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Books and Reading
If you're looking for more information on a book that
you already know something about (author, title, etc.), try searching
at the online bookstore Amazon.com. For Canadian books, you may have more luck at McNally Robinson (a Manitoba company) or Chapters. If it's an older or out-of-print book, search the ABE Books web page to see if it's in stock at any of hundreds of used book stores worldwide.
Book Browser is an excellent source of information and reviews for popular fiction and authors, especially series. AllReaders.Com is another great source for reviews of mysteries, romances, and science fiction. BookWire
is a publishing industry news site which includes bestseller lists and
forthcoming titles. If you enter some of your favorite books into its
database, Alexandria Digital Literature will recommend others you might enjoy as well.
Canadian
Information
see also: Government
The full text of the Canadian Encyclopedia (2000 edition) is now online.
Canadian Information By Subject
arranges web sites in the Dewey decimal subject order that most
libraries use, so that you can browse Canada's internet just like
browsing the library shelves to find hundreds of Canadian sites on
various topics. (Looking for a job? Try the online Canadian job listings section.) Canadiana
is another collection of links to Canadian information on everything
from weather to politics. You can also search Canadian web sites for a
specific phrase or topic at AltaVista Canada.
Do you want to know what happened on This Day in Canadian History? A great source for Canadian history information is Early Canadiana Online,
a full text online collection of thousands of books and pamphlets
dating from the first European contact to the late 19th century.
The Parliamentary Internet
provides information on current MPs plus lists of previous
Governors-General and Prime Ministers. Population, crime, and other
basic statistics are available from the Statistics Canada web site. At the Natural Resources Canada web site, you can look up mountains, towns, lakes, etc. in the database of Canadian Geographical Names and get a map of their locations. Or try creating your own map of Canada at the online National Atlas.
At Canada411, you can look up telephone numbers and addresses for people and businesses in every province.
Entertainment
See also: Fun
The Ultimate Band List and Pollstar
are all you need to keep track of music on the web. The Band List is a
guide to radio stations, record companies and (of course) bands on the
net. You can search Pollstar's concert database to find out where in
the world your favorite band is touring, or who'll be playing Winnipeg
in the near future.
Cinemedia is a vast collection of TV and film information on the web - shows, actors, networks. The Internet Movie Database
gives full cast, crew, and production information about almost every
movie ever made. You can also search for an actor, director, writer,
etc., to get a complete list of their movies. Coming Attractions
has extensive reports on movies-in-the-making, from casting and
production staff to filming locations and predicted release date.
At the Mr. Showbiz and Entertainment Weekly web sites, you can keep up with current entertainment news and gossip.
Farming
and Agriculture
The Canadian government offers all kinds of online information for ag producers. Check the weather forecast for Manitoba at Environment Canada. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has created a great resource called AgriWeb Canada. They also provide a biweekly Market Analysis.
Provincial governments are also online, including:
Futures quotes are available online from the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange. More on-line trading can be found at Canada Grain.
Finance
and Investing
PC Quote allows you to look at current stock prices, past performance, and company profiles. Check up on your mutual funds through GlobeFund.
An excellent set of online calculators
can help answer your home financing questions. You fill in the loan
amount, interest rate and other variables; the program calculates how
much the payments will be, whether it's worth refinancing, or one of
many other formulas available. Other home-buying information is
available online from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The Kelley Blue Book gives both retail and trade-in prices for used cars.
The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (Revenue Canada) provides tax information and downloadable forms on its web site.
Free
E-mail Accounts
Due to privacy, security, and computer maintenance
concerns, we cannot allow patrons to use the library's Internet account
to send or receive "outlook express" based e-mail (pop3). However, they
are free to use the library's Internet access computers to sign up for
web mail accounts, which allow them to send and receive e-mail through
a World Wide Web interface. No separate software is required, and you
can access your account from any computer that is connected to the
Internet - at school, at work, or at the library. Several companies
provide these accounts for free; the service is paid for through web
site advertising which all subscribers are exposed to.
Most free e-mail providers require you to follow these steps in order to sign up:
- Accept the provider's usage agreement;
- Choose your own login name and password;
- Provide some personal information.
-
[The minimum you will be asked is your name, age, gender,
and city/town. Some providers ask for more, i.e. your occupation and
household income. Read the usage agreement to see whether the company
promises not to reveal this information to any outside parties.]
There are many free e-mail account providers from which to choose;
listed below are those the library knows about. If you have any
questions about these services, ask library staff.
French
Language
CPF National : contains resources
for parents, students and educators, on-line dictionary and verb
conjugation, CPF database and publications, list of French software,
links to all Provincial CPF branches
The
Canadian Encyclopedia : Available on-line in both English and
French
Asterix
: The official site (in French) for the Asterix comic books by Goscinny
and Uderzo. "The year is 50 BC Gaul is entirely occupied by
the Romans...Well not entirely..."
CBC Radio Canada
: The Kid's section of CBC offers a huge selection of games, contests
and postcards to send to your French Immersion pals.
Goethe
: One hundred on-line French vocubulary tests. Fun for Grades 3
and up. The kids will enjoy beating your score!
On-Line Translation
: Google Language Tools lets you type in a paragraph of text at
a time.
Fun
The Bozo Criminal of the Day Report collects "what were they thinking?" stories of inept criminals from around the world.
At Canadian World Domination, learn the cunning plans for Canada's future tyranny of kind and loving brutality.
A webcam is a live video camera hooked up to the Internet, so that you can see (for example) Vancouver's Inner Harbour, as it looks right now. EarthCam is a directory that lists dozens of webcams located all over the world, even in Antartica.
The Big List of Movie Mistakes showcases bloopers from dozens of famous and not-so-famous movies.
Genealogy
More and more Canadians are becoming involved in tracing their roots, or searching for birth relatives. If you're a beginner, Getting Started in Genealogy and Family History and the National Archives are good places to start.
For local information, try these sites:
The Aboriginal Peoples' Guide to Government Records can help you track down useful information in government documents.
For international family tree searches, the Genealogy Home Page or the massive (26,000 links and counting!) List of Genealogy Sites are excellent starting points. The Familyrecords.gov.uk
site provides easy access to United Kingdom family history on the web.
The largest single source of genealogical information on the Internet,
the Mormons' Family Search site, indexes more than 4000 million names.
Government
See also: Canadian
Information | Legal Information
Start out at the official home page of the Canadian government, which links to individual departments and/or agencies and offers a search engine.
Some of the most frequently accessed federal websites are:
Of course, the Manitoba government has its own home page as well. For other provinces, consult this list of all provincial and territorial home pages.
Health
There is a lot of excellent medical information
available on the Internet, but just as much that is inaccurate or even
harmful. Remember to look at the source of any medical
information - does it seem like this organization or person would know
what they are talking about? And, of course, always consult your doctor
for further information.
The Canadian Health Network
is a national network of health information providers which gives easy
access to health information you can trust from over 600 organizations
across the country. One of the most popular American health sites is MedlinePlus, maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The Mayo Clinic has an excellent website, which is particularly strong in diet and nutrition information. A health news site called InteliHealth comes from Johns Hopkins University, another well-respected American health institution. And Healthopedia is a wealth of knowledge for almost any topic you may be wondering about.
Parents and caregivers will be especially interested in the ABC's of Safe and Healthy Child Care and the Ontario Association of Pediatricians' website; both have information on common medical conditions in children, plus links to other children's health sites.
There are search engines dedicated solely to medical sites as well. Try MDChoice or CliniWeb, but remember that you may have to know some medical terminology to be able to conduct a successful search.
Hobbies
and Recreation
See also Sports
Pet lovers should check out web pages which answer frequently asked questions about all breeds of dogs and cats. Pet Education
contains informative articles, written by veterinary experts, on
healthcare for birds, fish, and exotic small pets as well as for dogs
and cats. Or, consult the Electronic Zoo, which includes domestic animals as well as wild.
Cooking is a popular topic on the Internet; Epicurious is a great site where you can search for recipes from Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines and save your favorites in a personal "Recipe Box". The Recipe Archive is another great source for that hard-to-find recipe.
Those interested in all kinds of crafts will find lots
to visit on the net. About.com offers a wide variety of crafting sites
under their Hobbies & Games section, including scrapbooking, woodworking, and many more. The Craft Site Directory will help you locate even more project ideas on the web.
Outdoor pursuits are well-represented on the net. World Golf links to golf web sites from all over the world (including every Canadian province). Fishing in Canada has links to gear, chartering, and much more. Jim Powlesland, a Calgarian, maintains a collection of hunting links.
Gardeners should take a look at the Garden Gate and ICanGarden (from the Canadian gardener's perspective). Many commercial sites also offer useful gardening tips, such as Burpee's "Garden School". See PlantCare.com for information on hundreds of houseplants, searchable by plant type and room condition or browsable by common and Latin names.
Internet
and Computers
See also: Searching
the Internet
One of the best ways to learn about the Internet is to
make use of the many tutorials available right on the web. University
of California Berkeley offers a quick introduction to the Internet. Learn the Net covers beginner to advanced topics, including the absolute basics. Parents who want to keep up with their children on the net will also benefit from the Parents' Guide to the Information Superhighway.
How to write HTML and create your own web documents is a more specialized topic. The best place to start learning on the net is HTML Help,
with a collection of frequently asked questions and (most importantly)
common mistakes for new web authors to avoid. If you're a beginner who
just wants a simple introduction to what HTML is and how to create a
web page with it, try the HTML Primer. The HTML Station covers both the basics and more advanced topics.
Call for Help
is a great site for intermediate and advanced users that has fantastic
information and links about todays technology. Check the free files
section for the latest free programs.
Computer not running all that well anymore? If you are
connected to the internet you have a very good chance of being infected
with spyware. Spyboy: Search and Destroy is a great free program that scans your computer and removes thousands of types of spyware.
Job
Hunting
Many Canadian government sites are useful for this, including the Human Resources Development Job Bank, similar to the kiosks seen everywhere. Try out their Work Search site as well, for help in career planning, job searching and applications, funding, and training program information.
The Electronic Labour Exchange
will help you create a profile of your skills and advertise it to
potential employers; you can also check to see employers' profiles of
positions they need filled.
The National Library also maintains a good collection of links to other online Canadian job listings.
Legal
Information
See also: Government
Canadian Legal FAQs
(Frequently Asked Questions) offers legal information on common
situations, ranging from divorce and child custody to shoplifting. The Access to Justice Network has law and justice resource materials from across Canada, including FAQs on common topics such as family law and the Young Offenders Act.
At the Department of Justice website, you can read Canadian laws and statutes. Manitoba provincial legislation is also available online. [Important: Remember that these may not be the most up-to-date versions.]
The Internet Law Library collects American federal and state laws, laws of other countries, and international law, with an excellent index of laws by subject that allows you to compare (for example) the immigration and citizenship laws of various countries. It also has a Canadian law section which includes both federal and provincial links.
Parents
Family.com, a
Disney-owned site, includes activities and crafts, parenting tips, and
articles on child development, to mention just a few of the things
available. Parent Soup and Parents Place are other practical parenting sites with all kinds of common sense advice from other parents.
Looking for a good book to read to your kids? The Children's Literature Web Guide
is a great site, with lists of award-winning books, movies and
television shows based on children's books, and much, much, more.
The Canadian Paediatric Society's Caring for Kids
website offers information on topics parents often ask questions about
- everything from healthy eating to how to take a child's temperature.
Many parents have concerns about their children using the Internet. Child Safety on the Information Highway (a brochure published by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) puts the issues in perspective and offers tips
to help ensure that your child's online experience is a positive one.
If you feel that you need to learn more about the net in order to keep
up with your children, try the library's selection of Internet tutorials.
Quick
Reference
Canadiana will point you to all sorts of Canadian information on the web, from news to weather. You can also find out what happened on This Day in Canadian History.
HeadlineSpot.com is a guide to thousands of the best American news sources on the web, including newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio. Or try NewsConnect (a Canadian site) to locate newspapers published all over the world in dozens of different languages.
The Internet Public Library and Refdesk.com are excellent sources for hundreds of links to useful websites - online calculators, dictionaries, fast facts and more. MegaConverter calculates equivalents for everything from kitchen measures to hardware. The Information Please almanac is a great source for statistical information and current events. Try Fast Facts when you're looking for a quick overview on a topic.
You can look up Canadian postal codes on the Internet, courtesy of Canada Post. For worldwide postage information, try PostInfo,
which has an international list of postal authorities, postal code
search tools, rate calculators, and everything else you need to know
about mail.
Canada411 includes business and personal telephone directories for every province.
Safe
Canada Portal
SafeCanada.ca is your one-stop
shop for safety and security information and services in Canada.
Searching
the Internet
"Search engines" help you to find web sites which
contain certain words that you've entered into a search form or box.
The following engines are the ones used most often by the library
staff, but there are lots more to try if these don't appeal to you. NOTE:
Most search engines have a "Help" or "Tips" page; it's always a good
idea to consult this before typing in any search terms. Or try NoodleQuest,
which helps with Internet searches by pointing to the the best search
engines for your needs, after you answer a few short questions about
what you're looking for.
Google has an image search engine that will let you seach for pictures.
"Internet directories" are collections of Internet links
organized by topic (Health, Recreation, etc.) The largest and best
known is Yahoo; there's a Canadian edition of Yahoo as well. About.com and Suite 101 are other excellent directories.
Wikipedia
is an innovative new free online encyclopedia that has been created by
people all over the world. You can even sign up to be a regular
contributor.
Sports
See also: Hobbies and Recreation
Most professional sports leagues have official web sites, including the NHL, the NBA, the NFL and CFL, and major league baseball. The Western Hockey League and the Canadian Curling Association are also online.
For local teams, try Hockey Manitoba, or visit the Selkirk Steelers online.
Canadian Sport links to hundreds of amateur sports organizations in Canada. The International Olympic Committee maintains a site with information about upcoming Olympic games until 2006.
Type in your team and Office Pools will keep track of your points.
Check out the Sports
category of the World Wide Web Virtual Library, which offers links to
sites about everything from croquet to martial arts. Sports
broadcasters like TSN or ESPN are other good places to look.
Weather
Wondering what the weather holds in store for the next 5 days anywhere in the country? Check out the weather office for a 5 day forecast.
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