Library Science: Websites

The ALA Constitution states the purpose of ALA as, “The object of the American Library Association shall be to promote library service and librarianship.” The stated mission is, “To provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.”

The Special Libraries Association is the global organization for innovative information professionals and their strategic partners. The Special Libraries Association promotes and strengthens its members through learning, advocacy, and networking initiatives.

The Medical Library Association (MLA) is a nonprofit, educational organization with more than 4,000 health sciences information professional members and partners worldwide. MLA provides lifelong educational opportunities, supports a knowledgebase of health information research, and works with a global network of partners to promote the importance of quality information for improved health to the health care community and the public.

This guide is intended for individuals without ready access to print resources and subscription databases in the field of library and information science. It compiles free, full-text resources available on the Web for use by librarians, library technicians, and students in the field. In addition, the Frequently Asked Questions page provides answers to a number of the most common library and information science questions received by the Library of Congress.

Free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages.

INFOMINE is a virtual library of Internet resources relevant to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It contains useful Internet resources such as databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, mailing lists, online library card catalogs, articles, directories of researchers, and many other types of information.

Compiled by the Library of Congress and composed of materials drawn from Internet Public Library Reference Service, Librarian's Index to the Internet and Refdesk, the range of general and subject-specific reference sources compares favorably to a well-stocked public library.

An integrated suite of open source products for locating and managing electronic information resources, designed for use by students and researchers in academic libraries. ReSearcher enables libraries to provide students and researchers with streamlined access to an integrated array of information resources.

Search millions of papers related to library science including information literacy, collection development and e-books. This resources does include some Open Access articles. You can also create an account to organize your research, collaborate or create a bibliography.

Family of 'spot' sites, each serving as an in depth Web portal, guiding users to a wealth of ourstanding resources. Provides links to the webpages of public, K-12, academic, and other library reference works of all kinds. Links to sources of speeches, full-text articles, as well as literary criticism.

Contains 20,000 terms with contextual definitions, along with 6,000 full-color images that illustrate all aspects of life. In addition to searching, you can browse the dictionary starting with any of 15 "themes."

Ready Reference from one URL. Provides answers to facutal questions for thousands of topics. Answers can be downloaded as PDFs.