a BPL eCard.

More Web Sites

Career Guidance

• Job Hunters Bible: What Color is Your Parachute? – Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the best-selling job-hunting book, is the guide for this site that features many helpful job hunting links.

• Career Guide to Industries and Occupational Outlook Handbook – Bureau of Labor Statistics sites that provide information on training and advancement, earnings, expected job prospects and working conditions for specific industries and jobs.
• Career One Stop and Standard Occupational Classification – Department of Labor career exploration and assessment tools.
• Massachusetts Career Information Center Provides an overview of specific jobs and links to organizations.
• Career Magazine – This online magazine includes job listings, company profiles and directories of executive recruiters in different fields, as well as articles on career development.
• MSN Careers – Job listings, articles, salary calculators and other resources.
• Vault – Job and industry profiles.
• Wall Street Journal Career Guide – Articles on career trends.

Online Job Search Safety

• Staying CyberSafe – A collection of tips on safe sites and resume posting.
• Job Seekers Guide to Online Job Sites – This list gives information about the privacy practices at each site.

Find Jobs

• Choosing a Job Site – Job-hunt.org’s tips on evaluating job search sites.
• The Riley Guide – A great guide to employment opportunities and job resources on the Internet.
• Keeping Track of Your Search
• Major Job Search sites: Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, Indeed.com
• NonprofitOyster – This user-friendly site bills itself as “the premiere online career center serving the nonprofit sector.”
• Idealist.org – This project of Action Without Borders lists 22,000 nonprofit and community organizations in 150 countries as well as hundreds of job and internship listings.
• Check industry specific sites, audience specific sites and company websites.
• Many professional organizations provide industry specific job search sites. Check Yahoo Organizations List and Weddles Organizations List for organization links.

Massachusetts Resources

• Massachusetts JobQuest – A service of the Massachusetts Division of Employment and Training, in cooperation with the United States Department of Labor, this site carries searchable listings for a wide variety of jobs, with links to the other America’s Job Bank sites in other states.
• Boston Job Bank – A resume and job listings service for Greater Boston.
• Boston.com Monster – The Boston Globe jobs section offers a way to search for jobs, find job hunting advice and read up on employment and industry news.
• JobFind – The Boston Herald’s JobFind service includes job postings, corporate profiles and a resume listing service.
• Operation A.B.L.E. The Mission of Operation A.B.L.E. of Greater Boston, Inc., 501(c)3 organization, is to provide employment and training opportunities to mature workers 45 and older from economically, racially and occupationally diverse backgrounds.

Writing Resumes & Cover Letters

• Advanced Resume Concepts (reslady) This site provides links to resume writing tips and print and electronic formatting.
• Monster Career Advice This Monster.com site offers a variety of resume samples.
• JobStar More sample resumes including templates for chronological and functional formats.
• Your Cyber Safe Resume -Job-hunt.org’s resume safety tips.
• Riley Guide to Online Resumes – How to prepare your resume for email and online posting.
• 200 Letters for Job Hunters – Taken from the book of the same name, here is a collection of cover letters and other resources for job hunters.

Interview Preparation

• Guide to Job Interviewing Resources – Links to sample questions, tutorials and more.
• About.com guide – Articles, questions and answers.
• Check industry associations for job specific interview questions. See below for interview preparation company research.

Company Research

• Fortune Magazine Company Rankings
• Boston Globe Top 100 Companies
• Chambers of Commerce
• Hoovers – Includes company data, press releases, ability to make targeted lists.
• Edgar – SEC 10K reports to SEC.
• D & B and Mergent Databases via Boston Public Library
• Also, check Business Databases (above, Newspapers and company websites.

Compensation and Benefits

• Job Star Central – Over 300 salary surveys.
• America’s Career Info – Salary ranges for hundreds of occupations by state.
• Salary.com – The Salary Wizard is fast and easy to use, shows salaries and benefits.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics – Wages, earnings, and benefits categorized by following ways: Geographic area, Occupation and Industry.
• Guidestar – Nonprofit salary information.

Networking and Job Fairs

• LinkedIn
• E-Networking – Article from Riley Guide
• Tapping the Hidden Job Market
• Massachusetts Networking Groups
• Woburn Career Place Job Fairs
• Massachusetts Job Quest Events Search

Periodicals at the library

Languages

Mango Languages

Mango Languages is a self-paced online language learning system teaching conversation skills in over 20 languages including English as a Second Language (ESL).

Mango uses real-life situations and actual  conversations to help you learn words and phrases useful in practical situations.  You learn more than words in a new language; you learn to communicate.

Catalog Searches

ESOL || Chinese Collection || Hindi Collection|| Learn Spanish || Learn Italian || Learn French

Web Sites

• Babel Fish Translation – Enter a URL or a short pieces of text, choose your languages and the Assistant will provide a basic translation.
• Ethnologue – This web site is based on the reference book Ethnologue: Languages of the World and provides access to a major database of the world’s languages, including alternate names, geographic information, where spoken, etc.
• iLoveLanguages – A comprehensive catalog of internet resources related to the study and teaching of languages

English

• OWL Handouts – A large collection of webpages on different troublesome aspects of English grammar, spelling and punctuation
• Common errors in English – Paul Brians, an English professor at Washington State University, maintains this guide to proper usage
• Guide to Grammar and Writing – Provides sentence, paragraph or essay level help, and includes interactive quizzes and a question-and-answer service
• Activities for ESL Students – Quizzes, tests, exercises and puzzles contributed by teachers

American Sign Language

• American Sign Language
• Handspeak

Arabic

• Arabic Language

Chinese

• Chinese Characters FAQ
• Learning Chinese Online

Dutch

• Learn Dutch

Esperanto

• Esperanto.Net: Multilingual Information Center

French

• French Language

Gaelic

• Gaelic and Gaelic Culture Web

German

• German for Travellers

Greek

• About the Greek Language

Italian

• Italian Language Guide

Japanese

• Japanese Online

Portuguese

• Brazilian Portuguese Language

Russian

• Interactive Online Russian Grammar

Spanish

• Study Spanish

Welsh

• A Welsh Course