Research Bookmarks
Last
updated on January 8, 2010
Compiled
and maintained by the Research staff
in the Office of Alumni Relations and Development at Northwestern University
|
|
||
|
Items marked with a |
||
Colleges and
Universities
Alumni Magazines on the Web
Yahoo!'s small (but reliable) list of links to
alumni magazines in the United States.
Google University Search
Great way to thoroughly search a school's
website.
SearchEdu.com
A search engine for colleges and
universities. Provides additional useful links to other reference tools.
Company
Profiles/Venture Capital
For links to foreign company information, look under International
Hoover's Online is a clearinghouse for company information featuring the Hoover's MasterList Plus database as the publicly accessible core of the service. Search a database of information on over 8,000 companies. You can also search for information on individuals.
Reuter's Investor Research (formerly Market Guide)
Really comprehensive, nicely formatted information on public companies, including charts that show executive compensation and stock ownership.
Provides profiles, news, SEC filings, and executive bios, not to mention the all-important insider holdings and salary reports. The advantage to this site is that instead of compiling its own information, it contracts with the most reliable sources (Thomson Financial and Multex investor to name two) and links to their information. Especially useful for the most recent news on public companies.
Venture Capital
Resource Library
A
good starting place for research into the world of venture capital.
Also listed under Securities heading. Links to companies listed on the American Stock Exchange.
Annual Reports Service from The Wall Street Journal
Online
Free annual reports on many major companies in PDF format.
Provides annual reports for companies that participate in the service. You are able to get most on-line and some are available in a hard copy as well.
A national Yellow Pages that maps the location of 11 million businesses. Helps pinpoint sites, especially for efficient scheduling of appointments. Businesses are searchable by categories.
This site bills itself as "the leading business search engine."
Business Credit Reports (Credit.net)
Free basic address information from a database featuring over 14 million companies. Search by business name, executive name, company address, company phone number, Web site URL or UCC listing. Reports with credit information, executive names, sales information, and number of employees now available for a fee or by subscription. Free 72-hour trial.
Offers free bare-bones reports on companies (meatier profiles are subscriber-based), research links, a list of the top 100 companies worldwide, and a glossary of business definitions.
Access
comprehensive financial & structural information about every FDIC-insured
institution.
National
Venture Capital Association
General information on venture capitalism as a career and a membership directory with links to member firms.
Provides information on smaller companies traded on the Over The Counter Bulletin Board and the Pink Sheets. Quotes, stock charts, and company profile information on over six thousand companies that might be hard to find elsewhere.
"Search the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers database for product and service suppliers in 52,000 categories! This service is FREE to registered users."
Wall-Street.com (Small Companies Research)
Specializes in companies traded over the counter that don't show up on other financial directories, including profiles, research reports, IPOs, news.
Foundations
For links to non-domestic foundation information, look under International
Search information on the programs and finances of more than 600,000 American charities and nonprofit organizations. Also includes up-to-date news stories philanthropy.
Internet Prospector Charities Databases on the Web
Excellent
links page listing charity registration databases available from all fifty
states--and more.
Urban
Institute - National Center for Charitable Statistics
Search information on the programs and finances of more than 200,000 American charities and nonprofit organizations. Also includes up-to-date news stories philanthropy. To date, the most current and complete resource for accessing nonprofits' 990's.
This site will bring you to a searchable database of 990s in California.
Glossary
from Common Grant Application site
A
very helpful glossary of terms used by foundations and a list of resources
"The Council on Foundations, an association of foundations and corporations, serves the public good by promoting and enhancing effective and responsible philanthropy."
The Foundation Center is an independent nonprofit organization established by foundations in 1956. Its mission is to increase public understanding of the foundation field. The organization maintains a comprehensive and up-to-date database on foundations and corporate giving programs, produces directories, and analyzes trends in foundation support of the nonprofit sector. Publishes Foundation Directory. Its "Foundation Finder" database is available on this Web site, as are a number of grantmaking tools and current philanthropy statistics.
Offers
a searchable database of foundations (by assets, location, or name) and links
to recent 990 PFs in Adobe Acrobat format. Grantsmart supplies its scanned
images of 990 PFs to the Foundation Center's Foundation Finder database.
Government
(Federal)
FECInfo
on Political Money Line
Gives contribution amounts for current campaign cycles. Can search by zip, contributor name, or candidate. Not really "government" but politically oriented.
Search by FEC database by name and state to find individual donations to political campaigns. Also provides occupation and age data for donors.
C-SPAN Campaign Finance Database
Search for financial info on candidates, donors, and fundraisers for federal elections going back to 1994. The data is received from the Federal Election Commission, and is updated every month.
Federal Government Internet Guide
The Washington Post's online guide to the federal government.
Institute of Governmental Studies - UC Berkeley
An exceptional compilation of government (both Federal and local) links (see the "statewide database" section of the site).
Can find the salary of Federal employees, including Presidential appointees (lists names, too). You must know the department the person is in.
A resource that provides information on both living and deceased politicians which can be used to ascertain whether or not a prospect was ever related to a politician, judge, or diplomat. Most of the people listed have ended their political careers. Searchable by name, office and state held, date born or died, state and county of birth or death, ethnicity, religious affiliation, awards, military status, etc.
Excellent starting place to find information about anything federal. Includes links to state and local governments. It is really a search engine devoted solely to government.
The Library of Congress sponsors and maintains this database for information on federal legislation.
U.S. Congressmen Biographical Data
Profiles all current members of Congress. Contains links to "Biographies and Backgrounds," "Committee Assignments," "Voting Records," and "Constituent E-Mail."
This special Google seach engine searches only web sites with the ".gov" government suffix.
Government
(State and Local)
The Center for Public Integrity’s 50 States Project is an independent investigation of the ethical conduct of legislators in every state in the union. Includes a searchable database of conflict of interest statements filed by state representatives. An invaluable resource for biographical, business and affiliation information on lower-profile politicians.
Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and Illinois State Board of Elections
Two excellent resources that offer financial disclosure information on Illinois candidates for state office, including campaign donor databases.
Search Systems
State Government Public Records Database Links
Links to over 2,300 public records databases in the U.S., grouped by state.
Provides links to the official home pages of particular states, counties, or cities.
California Directory of Lobbyists, Lobbying Firms, and
Lobbying Employers
Searchable directory of lobbyists, lobbying firms, and lobbyist employers in California. Includes client contact information, who they lobby for, and who their clients are.
If you know someone was born in California, you can use this database to find out their birth date, county of birth, and mother's maiden name.
Includes a searchable database of biographical profiles of state representatives and candidates for office. An invaluable resource for biographical, business and affiliation information on lower-profile politicians.
Files of Kentucky deaths (1911-1992), marriages (1973-1993) and divorces (1973-1993)
National Association of Counties
Click on a state on the map of the United States get links to all the counties in the state. These sites often have property assessment links. In the Data and Demographics section, you can search for the home county using the name of a city, view average household incomes in a county and whole lot more.
Claims to be "largest free public records search engine on the World Wide Web designed to locate free public records" with over 7,000 links. Offers federal and international links, but the state links are the most helpful by far.
State Election Campaign Contribution Info
From Followthemoney.org (Deep Throat lives!). The data is a little old (IL data is from the 2000 election) but this is the best source currently available for contribution info for gubernatorial campaigns, etc.
Information
about and links to vital records by state. Gives info on how to request vital
records in each state--what's available, what offices to request, where to
write, etc.
Grants
Foundation Center Grantmaker Site
Information on major grantmaking organizations and a general orientation to the grantseeking process.
GetGrants Web site by the State of California
Provides a database of grant sources within California state agencies and departments.
Institute
of Museum and Library Services
Grants for conservation projects, online and onsite exhibits, archival projects, leadership, and general operating support.
National Institute for the Humanities Grants Information
Deadlines, applications and descriptions for current NEH grants.
National Science Foundation Grants Information
Deadlines, applications and descriptions for current NSF grants.
Society of Research Administrators GrantsWeb
Grants links and information, with an emphasis on government funding.
While
not strictly a grants site, Sponsorship.com is chock full of news about
corporate sponsorships of both for-profit and non-profit events, projects and
programs. Registered users can access reports and statistics on sponsorship in
the U.S., including a list of the top U.S. corporate sponsors. Registration is
free.
U.S. Department of Education Grants Site
Everything
you need to pursue a DOE grant--announcements, downloadable applications, a
forecast of upcoming grants, and an application guide.
International
Property
sale prices for houses sold in England and Wales since 2000. Unfortunately you
can only search by addresses or areas, not the name of the property owners.
Tip: Search by partial addresses or postal codes to bring up all the sales in
the area. Then click on "Map" and get an average sales price.
Offers both current and
historical international currency conversions.
SEDAR, the Canadian equivalent of the SEC, offers new public company filings, company profiles, and other public company documents. See the "About SEDAR" tab for definitions of filing and document types. Everything is available in both English and French. Worth checking out when researching Canadian prospects or companies, even if the company is listed on an American exchange.
The System for Electronic
Disclosure by Insiders (SEDI) aims to provide full insider transaction
disclosure reports for Canadian companies. Electronic filing became mandatory
after December 17, 2001.
Yahoo! International Stock Exchange Links
Links to stock exchanges
throughout the world.
192.com
The most comprehensive phone
directory (55 million records) currently available for United Kingdom. Features
an impressive number of lookup options, including voting register, family
finder, route maps, relationship search, etc. Unfortunately, it's not free . .
.
Asia, Inc. magazine, includes a "Who's Who in Asia" list.
Business news and information from Central Europe, brought to you by the publisher of the Prague, Warsaw and Budapest Business Journals. The site offers free access to the archives of all three of these journals for free on Fridays.
Canadia
Revenue Agency Charities Listing
Database
of information on over 10,000 foundations in the United Kingdom.
Charity Village is “ Canada 's supersite for the nonprofit sector” In your choice of French or English, this site provides news, job information and other resources for Canadian nonprofit professionals.
This site provides company
profiles from the United Kingdom. The free WebCheck service is available from
Monday to Saturday 7:00 am to Midnight UK time.
Offers free bare-bones
reports on companies around the world (meatier profiles are subscriber-based),
research links, a list of the top 100 companies worldwide, and a glossary of
business definitions.
This is a searchable
directory of federal corporations located in Canada, part of the Canadian
government's Industry Canada “Strategis” site. Data provided includes the
corporation number, corporate name, creation date, city, province, corporation
status, incorporation date, directors' names, and more.
Listings of properties currently for sale all over the world.
British Telecom Phone Directory
Another useful phone directory for the UK. Includes both white and yellow page searches. They generously allow you ten free lookups a day!
Information on 900,000
businesses in thirty-five European countries. Search by business name, product
or service.
European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA)
Information on European
Venture Capital firms.
Links to foreign news items,
government links, foreign business schools, and general information about
countries. The site is designed for international business travelers and
investors.
International
Real Estate Directory
A collection of real estate
related internet sites.
Information and links to many major Japanese Foundations.
What American Lawyer does for American law firms, The Lawyer does for British law firms. This site includes some great salary surveys: UK 100, UK 200, and Global 100.
MLS Online - Canadian Real Estate Database
Searchable Canadian real
estate database
Navy CyberSpace
Military pay charts for British armed forces.
Nikkei Net Interactive - Japan Business News Online
Japanese company information, historical and current stock prices and Japanese IPOs (subscription required; free trial available).
Property Assessment
Directory
Along with links to domestic property assessment databases, this site has a few
international sites, e.g., Bermuda, Northern Ireland, Scotland and others.
Real Estate Weekly's Home Guide
Over 1,300 listings of homes in British Columbia.
Sutter's Who's Who International Red Series
Full-text, searchable company and biographical information for Italian, Russian, Chinese and Spanish corporations, executives, and other VIPs. It's also free!
The Consulate General of
Sweden links to the Swedish Yellow Pages and provides simple English
instructions to search by busi
Zoopla! aims to be the Zillow of the UK. It gives the prices paid for houses up to seven years ago. Zoopla! also has the Zed-Index!—the average of estimated market values of home in a given area. Look-ups seem to work better using the postal code instead of the specific address.
Legal/Medical/Dental/Other Professions
The American Dental Association's Find A Dentist database provides information on ADA members only, but is the most comprehensive listing of dentists available online.
American
Medical Association Directory
From the "Doctor Finder" you can search by physician's name, specialty, or a medical condition. Lists name, address info, practice, affiliations, educational background, whether they are AMA members, etc.
Lawyer and Law Firm Directory from
Martindale
An excellent resource for finding basic biographical and professional information on lawyers across the country: Can search by lawyer name, firm name, and location/specialty.
State Medical
Board Directories
Search
the following state medical board directories by name and title. Allows you to
search for MDs, Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, and Osteopathic
doctors.
West's Legal Directory via WAIS
Searchable
directory of attorneys and law firms.
American Institute of Architects
Search the AIA library and PROFILE, a database of over 20,000 member firms nationwide.
A subsidiary of the Law.com site, the web site of the professional journal American Lawyer provides free full-text access to the stories in its most current issues.
American
Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
Has interviews, events, news, as well as searchable database of performed music, guides on the business and resources, income sources for musicians, publishers, etc.
Limited searchable database of lawyers and firms by practice area and state.
ECHO Virtual Center for Science and Technology
Search this site for information on any scientific topic, including biographical info on modern and historical scientists and inventors.
The State Bar of California maintains a database of California attorneys. Information available online includes name, address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail addresses, date of admission to the California Bar, undergraduate and law schools attended and whether the member is entitled to practice law in California at this time.
Federal Judges of the United States Biographical
Database
Contains the service record and biographical information for all judges who have served on the U.S. District Courts, U.S. Circuit Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the Supreme Court since 1789.
Find Law: Internet Legal Resources
A list of research-oriented law links that include: Legal Subject Index, Law Firms & Lawyers, State Law Resources, and News & Reference.
An excellent source for salary surveys of coporate lawyers. Also provides comprehensive information on law firms in the United States.
National Law Journal's survey Web site
Includes listings for private firms, showing median starting salaries, other states.
New York State Licensed Professionals
New York Education Department oversees the licensing of certain professions, including physicians, chiropractors, CPAs, architects, etc. Information on licensing, searchable by name and profession.
Searchable directory of attorneys by name or by practice area in Houston, Austin, Dallas. Also link to Louisiana Lawyers web page.
This site is sponsored by Cornell University's Law School. Searchable database of state and federal laws.
Lists
PRSPCT-L (pronounced
"prospect el") is a listserv provided as a forum for discussion of
prospect research issues. The archives of PRSPCT-L are an invaluable resource.
Joseph Boeke founded the list at the University of California, Irvine in 1992.
>From 1995-1999, Bucknell University hosted the list. Now it's hosted on
CharityChannel.
All the lists we love to clip:
"The World's Billionaires," "The Celebrity 100," "The
400 Richest Americans" and many more.
"A discussion group for development professionals involved or interested in data mining and modeling, particularly as such concepts may be applied to major gifts."
Helen Brown Group
"Rich Lists" from around the world.
Tile.net
"Originally started in March 1995 as "The
Internet Lotus Exchanger" (T.I.L.E.) this site has evolved over the years
from a comprehensive Internet resource to an email newsletter, email discussion
lists, email alerts and Internet Service Provider (ISP) directory."
Yahoo! Groups for Educational Fund Raising
Searchable list of thousands of fund raising groups on Yahoo! Groups.
Mergers
and Acquisitions
Corporate Affiliations' M&A Activity Page
This page lists companies that have merged, been re-named, or gone out of business.
"M & A Online provides a comprehensive, daily updated listing of companies for sale, equity and debt sources, as well as advisors and intermediaries. Use of the Network is free, however, there are fees associated with becoming a member and listing on the service."
Daily news updates on details of mergers and acquisitions.
In its efforts to chart "the Deal Economy" this site logs news of mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, bankruptcies, venture capital, and private equity.
Another
source on mergers and acquisitions from Doremus, a marketing communications
agency. "The pipeline to deals, dollars and doers! Designed specifically
for issuers and investment banks. Wall Street NetTM brings you the very latest
on what's happening in the world of corporate debt and equity financings, as
well as archival data, including SEC filings and prospectuses on transactions
over the past twelve months."
Newspapers
and Magazines
Good source of regional business news. Also provides lists of certain area-specific companies and organizations (top ten law firms, venture capitalists in Minnesota, etc.).
Crain's revamped their web site in the summer of 2000 in an attempt to become the definitive Chicago business authority on the Internet. Many of its features are now subscription-based, but the annual Who's Who in Chicago Business list is still free.
Now this is a cool news site! Newstrove provides a news search engine that indexes and categorizes news articles gathered twenty-four hours per day from over 7,000 individual high-quality news sources. Almost guaranteed to turn up things that your usual "push" subscriptions don't!
"PR Newswire is the leader in electronic distribution of full-text news to the media and financial community...Browse the information presented here for an overview of some of the most popular services PR Newswire provides... Professional communicators use the wide array of PRN services to meet all of their needs: disclosure to the financial markets, information to shareholders, publicity to the trades, and crisis communication to employees." You can find some news from the company viewpoint here, on a relatively small number of companies.
Exceptional news source for world news
Business Exchange by BusinessWeek
A
compilation of articles, blogs and other content on different business topics,
from specific businesses (e.g., Adobe Systems) to more general topics. Of
particular interest: Venture
Capital, Private
Equity, Hedge Funds
and Data Mining. Still in
beta.
Online news sources including Financial Post, MacClean, Money and Toronto radio.
Forbes
Harvard
Business Review
Abstracts from the Harvard Business Review.
Current edition. Searchable archives of articles since 1990 slated to be available mid-May for free browsing, but full-text will cost.
Editor and Publisher magazine interactive; provides links to online newspapers, some free, some fee-based, some providing text-string search capabilities. There are no free services that allow text-string searching of multiple sources, such as the global searches that LEXIS-NEXIS offers for a fee. If you know of any, please inform me.
A nicely organized page with links to domestic and international newspapers, magazines and other news sources. Some sources are fee-based while others are free.
More links to newspaper and magazine home pages, an on-line news services. Some require a subscription and/or are fee-based.
Full text of many of the day's articles, as well as fee-based archive and clipping services.
A business journal covering "emerging technologies and companies, venture funding, acquisitions, site launches, and other developments in the internet space."
Patents
Free Patents Online
A well-designed site that allows you to search for
patents by inventors' names, issue dates, descriptions, etc. It is easier to
navigate than the US Patent and Trademark Office site and claims to hold more
data. The site also provides RSS feeds for patents by class—great for keeping
up with a particular industry. See the Advanced Search for protocol in checking
specific portions of the patent (e.g. IN/"Doe John E" to query on the
inventor). Finally it has a collection called Crazy Patents, which is great fun
to browse when you are crazy for a break.
Google Patent
Over 7 million patents available to search. Still in Beta form. I love the line
drawings of miracle inventions on the opening page: e.g., Device for Cooling an
Infant's Brain.
People
African-American
Biographical Database
Wonderful biographical resource that documents the lives of thousands of
African Americans from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, both famous and
obscure. (NOTE: you may not be able to access this site if your institution's
library doesn't subscribe to it, but you can sign up for a free trial.)
Offers a free search from a database of over 135 million U.S. birthdays, by name and location. An excellent last-ditch resource.
When it comes to searching for obituaries, this site is the best! Through partnerships with over 1,000 newspapers in the US and Canada, Legacy.com has developed a database including well over 1 million obituaries. Families of the deceased can add photos, guest books, and reminiscences to create an tribute page that supplements the newspaper obits.
And rule they do. This site could be the funnest thing to ever happen to corporate VIP research. Add a company and double click on the board table--little figures pop up that represent each person currently serving on that company's board (hint, the fatter the figure, the more boards that person sits on!). Click on the figures to do a google search on their name, show their political contributions, find or add links to relevant articles on the Web; double click on a figure, and all of his corporate board affiliations pop up. You can build informative diagrams showing connections between your organization's constituents, or just fill in the blanks on a prospect's affiliations and interests.
African-Americans
in the Sciences
Biographies of past and current African/American scientists of all disciplines.
Comprehensive biographical database of American artists that also offers sample images, current exhibit information, and some historical auction prices.
The popular cable network's database of over 25,000 notable biographies. Better yet, the database is full-text searchable! (A search for Northwestern University provided 3,819 results!)
CBS Sportsline is an excellent source for biographical information on athletes in every professional sport! A particularly useful feature shows allows you to track professional athletes by their alma maters:
Fun and informative site that contains separate databases for the grave sites of celebrities and ordinary people. The listings number in the millions and the databases are growing every day. Also features a quick look-up page for the most recent obituaries published in major media outlets.
The name is kind of creepy, but this site (which requires free registration) can be useful for monitoring your top prospect CEOs, celebrities, and other wealthy individuals.
Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans
Contains biographical information on members of the Horatio Alger Association: "Members are the pillars of industry; they are our government leaders and our champions of sport and entertainment; they are innovators and entrepreneurs; and they are healers, teachers, artists, and writers."
Search more than 30,000 biographies of politicians, athletes, artists, and business leaders.
Links to yellow pages, business directories searchable by exec name, city information, a government section--fed, state, and local.
Little Sis profiles the powers that be. This collaboratively written site approaches relationship mapping through a political lens, "tracking the key relationships of politicians, corporate executives, lobbyists, financiers, and their affiliated organizations." Includes links to all kinds of useful lists.
Michigan Electronic Library Biography Links
Searchable obituary database, regularly updated. You can sign up for e-mail alerts "when an obituary that interests you is added to the National Obituary Archive."
Interesting searchable site documenting the fabulous night life of New York's social elite.
New York Times Portraits of Grief
The definitive site for September 11 research. Includes a database of hundreds of short biographies of victims of the WTC attack; this database continues to grow and will remain on the NY Times site indefinitely. The site also includes an archive of all NY Times articles on September 11.
Notable Citizens of Planet Earth Biographical
Dictionary
Contains biographical information on over 18,000 people from ancient times to present day.
"Sometimes you find that your long time heroes have died, sometimes you find that they were still alive and you didn't know, and sometimes you read about people who are simply interesting. The Obituary page is a repository of the names of people who fall into these categories. If you hear of a death that you think people should know about, you can register it. The Virtual Memorial Garden is there for anyone - famous or not - that you would like to have remembered. Pets are perfectly acceptable and a Pet's Corner (is maintained) for them."
This page includes links to many smaller, specialized biography sites for people in the arts and notables of various ethnicities.
Sutter's Who's Who International Red Series
Full-text, searchable company and biographical information for Italian, Russian, and Spanish corporations, executives, and other VIPs. It's also free!
Wealthy Families in America: History and Genealogy
This database of America's wealthiest families can be a bit difficult to navigate, but it includes valuable background information and family trees on America's elite.
Can
find email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, companies on the net, toll free
numbers, yellow pages, personal home pages, and people with the same interests
as you.
Provides
a quick bio or company profile. The results can be repetitive, but Zoominfo is
a great starting point.
Philanthropy/Non-Profit
Matching Gift Database, through
University of Notre Dame
Enter a company name, and the
database will return matching gift details, range of gifts matched, matching
ratio, etc.
This wonderful organization actually rates the financial health of more than 2,500 top charities in the US and provides its analyses in a searchable database. In addition to the database, the Web site offers a free newsletter and a daily compendium of useful articles on philanthropy.
This week in Academe--stories on higher education issues and events--if you have a regular subscription, can get a password and search through old Chronicles--particularly good for facts, figures, charts comparing endowment levels, etc
Includes "a summary of the current issue, organized by topic, guide to Internet resources of interest to people in the non-profit world, forthcoming national conferences on philanthropy, workshops on grants, fund raising, and non-profit management, organized by topic and region, deadlines for grants and awards, announcements of job openings in the non-profit world. The summary of news in the current issue will be available at 9:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern time on the Monday preceding the date of that issue. Job announcements will be available the following Monday. Other features will be added in the future."
Database compiled by NOZA and The NonProfit Times with info on more than 5,500 corporate donations of $1 million or more, going back to 1994. You can search by corporation, location or recipient.
Brought to you by the AOL Foundation, this site is a great resource to introduce you to the non-profit sector and facilitate communication between non-profits, donors and volunteers. Also provides information on planning and building a website.
List of large (some humongous!) gifts to institutions.
U.S.
Trust Survey of Affluent Americans
This survey, published by the U.S. Trust Company in April 2007, is chock full of fascinating information about the investment beliefs and philanthropic mindset of the upper classes.
Phone/Address/Zip
For links to non-domestic phone and address information, look under International
Whois.net
Ever come across one of those pesky
Web sites that forget to include contact information? Just type in the URL and
Whois will provide you with registration information, including snail mail
address, email address and a phone number!
Infobel
This site provides links to various telephone directories on the web including:
Yellow Pages - White Pages - Fax Directories - Toll Free Directories - and
Regional Directories. It provides links to many international directories.
SimplyZipCodes
Provides zip codes within a 100-miles (or less) radius. You can cut and paste
the results into Excel.
Switchboard
A free nationwide residential and
business directory from Coordinate.com. Includes over 90 million people and 10
million business.
Zip Code Lookup
A web site run by the postal service that will find zips for you.
ZipMath
Click Applications for zip codes (listed with the cities) within a
radius. This site is able to work with much larger radii than other sites, but
larger radii can slow the site to a crawl.
Real
Estate
For links to non-domestic real estate information, look under International
Christina Pulawski's Tax Assessor
Database
Listings of phone numbers, links, and multipliers for counties and other communities so you can find the market value of properties.
Great site for finding information and comparables for New York City property--with free registration you're allowed six free lookups per day.
Realtor.com
National real estate database that
even carries listings in New York City! Excellent place to find comparable
values.
Zillow
The real estate site that has become a verb, ala Google. The site provides
current market value estimates and allows you to refine the search by excluding
houses that are not comparable to the property you are researching. The
property can be viewed in three different ways: street (map), satellite photo
view, or a combination of the two. A bonus feature is the shots of famous
homes: Ozzy Osbourne's home, the Beverly Hillbillies' mansion and more.
ACRIS
The Automated City Register Information System (ACRIS)
allows you to search property records and view document images for Manhattan ,
Queens, Bronx, and Brooklyn back to 1966. Maintained by the New York City
Department of Finance.
Boston.com Home Sales Search
A Massachusetts statewide site that searches by town and street and gives you a
listing of recent sale prices of homes in that area.
Chicago Tribune Home Sales Site
Offers transactions for the last seven years of
home sales in the Chicago metro area.
This newsletter about the wild world of New York City real
estate is both an entertaining read and a great way for outsiders to learn
about (and keep up with) rapidly changing real estate values in this area.
Every researcher should know the difference between DUMBO and SOHO! Site also
contains a great collection of NYC real estate links.
DataQuick Real Property Information Center
Explains real property terms and other related information.
Domania
Find recent house sales or determine a value for a house using this site's
database.
Homestore Tools and Calculators
Locate communities with
similar demographics by (zip code), compare cost of living figures for
different cities, etc.
Luxury Letter
Monthly newsletter tracking luxury real estate in New York City.
Most
Expensive Zip Codes List from Forbes
The Forbes list of the most expensive zip codes in the United States.
NetR Online
Contact information for state assessor offices and data portal for state
assessor records and other public records. Some info is free and other info
available for a price. Really nice user interface!
New York State Equalization Information
I can
easily kill a half hour searching for the equalization rates hidden away on New
York State's Office of Real Property Services site, so here they are. And here
is the explanation
for how to use them.
Provides comps for coops and condos in Manhattan, describes the buildings, lists recent sale prices, etc. Good site but others have surpassed it.
Portico's Online Assessor Links
Property Assessment
Directory
Links to property assessment databases from around the country and a few
international sites, e.g., Bermuda, North Ireland, Scotland and others. You
still need to check Christina Pulawksi's
site for multipliers.
Easily
navigable site for searching New York City and New Jersey properties by
neighborhood or building. StreetEasy lists many buildings that are not listed
in Zillow or Trulia. It also gives information on co-ops and condos for sale
and rent, recent sales and rental data. Free registration allows you to save
searches.
Wealthy Zip Code List - USC
The University of Southern California's list of zip codes that boast average
household incomes of $150,000+, with average property values of $500,000+.
Links to other Zip Code lists as well.
Yahoo! Real Estate
Now incorporating Zillow and
eppraisal.com to give you a range of home value estimates.
Reference
(Business)
Includes an incredibly comprehensive series of links on such topics as Daily News and Information, Business Research, and All Things Internet.
Brought to you by Professor Campbell R. Harvey at Duke University, this site boasts over 8.000 entries with 18,000 hyperlinks. It is an excellent source for financial terminology.
A Guide to SEC Corporate Filings
Defines all the SEC reports by number, as well as many of the terms and regulations behind them all.
This handy calculator can help you figure out the current value of gifts given as long ago as 1913.
Provides short definitions of investing terms.
Don't know the difference between a put option and a call option? Here's the site for you. Mysmp.com defines stock trading terms and provides succinct explanations of trading strategies.
References
(Desktop)
Babel Fish Translator by Alta Vista
Named after Douglas Adams's extraordinarily useful fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this site will translate any phrase or Web page from/into most of the major languages spoken on this planet. What's more, you don't have to stick anything in your ear to use it.
Boat Trader Online's Boat Price Checker
Using Boat Trader Online's nationwide database of classified ads, identifies current high, low, and average prices for specific boats.
Translate various currencies to dollars. Note: This bookmark is set to go to the US dollar conversion table. Once there, you can link to another conversion table that has a different country base.
One-stop
reference shopping, courtesy of Yahoo! Access the American Heritage Dictionary
(both English and Spanish) Roget's Thesaurus, the Britannica Concise,
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Gray's Anatomy, The Oxford Shakespeare, and the
World Factbook. Search all eight sources at once!
Use this
site's map as an index to
a wide range of links of topics from 19th Century America to Zoology Societies.
A world wide web (WWW)
searchable database of more than 60,000 common acronyms and abbreviations about
computers, technology, telecommunications, and the military, with an emphasis
on Department of Defense (DoD), Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, National
Guard, and Coast Guard acronyms and abbreviations.
Amortization Table Calculator
Create an amortization table in three easy steps.
A searchable database of boat values, most useful for new boats purchased in 2000.
The famous quotation resource, searchable by person or key words.
This engine was created based on the failing Dewey Decimal Classification system. Despite this, it provides many excellent links to academic subjects.
FindArtInfo.com Auction Results Database
Excellent resource for those times when you are trying to estimate the value of a prospect's art collection. The database contains more than 295,713 pieces of art, auctioned since 2004. Each week more than 8,000 new prices are added.
Geographic Name Server (WWW gateway)
You may wish to access the Geographic Name Server at Univ. of Mich. to determine what county a particular city is in. Just click on "USGS Geographic Names Information System" on bottom of page The name server provides other information about cities as well
Highbeam Research (formerly Electric Library)
"With The Electric Library, any researcher can pose a question in plain English and launch a comprehensive, simultaneous search through more than 150 full-text newspapers, over 900 full-text magazines, two international newswires, two thousand classic books, hundreds of maps, thousands of photographs, as well as major works of literature and art." Geared mostly to students. Many obscure interest journals.
An absolutely massive collection of academic information. Includes a function to search many academic journals. Also provides a link to another huge collection of government information. The search engine can be a bit frustrating, but the links portion of it is very comprehensive.
The IMDb is an excellent movie reference source and covers everything you could ever possibly want to know about movies. It's fully hyperlinked both within the database and to thousands of external sites and is updated continuously. Searchable by film and actor name, as well as director and crew.
Another good language translator, with a particular focus on eastern European languages like Croation, Czech, Serbian, and Slovenian.
This collections database allows you to search the American art holdings of most major museums and quite a few individual collectors. Browse by owner's name, artist's name, type of art, or by keywords.
Librarians' Index to the Internet
Mapping service. Can search for specific addresses or business, and you can view a map of the area and surrounding blocks and streets. You can even customize your map by placing features that show location of landmarks, services, and facilities and major businesses. Also claims to give directions and distances from one point to another.
Another mapping service.
Paintings Provenance Database from the Getty Research
Institute
Like the Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database (see above) this database provides ownership histories for hundreds of thousands of paintings. Most of the works listed in this data base are by European artists. Searchable by owner's name, artist name, owner's location, and keywords. Useful for detecting current holdings of your prospects, and also for tracking donations and loans made to museums.
Peterson's College and University Information Channel
Free access to information on hundreds of major educational institutions, including size, tuition, majors, athletics, and student life.
Provides searchable links for the following categories: "Language Tools, Financial Tools, Shipping & Mailing Tools and Internet." Similar to Reference Desk, in the type of materials offered, however, this site allows you to perform searches within the confines of its own page.
A collection of Web resources and information updated daily. Categories include print publications, search tools, government documents, glossaries and a whole lot more. You can subscribe to a free weekly newsletter.
State County Maps from the U.S. Census Bureau
Clickable map of the US, useful for locating particular counties or finding out demographic information about an area.
A repository of hundreds of classification systems, indexes, glossaries and thesauri for a huge variety of fields. This is a useful site if you are trying to find out more about a subject of a prospecting list or other project.
US Geological Survey - Mapping Service
This is a very helpful site for determining the location of something if you have only part of the information. For example, if you have the city and state and you need name of the county, this is the place for you.
Another searchable database useful in determining the value of a boat.
Research
Web Pages
Excellent resources for development researchers.
Anderson University
APRA Home Page
"The mission of the Association of Professional Researchers for
Advancement is to foster professional development and promote standards that
enhance the expertise and status of development research and information
service professionals worldwide." Links to many prospect research sites here.
California Advancement Researcher Association (CARA)
The Internet Prospector
As featured in The Chronicle of Philanthropy...draws together a goldmine
of Prospect Research information.
Although geared towards higher education development, all kinds of research shops will find great resources here.
University of Southern California
University of Virginia (Portico)
Salary
Information
USA
Today Pro Athletes' Salaries
Search for the salaries of football, baseball, basketball and hockey players on
this site. Goes back at least seven years in each league.
Reuter's Business and Finance
Comprehensive, nicely formatted information on public companies, including
executive compensation and stock ownership.
Great salary information on doctors by specialty,
location.
O*Net OnLine
Occupational Information Network. From “Find Occupations,” you can type in or
find a name of an occupation, get a detailed description of the job – select
“wages and employment” to get to a link where you can choose the state the
position is in. Retrieves a report from Bureau of Labor and other stats.
Salary.com
This site provides salary and compensation package ranges for a comprehensive
list of job titles, by region or zip code.
AAUP Faculty Salary Survey
Search ten years of average faculty salaries arranged by
academic rank at more than 1,200 colleges, universities, and multicampus
systems.
CejkaSearch
Current physician compensation
information compiled by the American Medical Group Association. The advantage
to this site is the wide range of medical specialties covered.
Indeed
Salary estimates derived
from over 50 million job postings. This site has information about some job
titles other sites don't cover.
Jobnob
Gives both average salaries and salaries from specific
businesses. The downside is the small sample size for many occupations.
JobStar
Offers many links to other
salary sites.
MilitaryPay
Salary information for all branches of US military service.
Navy
CyberSpace
Military pay charts for both American and British armed forces.
Occupational
Outlook Handbook 2008-09 from the U.S. Department of Labor
Revised every two years, the Handbook describes what workers do on the job,
working conditions, the training and education needed, earnings, and expected
job prospects in a wide range of occupations.
Pam
Poly's Net Guide (Healthcare Professionals' Salaries)
An extensive list of sites with salary and compensation
information for health care professionals. The sites listed are a mix of free
and fee-based sites.
Salary Sites: CareerBabe's Best Salary Sites (so far)
An index and collection of links to salary surveys in a variety of fields and geographic areas, including sites that detail the pay of women versus men.
This
site provides specific salary information about positions at specific companies.
You can search the site by companies, job titles and state and date.
U.S. Office of Personnel Management Salaries and Wages
Provides information on a variety of Government wide pay programs for Federal
employees, including the General Schedule (GS), Law Enforcement Officer Pay
Schedules, and the Federal Wage System (FWS).
Search
Engines
Google
The industry standard. It's a good
idea to check out Google's options
page occasionally for all kinds of search and Web tools. Google Labs has features still in Beta mode.
Google Cheat
Sheet
Compilation of Google tips and resources.
It's easy to fall into a
Google-only mode, but even Google's huge database misses about half of the
searchable Web. Other search engines can find things Google missed. The
following are well-regarded.
Yahoo!
The Avis to
Google's Hertz.
Ask
The successor to (and huge improvement on) Ask
Jeeve
Formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN Search.
Meta Search Engines
These search engines can pull together results from a number of search engines at once, but don't delve as deeply into the databases.
Clusty
This meta search engine clusters your results,
hence the mellifluous name Clusty. Formerly known as Vivisimo, which has a
music of its own.
Dogpile
Pulls its results
from Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask.
"The
top results from the World's favorite search engines." Searches from
Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask and About.
Mamma
The self-professed "mother of all search engines." Owned by Copernic,
this meta search engine pulls from the databases of Gigablast, Ask, EntireWeb
and About.
Not a true meta search engine in that you can't search using a number of search engines simultaneously, but you can toggle between Google, Yahoo!, Wikipedia and Bing. Register (it's free) with 43Marks and get your own personal 43Marks URL to organize your bookmarks so they can be accessed on any computer. This site is still in Beta.
Guides to Search Engines
Search Engine Showdown
This site tracks new
features offered by the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, Ask,
Exalead and Gigablast). It also has comprehensive search engine reviews and
chart comparing features, Boolean protocol, etc. of these search engines.
Google
Blogoscoped
An independent site covering all things Google.
Search Engine Guide
A busy-looking site with loads of adverstising, but it is
handy for its Search Engine Directory of search engines devoted to arts,
business, education, government, reference, news, etc.
UC Berkeley Best Internet Guide
A pithy guide to search engines, meta search
engines, web search stategies, etc. Also has a chart with a comparison of
Google, Yahoo! and Ask.
Internet Archive
The Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive
This site can be an absolute lifesaver at those times when you need to capture
a bio or news item that has been deleted from a Web site. Web pages from as
long ago as 1996 (ancient in terms of the Web's short history!) are archived
here.
Securities/IPOs/SEC/Stock
Quotes
Touts itself as the "world's most comprehensive and easy-to-use online charting and investment research Web sites providing access to interactive charts, quotes, reports and indicators on over 50,000 stocks, mutual funds and market indexes." We like it because it is one of the few sites that provides historical stock quotes for the entire decade.
Lists foreign securities. You'll have to register first, then go to "contents" to get to "world share service" FT also has useful reports on about 8,000 companies world-wide and a good currency translator.
Search for IPOs by keyword, state or metro area. Links to Edgar documents on the IPO, which include officer/director names, bios.
Morningstar
Document Research
The site formerly known as 10-K Wizard. Provides
full Boolean searching of SEC documents. You can also set up alerts.
Register with Yahoo!, and this site allows you to keep an online "portfolio" that tracks trading prices for companies of interest, downloadable to spreadsheet format. Offers news, insider trading, historical quotes and charts, all in one nice, free package.
Links to companies listed on the American Stock Exchange.
Download SEC documents, for free.
Insider trading database searchable by stock ticker or trader's name.
Comprehensive IPO site,
includes company profiles.
National
Archives
Look to the bottom of the page for links to search for insider trading from
1978 to 2001.
Newly redesigned. Allows entering up to five ticker symbols at one time. Also allows for searching for ticker symbol by company name.
Created by Lance H. Hill, maintained by Al Gabor
Find
a broken link? Outdated or just plain wrong information?
Or do you have a tip on a site useful for development research? Please drop me a line.