Finding information on the Internet

Directories

Personal contact details

  • BT Phone Directory - searchable phone directory website based on the main BT website and covering the whole of the UK. Doesn't include ex-directory numbers. Follow the (small) Directory Enquiries link at the top right hand of the home page.
  • Company and Telephone Directories - portal linking to company & telephone directories on the Internet worldwide.
  • How to find e-mail addresses - links and explanation on how to find e-mail addresses
  • Internet Address Finder - A very comprehensive and relatively fast searchable index of email addresses
  • Royal Mail postcodes on-line - allows you to find any Postcode within the UK. You need to enter address details and the Postcode Finder will do the rest for you.
  • Search the STD codes - allows you to work out the region/area a phone call has come from.
  • Solicitors Online - designed for any citizen or business person looking for legal help, and also for use by advice centres, other referral agencies, information services, financial institutions. Maintained by the UK Law Society
  • WhoWhere? Email addresses - a fairly comprehensive directory of email addresses, managed by Lycos.
  • Yahoo! People Search - search for addresses as well as email addresses.
  • Yellow Pages - the British Yellow Pages from British Telecom with free searching. " Anew, up-to-date and most comprehensive information system on the UK Web".
  • Yellow Pages and YP.net US Yellow page style directories.

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Education and research

See also the Higher education information resources page for links to UK higher education organisations.

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Conferences

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Businesses

  • Company and Telephone Directories - portal linking to company & telephone directories on the Internet worldwide.
  • Finance and accounting links - maintained by the University of York Library
  • Free Directories.com - links to corporation directories worldwide. It is possible to specific searching within specific industry fields.
  • Free Phone Directory - a UK based searchable online phone directory of companies who can be contacted via an 0800, 0808 0500 or any other Freephone Numbers. Has over 5000 businesses and services listed in York and its surrounding areas such as Harrogate, Scarborough etc. Can search for these businesses access their website.
  • SCOOT: Business Finder - UK business directory, searchable by business type and location.
  • SuperPages - a comprehensive online Yellow Pages and shopping directory containing names, addresses and telephone numbers of over businesses across the United States.
  • Thomas Register of American Manufacturers - a comprehensive online resource for finding companies and products manufactured in North America. Requires free registration to use.
  • UK Business Directory - extensive library of UK company information on Internet Digipages.
  • World Wide Yellow Pages - look up a business with the online search page, Check out new entries, add your favourite business.
  • Yellow Pages - the British Yellow Pages from British Telecom with free searching. " Anew, up-to-date and most comprehensive information system on the UK Web".
  • Yellow Pages and YP.net US Yellow page style directories.

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Searching the Internet (search engines)

See Phil Bradley's list of Web search engines for up to date information. Phil is an acknowledged UK expert in the field of Web searching.

Here is a list of some of the most popular search engines.

  • All the Web - quick and easy to use, but very powerful for finding information on the internet. Includes a form based advanced search option for power users.
  • AltaVista - a search facility from Digital with a more sophisticated search mechanism than many. Unfortunately returns multiple hits from the same sites for many common searches. Useful image only searching option. Includes BabelFish translation service.
  • Google - extremely good for finding exactly what you want quickly, Google also allows related sites searching, and will target specific countries. Highly recommended. Even contains cached page images of 'dead' websites, so that if a page is no longer live you can still view most of its content. Searches possible for images, newsgroup articles, and weblog entries only also possible.
  • Google Scholar (beta version) - searches specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.
  • Google Video - enables users to search TV Content From PBS, the NBA, Fox News, C-SPAN, and others.
  • HotBot - advanced searching tool from HotWired. Includes directory of selected pages.
  • Kartoo - a metasearch engine which displays results in the form of a mind-map
  • KillerInfo - a Meta search engine which clusters results
  • Scirus - a comprehensive science-specific search engine - "searches over 167 million science-specific Web pages"
  • Ask Jeeves -
  • Lycos -
  • Yahoo -

Collections of search engines (Metasearch engines)

  • Country based search engines - Compiled and maintained by Phil Bradley.
  • Dogpile - searches a variety of different search engines. Includes a local search option that requires cookies.
  • Geniusfind - a directory of search engines, databases, and archives organized into convenient categories and subcategories. These resources are specific to a certain topic and will greatly cut down on the time it takes you to find exactly what you're looking for. Slight U.S. bias.
  • Ixquick metasearch - searches many prominent engines simultaneously allows natural language or complex Boolean searches.
  • Killerinfo - recommended by information professionals and sometimes works better than Google! It also sorts your pages into topics and has a great Quick peek function for previewing pages from within the results list.
  • Librarians´ Index to the Internet - searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 6,600 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness and intended to be used by both librarians and non-librarians as a reliable and efficient guide to described and evaluated Internet resources.
  • MAMMA - allows limitation by media type (web page, audio, images, news etc).
  • Metacrawler - searches multiple search engines. Includes the MetaSpy option that displays searches entered by other users. Humorously fascinating, though occasionally worrying. MetaSpy can be selected in filtered or unfiltered (including adult terms) varieties.
  • Search.com - searches 800+ different search engines.
  • Search Engine Colossus - An International Directory of Search Engines which offers you access to search engines and directories from 342 countries and territories around the world including all European Union countries.
  • SearchSite.Org - search engine site featuring Google, Yahoo, and Open Directory searches.
  • Variety Search

Image search engines

Help with using search engines

  • Boolean Searching on the Internet - a tutorial on how to use search engines more effectively with logical searching techniques.
  • Electronic journals tutorial - designed to help explain about e-journals. Some information is specific to Leicester.
  • Intelligent searching agents on the WWW - from Ariadne (issue 7, 1997). Describes Web-based intelligent searching agents, and examines FireFly and Autonomy in greater detail.
  • I-Search - mailing list aimed primarily at Web page authors and designers. Information on joining the email list is available on the archives page.
  • Scout Toolkit - an InterNIC service designed to help new users identify the network tools most appropriate for their needs. The Scout Toolkit was built by collecting, organising, and annotating a subset of the most effective network information tools available.
  • Search Engine Forums - collection of discussion boards on search engines and techniques, with the major search tools having their own discussion board. Requires registration to access full posting facilities and all of the forums but you can read the main discussions without having to register.
  • Search Engine Guide - claims to be the definitive guide to search engine information on the Internet.
  • Search Engine Showdown - offers reviews, analysis, and related topics to search engines on the Internet.
  • Search Engine Watch - an excellent site with information, comparisons and reports on search engines.
  • Search Internet.Com - a free service providing search tips, news, reviews, and other resources related to searching the Web.

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Weblogs

  • Weblogs - Phil Bradley's site about developments occurring with weblogs and how you can go about searching on or for them

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Media and current affairs

General news services

  • Electronic journals: Newspapers and general titles - Newspapers and general titles, directories of newspapers and online news services from the University of York Library.
  • AdWeb - "AdWeb provides a focus for Internet services of relevance to owners and users of the UK regional press. We aim to expand our services to carry pages for every UK regional newspaper - rates, contact details - indeed anything that helps to promote this important medium."
  • BUBL Journalism
  • Communication studies resources - from the University of Iowa Libraries.
  • Press Association - This service gives a taste of the vast range of information available from the Press Association's news agency, PA NewsCentre. It includes headlines from UK newspapers, and sections for News, Sport, Television and Weather.
  • Vanderbilt Television News Archive - since August 5th. 1968, The Television News Archive has systematically recorded, abstracted, and indexed national television newscasts. This database is the guide to the Vanderbilt University collection of network television news programs.

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Television and radio