By Peter L. Alexander

New Additions:  E-books are surging in popularity. Both the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania have extremely large online libraries with titles available for download at no charge... the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, originally a project of Wheaton University, has hundreds of titles including online Bibles in several languages including Chinese, commentaries, MP3 audio files and even links to public domain hymns setup as MIDI files...You could live on Refdesk for a year and still never exhaust the treasure trove of useful info you can find organized in one place...CEO Express is another one that could take you years to get through. They have special subscription services that are worth the price for busy folks, plus free e-mail (it works a little clunky, but hey, it's free).

Net Search
Here are places to start your search.

Google is about the fastest we've seen. The Google Toolbar, which is only available for IE5, is a tremendous search tool that's blazingly fast. It replaces NBCi's QuickClick.
AltaVista - Solid and reliable.
MetaCrawler - Not as popular or often thought of, but we often find results here we miss on other sites.
Iwon.com- If you can get by the constant gaming and contests, Iwon has a very speedy search engine.
Excite - Searches by concept.
Brittanica - Excellent searches plus partial free access to the entire Brittanica Encyclopedia.
Northern Light - categorizes your search requests.
About - search by human interest.
Lycos - Rumor has it that Lycos has the biggest list of MP3s on the web. You can also download a free Lycos music player and plenty of skins (a word that used to mean drums!).
Yack - Guide to live Web events. You can also get a free radio tuner with thousands of stations online immediately available, assuming, of course,  that the radio stations are still in business!

Libraries Online
Library Spot - Guide to online reference works.
NY Public Library
NY Public Library for the Performing Arts
Sibelius Academy Music Resources - comprehensive. Whoa.
Library of Congress - US
National Library of Australia
National Library of Canada
The British Library
National Library of France
National Library of Spain
Gateway to Europe's National Libraries
East Asian Libraries
Internet Public Library
Space Library - brought to you by NASA and JPL

Fast Reference
Information Please.com
Refdesk
CEO Express
Public Domain Music - look up what's PD and what's not.
Earth From Space - over 375,000 pix.
Space.com - the ultimate desktop great escape.
Biography.com - biographies.

Directions/Street Maps
Mapquest - street level maps and direction
Mapblast - street level maps and direction
How Far Is It?

Currency Converter
XE.com

Time
World Time Server - It's what time, where?
World Time Zone Map - Where is it what time?
Atomic Clock - keeps tickin' without a lickin'

Yellow Pages/Calling/Long Distance
US Yellow Pages - The whole country!
Useless Facts - useless facts.
10-10 Phone Rates - for lowcost long distance
Area Code Finder
Area Code Info
International Calling Codes

US/International Weather Services Online
AccuWeather
UK Weather Service
BBC Weather Center
France Weather
Canadian Weather Service
Green Lane - More Canadian Weather
CNN Weather Page