links
curated for a bad memory. very in-development attempt. inclusions are not endorsements.
descriptions pulled from sites. fairly Boston-specific. last updated 30 October 2016.
descriptions pulled from sites. fairly Boston-specific. last updated 30 October 2016.
Brookings Institute: The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national, and global level.
CQ Researcher: Reports are written by experienced journalists, footnoted, and professionally fact-checked. Full-length articles include an overview, historical background, chronology, pro/con feature, plus resources for additional research. Graphics, photos, and short "sidebar" features round out the reports.
Federation of American Scientists (FAS): The FAS works to reduce the spread and number of nuclear weapons, prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism, promote high standards for nuclear energy’s safety and security, illuminate government secrecy practices, as well as prevent the use of biological and chemical weapons.
Institute for Policy Studies: IPS is a progressive think tank dedicated to building a more equitable, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful society.
Human Rights Watch: Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization made up of roughly 400 staff members around the globe. Its staff consists of human rights professionals including country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics of diverse backgrounds and nationalities.
UNESCO: In 1945, UNESCO was created in order to respond to the firm belief of nations, forged by two world wars in less than a generation, that political and economic agreements are not enough to build a lasting peace. UNESCO is known as the "intellectual" agency of the United Nations.
Opposing Viewpoints: Opposing Views provides balanced coverage in an increasingly partisan media climate.
Population Reference Bureau: The Population Reference Bureau informs people around the world about population, health, and the environment, and empowers them to use that information to advance the well-being of current and future generations.
Black's Law Dictionary: Henry Campbell Black published the first edition of Black's Law Dictionary over 100 years ago with the 1st edition in 1891. It has long been regarded the definitive legal dictionary by lawyers and law students from around the world. The 2nd edition of Black's Law Dictionary was published in 1910 and is now in the public domain.
FindLaw.com: Each month, more than six million people visit FindLaw.com seeking in-depth articles, news, case law, and statutes on a wide variety of legal topics and practice areas.
Encyclopedia Britannica: "The encyclopedia is very much alive—more than ever, in fact, in many digital forms, online and on mobile devices...We’re actually something of a paradox—a 246-year-old start-up, you might say."
Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary: Medical vocabulary.
Physicians' Desk Reference: PDR delivers innovative health knowledge products and services that support prescribing decisions and patient adherence to improve health.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH): The mission of NCCIH is to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of complementary and integrative health interventions and their roles in improving health and health care.
America's Health Rankings: America’s Health Rankings® is the longest-running annual assessment of the nation’s health on a state-by-state basis. America’s Health Rankings is the result of a partnership between United Health Foundation, American Public Health Association, and Partnership for Prevention™.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Published in its original edition in 1973-74 and last reprinted in 1977-1980, the Dictionary of the History of Ideas was a culminating work in a tradition that had been energized by the fight against fascism. It was a tradition committed to the pursuit of disinterested scholarship in the academic sphere and to free expression of thought in the political sphere (as in Arnaldo Momigliano's article "Freedom of Speech in Antiquity"). [Has a Western focus.]
Guinness World Records: Records of "the world’s superlatives"
The Old Farmer's Almanac: Since 1792, The Old Farmer’s Almanac has spoken to all walks of life: tide tables for those who live near the ocean; sunrise and planting charts for those who live on the farm; recipes for those who live in the kitchen; and forecasts for those who don’t like the question of weather left up in the air.
Robert's Rules of Order: In 1876 General Henry M. Robert set out to bring the rules of the American Congress to members of ordinary societies with the publication of Pocket Manual of Rules of Order. It sold half a million copies before this revision of 1915 and made Robert’s name synonymous with the orderly rule of reason in deliberative societies.
Measure of America: Measure of America provides easy-to-use yet methodologically sound tools for understanding the distribution of well-being and opportunity in America and stimulating fact-based dialogue about issues we all care about: health, education, and living standards.
City-Data: Collecting and analyzes data from numerous sources to create profiles of all cities in the United States.
Library of Congress Map Collection: The Library of Congress has custody of the largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world with collections numbering over 5.5 million maps, 80,000 atlases, 6,000 reference works, over 500 globes and globe gores, 3,000 raised relief models, and a large number of cartographic materials in other formats, including over 19,000 cds/dvds. The online map collections represents only a small fraction that have been converted to digital form.
United States Census Bureau: The Census Bureau's mission is to serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation's people and economy.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor is the principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS): The mission of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is to provide statistical information that will guide actions and policies to improve the health of the American people. As the Nation's principal health statistics agency, NCHS leads the way with accurate, relevant, and timely data.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
U.S. Food & Drug Administration: The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices; and by ensuring the safety of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.
Occupational Outlook Handbook: The OOH can help you find career information on duties, education and training, pay, and outlook for hundreds of occupations.
U.S. Census Gazetteer Files: Download U.S. gazetteer files for American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian Areas, census tracts, Congressional Districts, counties, county subdivisions (minor civil divisions/census county divisions), places, school districts (elementary, secondary, and unified), state legislative districts (upper and lower), urban areas, and ZIP Code tabulation areas (ZCTAs). These gazetteer files match the vintage of the American Community Survey (ACS) data available from the Census Bureau for that year.
Executive Orders: Just as it sounds.
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP): The CGP is the finding tool for federal publications that includes descriptive information for historical and current publications as well as direct links to the full document, when available.
National Archives: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever. Here is the National Archives Catalog (finding aid).
Public Papers of the Presidents from The American Presidency Project: The Public Papers of the Presidents contain most of the President's public messages, statements, speeches, and news conference remarks
Legislative Information from Library of Congress: Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It uses data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.
United States Government Manual: The United States Government Manual is the official handbook of the Federal Government. This special edition of the Federal Register is currently updated to provide comprehensive and authoritative descriptions of the programs and activities of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. The Government Manual also includes information about quasi-official agencies, international organizations with U.S. membership, and Federal boards, commissions, and committees.
USA.gov: Online guide to government information and services.
Congressional Staff Directory: House of Representatives and Senate
United States Code: The United States Code is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives.
BBC country profiles: Full profiles provide an instant guide to history, politics, and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions. They also include audio and video clips from BBC archives.
PEN International: PEN International is the world's leading association of writers, working to promote literature and defend freedom of expression around the world.
American Library Association (ALA): The ALA is the oldest and largest library association in the world, founded in 1876.
Association of Writers & Writing Program (AWP): AWP provides support to nearly 50,000 writers, 550 college and university creative writing programs, and 150 writers’ conferences and centers. The AWP Conference & Bookfair is an annual destination for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers.
Project Gutenberg: Over 50,000 free ebooks.
Internet Archive: A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, and more.
Amazon Free Classic Reads: Just as it sounds.
Digital Public Library of America: Brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.
Digital Innovation South Africa (DISA): Historical material of importance and interest to scholars and students.
StoryCorps: National project to instruct and inspire people to record each others' stories in sound.
WorldCat: WorldCat.org lets you search the collections of libraries around the world.
Brain Pickings: An inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness, spanning art, science, design, history, philosophy, and more. [Maria Popova's weekly newsletter is wonderful.]
GoodReads: The recommendation engine analyzes 20 billion data points to give suggestions tailored to your literary tastes. [Facebook for the bookish.]
What Should I Read Next: Enter a book you like and the site will analyze a database of real readers' favorite books to provide book recommendations and suggestions for what to read next.
LibraryThing: LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. [Employs folksonomy i.e. tagging, which can be chaotic....]
LibriVox: Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.
Banned Books (map): “Mapping Censorship” is now updated by the American Library Association.
Oxford English Dictionary: Word-A-Day :)
Merriam-Webster: Word-A-Day :)
Dictionary.com: More Word-A-Day (how many sites send a Word-A-Day...?)
Poets.org: Poem-A-Day :)
Mass Poetry: Mass Poetry supports poets and poetry in Massachusetts. [Sign up for the newsletter. Check out U35.]
Mass Center for the Book: The Massachusetts Center for the Book is a public-private partnership charged with developing, supporting, and promoting cultural programming that will advance the cause of books and reading and enhance the outreach potential of Massachusetts libraries. [Check out the Letters About Literature contest!]
Schlesinger Library: Holdings include more than 3,200 manuscript collections, 100,000 volumes of books and periodicals, and films, photos, and audiovisual material. Researchers travel from around the world to use the manuscript collections of Julia Child, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Maud Wood Park, and Betty Friedan or to examine comics like Ms. Marvel and periodicals like Bust.
Harvard Woodberry Poetry Room: The Poetry Room features a circulating collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry, an encyclopedic array of poetry journals, and literary magazines, a landmark collection of audio recordings (1933 to the present), and the Blue Star collection of rare books, broadsides, chapbooks, typescripts, and ephemera. [Materials open to the public.]
Boston Public Library, Cambridge Public Library, The Public Library of Brookline...and on! Each has multiple branches. At the Cambridge Public Library, one can get TaxHelp from Harvard Law students.
Cambridge Arts Council: The Cambridge Arts Council is a city agency that funds, promotes, and presents high-quality, community-based arts programming for the benefit of artists, residents, and visitors to Cambridge, MA.
Boston Public Library's Norman B. Levanthal Map Center: This digital collection represents an ongoing project of conservation, cataloging, and digital imaging of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center's collection of approximately 200,000 historical maps and 5,000 atlases.
Etymology: The basic sources of this work are Weekley's "An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English," Klein's "A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language," "Oxford English Dictionary" (second edition), "Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology," Holthausen's "Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Englischen Sprache," and Kipfer and Chapman's "Dictionary of American Slang."
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable comprises over 18,000 entries that reveal the etymologies, trace the origins, and otherwise catalog “words with a tale to tell.”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: : This tenth edition of 1919 contains over 11,000 searchable quotations and was the first new edition of John Bartlett’s corpus to be published after his death in 1905—the new editor, however, choosing more to supplement than revise the work of the first name in quotations.
AcronymFinder: With more than 1,000,000 human-edited definitions, Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms.
Elements of Style (Strunk & White): Asserting that one must first know the rules to break them, this classic reference book is a must-have for any student and conscientious writer. Intended for use in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature, it gives in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style and concentrates attention on the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated. [i.e. It's a guide to writing.]
TedTalks: Nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. [See David McCandless' "The Beauty of Data Visualization," Elif Shafak's "The Politics of Fiction"...]
Google Arts & Culture: Explore collections from around the world with Google Arts & Culture, created by Google Cultural Institute.
EdX: Founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012, edX is an online learning destination and MOOC provider. More than 90 global partners.
Khan Academy: Math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more.
Project Euler: A series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve.
W3Schools: W3Schools is a web developer information website, with tutorials and references relating to web development topics such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, BootStrap, and JQuery. (Wikipedia)
Codeacademy: An online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 9 different programming languages including Python, Java, PHP, JavaScript (jQuery, AngularJS), and Ruby, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS.[4][5] The platform also provides courses for learning command line and Git. (Wikipedia)
Mendeley: Make your own fully-searchable library in seconds, cite as you write, and read and annotate your PDFs on any device. [Useful for taking notes on PDF slides, highlighting scanned PDFs, and sharing notes.]
Calibre: Comprehensive e-book software.
Treepad: Tree-based organizer, PIM, database, and word processor. [Also check out Jreepad.]
VoiceThread: Transforming media into collaborative spaces with video, voice, and text commenting.
Prezi: The presentation software that uses motion, zoom, and spatial relationships to bring your ideas to life and make you a great presenter. [Can make a person dizzy.]
LaTeX: LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents.
GitHub: We’re supporting a community where more than 15 million people learn, share, and work together to build software.
Open EdX: The open source platform that powers edX courses.
Brattle Book Shop: The Brattle features two floors of general used books, a third floor of rare & antiquarian books, and an outside sale lot. [downtown]
Brookline Booksmith: Brookline Booksmith opened its doors in 1961 as Paperback Booksmith with the slogan "Dedicated to the fine art of browsing." And for more than 50 years the Booksmith has been exactly that. [Coolidge Corner]
Grolier Poetry Book Shop: The oldest continuous poetry bookshop in the United States with over 15,000 current volumes of trade, small press, and university publications as well as books related to prosody, poetry markets, and Broadsides. [Harvard Square]
Paper Cuts J.P.: Award-winning bookstore located in Jamaica Plain.
Porter Square Books: Independent, full-service bookstore in Porter Square.
Raven Used Books: Specializes in carefully selected scholarly and literary books. Especially strong categories include philosophy, social theory, art and architecture, music, history, classical studies, science, religion, literature, and more. [Harvard Square]
Rodney's Bookstore: From reading clubs' selections to rare tomes of old, there is an ever changing and expanding inventory to satisfy even the most frequent shoppers' desire for variety. [Central Square]
The Freedom Trail (free): Welcome to the Freedom Trail, a 2.5-mile, red-lined route that leads you to 16 historically significant sites. Explore museums and meetinghouses, churches, and burying grounds. Discover the rich history of the American Revolution, as it began in Boston, where every step tells a story. [Fun, self-led expedition.]
The Ether Dome at Mass General Hospital (free): William T.G. Morton made history on October 16, 1846 in Massachusetts General Hospital’s surgical amphitheater, now known as the Ether Dome, when he demonstrated the first public surgery using anesthetic (ether). Between 1821 and 1868, more than 8,000 operations were performed in the Ether Dome. Today it is a teaching amphitheater and historical landmark. Visitors can explore the unique architecture and a small collection of artifacts, including an oil painting of the famous first surgery, an Egyptian mummy and early surgical tools.
Gallery 263 (free except for events): Through diverse programs including juried shows, artist-curated exhibits, music, dramatic arts, and residencies, Gallery 263 empowers artists and nurtures innovation. The building housing Gallery 263 has a long history entwined with the Cambridge art scene.
Museum of Fine Arts: Today the MFA is one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world; the collection encompasses nearly 500,000 works of art. [Bank of America has a "Museums on Us" program that allows card-holders to be admitted for free on the first full weekend of each month.]
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: Museum of international art founded by collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart Gardner. [A hidden gem.]
MIT Museum: The mission of the MIT Museum is to engage the wider community with MIT's science, technology, and other areas of scholarship in ways that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century. [This is a deceptively large museum. Bank of America has a "Museums on Us" program that allows card-holders to be admitted for free on the first full weekend of each month.]
Harvard Museum of Natural History: The Harvard Museum of Natural History was established in 1998 as the public face of three research museums: the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Harvard University Herbaria, and the Mineralogical & Geological Museum. [See the glass models of plants.]
Museum of Science: Features a revolving schedule of temporary exhibits, IMAX films, and Planetarium shows, plus details on more than 700 interactive permanent exhibits, live presentations, and more.
Harvard Film Archive: The Harvard Film Archive is one of the largest and most significant university-based motion picture collections in the United States, with a collection of well over 25,000 audio visual items from around the world and from almost every period in film history.
List of Approved Non-profits in MA: Just like it sounds.
Spare Change News: Spare Change provides a locus of stability and community, and serves as a nexus of life transition for its primary customers – the newspaper vendors. [One can buy this for $2 or more from a street vendor, who buys the newspapers for 35 cents. Very locally informative.]
Pine Street Inn: Pine Street Inn provides a comprehensive range of services, including permanent supportive housing, job training and placement, emergency shelter, and street outreach to more than 1,600 homeless men and women each day. Founded in 1969, Pine Street is the largest resource for homeless men and women in New England.
Baycove Human Services: Human service agency in Boston serving individuals facing the challenges of developmental disabilities, addiction, mental illness, and/or aging.
Boston Housing Authority: Provides affordable housing to more than 58,000 residents in and around the City of Boston. Residents are assisted through a combination of public housing and federal and state voucher subsidy programs that provide a wide variety of housing opportunities. As the largest public housing authority in New England, the BHA houses close to 9 percent of the city's residents.
Boston Public Health Commission: An independent public agency comprised of a variety of preventive health services.
Horizons for Homeless Children: Today, we provide high-quality early education, opportunities for play, and family support services to more than 2,000 homeless children each week in Massachusetts.
Rosie’s Place: Today, Rosie’s Place not only provides meals and shelter but also creates answers for 12,000 women a year through wide-ranging support, housing, and education services.
Y2Y Harvard Square: A student-run overnight shelter for young adults experiencing homelessness. Y2Y guests will have opportunities to collaborate with service providers, other young adults experiencing homelessness, and student volunteers to create sustainable pathways out of homelessness and develop skills for long-term success. [Y2Y employs a 30-day model.]
Friend's of Boston's Homeless: Friends supports a number of vital programs in the City of Boston that help end homelessness including Housing First, vocational training and workforce development, adult education, employment services, and transitional and permanent affordable housing, and the emergency shelters, Woods Mullen and 112 Southampton (formerly Long Island Shelter) run by Boston Public Health Commission.
Greater Boston Food Bank: The largest hunger-relief organization in New England and among the largest food banks in the country. Last year, we distributed more than 54 million pounds of food, enough to provide healthy meals to over 500,000 people.
Big Brothers Big Sisters: BBBSF collects used clothing & household items, converts them into cash and gives 100% of the profits to mentoring programs supporting more than 16,000 "Littles" & "Bigs" across Eastern MA & Southern NH.
CQ Researcher: Reports are written by experienced journalists, footnoted, and professionally fact-checked. Full-length articles include an overview, historical background, chronology, pro/con feature, plus resources for additional research. Graphics, photos, and short "sidebar" features round out the reports.
Federation of American Scientists (FAS): The FAS works to reduce the spread and number of nuclear weapons, prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism, promote high standards for nuclear energy’s safety and security, illuminate government secrecy practices, as well as prevent the use of biological and chemical weapons.
Institute for Policy Studies: IPS is a progressive think tank dedicated to building a more equitable, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful society.
Human Rights Watch: Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization made up of roughly 400 staff members around the globe. Its staff consists of human rights professionals including country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics of diverse backgrounds and nationalities.
UNESCO: In 1945, UNESCO was created in order to respond to the firm belief of nations, forged by two world wars in less than a generation, that political and economic agreements are not enough to build a lasting peace. UNESCO is known as the "intellectual" agency of the United Nations.
Opposing Viewpoints: Opposing Views provides balanced coverage in an increasingly partisan media climate.
Population Reference Bureau: The Population Reference Bureau informs people around the world about population, health, and the environment, and empowers them to use that information to advance the well-being of current and future generations.
Black's Law Dictionary: Henry Campbell Black published the first edition of Black's Law Dictionary over 100 years ago with the 1st edition in 1891. It has long been regarded the definitive legal dictionary by lawyers and law students from around the world. The 2nd edition of Black's Law Dictionary was published in 1910 and is now in the public domain.
FindLaw.com: Each month, more than six million people visit FindLaw.com seeking in-depth articles, news, case law, and statutes on a wide variety of legal topics and practice areas.
Encyclopedia Britannica: "The encyclopedia is very much alive—more than ever, in fact, in many digital forms, online and on mobile devices...We’re actually something of a paradox—a 246-year-old start-up, you might say."
Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary: Medical vocabulary.
Physicians' Desk Reference: PDR delivers innovative health knowledge products and services that support prescribing decisions and patient adherence to improve health.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH): The mission of NCCIH is to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of complementary and integrative health interventions and their roles in improving health and health care.
America's Health Rankings: America’s Health Rankings® is the longest-running annual assessment of the nation’s health on a state-by-state basis. America’s Health Rankings is the result of a partnership between United Health Foundation, American Public Health Association, and Partnership for Prevention™.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Published in its original edition in 1973-74 and last reprinted in 1977-1980, the Dictionary of the History of Ideas was a culminating work in a tradition that had been energized by the fight against fascism. It was a tradition committed to the pursuit of disinterested scholarship in the academic sphere and to free expression of thought in the political sphere (as in Arnaldo Momigliano's article "Freedom of Speech in Antiquity"). [Has a Western focus.]
Guinness World Records: Records of "the world’s superlatives"
The Old Farmer's Almanac: Since 1792, The Old Farmer’s Almanac has spoken to all walks of life: tide tables for those who live near the ocean; sunrise and planting charts for those who live on the farm; recipes for those who live in the kitchen; and forecasts for those who don’t like the question of weather left up in the air.
Robert's Rules of Order: In 1876 General Henry M. Robert set out to bring the rules of the American Congress to members of ordinary societies with the publication of Pocket Manual of Rules of Order. It sold half a million copies before this revision of 1915 and made Robert’s name synonymous with the orderly rule of reason in deliberative societies.
Measure of America: Measure of America provides easy-to-use yet methodologically sound tools for understanding the distribution of well-being and opportunity in America and stimulating fact-based dialogue about issues we all care about: health, education, and living standards.
City-Data: Collecting and analyzes data from numerous sources to create profiles of all cities in the United States.
Library of Congress Map Collection: The Library of Congress has custody of the largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world with collections numbering over 5.5 million maps, 80,000 atlases, 6,000 reference works, over 500 globes and globe gores, 3,000 raised relief models, and a large number of cartographic materials in other formats, including over 19,000 cds/dvds. The online map collections represents only a small fraction that have been converted to digital form.
United States Census Bureau: The Census Bureau's mission is to serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation's people and economy.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor is the principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS): The mission of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is to provide statistical information that will guide actions and policies to improve the health of the American people. As the Nation's principal health statistics agency, NCHS leads the way with accurate, relevant, and timely data.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
U.S. Food & Drug Administration: The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices; and by ensuring the safety of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.
Occupational Outlook Handbook: The OOH can help you find career information on duties, education and training, pay, and outlook for hundreds of occupations.
U.S. Census Gazetteer Files: Download U.S. gazetteer files for American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian Areas, census tracts, Congressional Districts, counties, county subdivisions (minor civil divisions/census county divisions), places, school districts (elementary, secondary, and unified), state legislative districts (upper and lower), urban areas, and ZIP Code tabulation areas (ZCTAs). These gazetteer files match the vintage of the American Community Survey (ACS) data available from the Census Bureau for that year.
Executive Orders: Just as it sounds.
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP): The CGP is the finding tool for federal publications that includes descriptive information for historical and current publications as well as direct links to the full document, when available.
National Archives: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever. Here is the National Archives Catalog (finding aid).
Public Papers of the Presidents from The American Presidency Project: The Public Papers of the Presidents contain most of the President's public messages, statements, speeches, and news conference remarks
Legislative Information from Library of Congress: Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It uses data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC's Congressional Research Service.
United States Government Manual: The United States Government Manual is the official handbook of the Federal Government. This special edition of the Federal Register is currently updated to provide comprehensive and authoritative descriptions of the programs and activities of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. The Government Manual also includes information about quasi-official agencies, international organizations with U.S. membership, and Federal boards, commissions, and committees.
USA.gov: Online guide to government information and services.
Congressional Staff Directory: House of Representatives and Senate
United States Code: The United States Code is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives.
BBC country profiles: Full profiles provide an instant guide to history, politics, and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions. They also include audio and video clips from BBC archives.
PEN International: PEN International is the world's leading association of writers, working to promote literature and defend freedom of expression around the world.
American Library Association (ALA): The ALA is the oldest and largest library association in the world, founded in 1876.
Association of Writers & Writing Program (AWP): AWP provides support to nearly 50,000 writers, 550 college and university creative writing programs, and 150 writers’ conferences and centers. The AWP Conference & Bookfair is an annual destination for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers.
Project Gutenberg: Over 50,000 free ebooks.
Internet Archive: A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, and more.
Amazon Free Classic Reads: Just as it sounds.
Digital Public Library of America: Brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.
Digital Innovation South Africa (DISA): Historical material of importance and interest to scholars and students.
StoryCorps: National project to instruct and inspire people to record each others' stories in sound.
WorldCat: WorldCat.org lets you search the collections of libraries around the world.
Brain Pickings: An inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness, spanning art, science, design, history, philosophy, and more. [Maria Popova's weekly newsletter is wonderful.]
GoodReads: The recommendation engine analyzes 20 billion data points to give suggestions tailored to your literary tastes. [Facebook for the bookish.]
What Should I Read Next: Enter a book you like and the site will analyze a database of real readers' favorite books to provide book recommendations and suggestions for what to read next.
LibraryThing: LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. [Employs folksonomy i.e. tagging, which can be chaotic....]
LibriVox: Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.
Banned Books (map): “Mapping Censorship” is now updated by the American Library Association.
Oxford English Dictionary: Word-A-Day :)
Merriam-Webster: Word-A-Day :)
Dictionary.com: More Word-A-Day (how many sites send a Word-A-Day...?)
Poets.org: Poem-A-Day :)
Mass Poetry: Mass Poetry supports poets and poetry in Massachusetts. [Sign up for the newsletter. Check out U35.]
Mass Center for the Book: The Massachusetts Center for the Book is a public-private partnership charged with developing, supporting, and promoting cultural programming that will advance the cause of books and reading and enhance the outreach potential of Massachusetts libraries. [Check out the Letters About Literature contest!]
Schlesinger Library: Holdings include more than 3,200 manuscript collections, 100,000 volumes of books and periodicals, and films, photos, and audiovisual material. Researchers travel from around the world to use the manuscript collections of Julia Child, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, Maud Wood Park, and Betty Friedan or to examine comics like Ms. Marvel and periodicals like Bust.
Harvard Woodberry Poetry Room: The Poetry Room features a circulating collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry, an encyclopedic array of poetry journals, and literary magazines, a landmark collection of audio recordings (1933 to the present), and the Blue Star collection of rare books, broadsides, chapbooks, typescripts, and ephemera. [Materials open to the public.]
Boston Public Library, Cambridge Public Library, The Public Library of Brookline...and on! Each has multiple branches. At the Cambridge Public Library, one can get TaxHelp from Harvard Law students.
Cambridge Arts Council: The Cambridge Arts Council is a city agency that funds, promotes, and presents high-quality, community-based arts programming for the benefit of artists, residents, and visitors to Cambridge, MA.
Boston Public Library's Norman B. Levanthal Map Center: This digital collection represents an ongoing project of conservation, cataloging, and digital imaging of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center's collection of approximately 200,000 historical maps and 5,000 atlases.
Etymology: The basic sources of this work are Weekley's "An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English," Klein's "A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language," "Oxford English Dictionary" (second edition), "Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology," Holthausen's "Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Englischen Sprache," and Kipfer and Chapman's "Dictionary of American Slang."
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable comprises over 18,000 entries that reveal the etymologies, trace the origins, and otherwise catalog “words with a tale to tell.”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: : This tenth edition of 1919 contains over 11,000 searchable quotations and was the first new edition of John Bartlett’s corpus to be published after his death in 1905—the new editor, however, choosing more to supplement than revise the work of the first name in quotations.
AcronymFinder: With more than 1,000,000 human-edited definitions, Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms.
Elements of Style (Strunk & White): Asserting that one must first know the rules to break them, this classic reference book is a must-have for any student and conscientious writer. Intended for use in which the practice of composition is combined with the study of literature, it gives in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style and concentrates attention on the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated. [i.e. It's a guide to writing.]
TedTalks: Nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. [See David McCandless' "The Beauty of Data Visualization," Elif Shafak's "The Politics of Fiction"...]
Google Arts & Culture: Explore collections from around the world with Google Arts & Culture, created by Google Cultural Institute.
EdX: Founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012, edX is an online learning destination and MOOC provider. More than 90 global partners.
Khan Academy: Math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more.
Project Euler: A series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve.
W3Schools: W3Schools is a web developer information website, with tutorials and references relating to web development topics such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, BootStrap, and JQuery. (Wikipedia)
Codeacademy: An online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 9 different programming languages including Python, Java, PHP, JavaScript (jQuery, AngularJS), and Ruby, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS.[4][5] The platform also provides courses for learning command line and Git. (Wikipedia)
Mendeley: Make your own fully-searchable library in seconds, cite as you write, and read and annotate your PDFs on any device. [Useful for taking notes on PDF slides, highlighting scanned PDFs, and sharing notes.]
Calibre: Comprehensive e-book software.
Treepad: Tree-based organizer, PIM, database, and word processor. [Also check out Jreepad.]
VoiceThread: Transforming media into collaborative spaces with video, voice, and text commenting.
Prezi: The presentation software that uses motion, zoom, and spatial relationships to bring your ideas to life and make you a great presenter. [Can make a person dizzy.]
LaTeX: LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents.
GitHub: We’re supporting a community where more than 15 million people learn, share, and work together to build software.
Open EdX: The open source platform that powers edX courses.
Brattle Book Shop: The Brattle features two floors of general used books, a third floor of rare & antiquarian books, and an outside sale lot. [downtown]
Brookline Booksmith: Brookline Booksmith opened its doors in 1961 as Paperback Booksmith with the slogan "Dedicated to the fine art of browsing." And for more than 50 years the Booksmith has been exactly that. [Coolidge Corner]
Grolier Poetry Book Shop: The oldest continuous poetry bookshop in the United States with over 15,000 current volumes of trade, small press, and university publications as well as books related to prosody, poetry markets, and Broadsides. [Harvard Square]
Paper Cuts J.P.: Award-winning bookstore located in Jamaica Plain.
Porter Square Books: Independent, full-service bookstore in Porter Square.
Raven Used Books: Specializes in carefully selected scholarly and literary books. Especially strong categories include philosophy, social theory, art and architecture, music, history, classical studies, science, religion, literature, and more. [Harvard Square]
Rodney's Bookstore: From reading clubs' selections to rare tomes of old, there is an ever changing and expanding inventory to satisfy even the most frequent shoppers' desire for variety. [Central Square]
The Freedom Trail (free): Welcome to the Freedom Trail, a 2.5-mile, red-lined route that leads you to 16 historically significant sites. Explore museums and meetinghouses, churches, and burying grounds. Discover the rich history of the American Revolution, as it began in Boston, where every step tells a story. [Fun, self-led expedition.]
The Ether Dome at Mass General Hospital (free): William T.G. Morton made history on October 16, 1846 in Massachusetts General Hospital’s surgical amphitheater, now known as the Ether Dome, when he demonstrated the first public surgery using anesthetic (ether). Between 1821 and 1868, more than 8,000 operations were performed in the Ether Dome. Today it is a teaching amphitheater and historical landmark. Visitors can explore the unique architecture and a small collection of artifacts, including an oil painting of the famous first surgery, an Egyptian mummy and early surgical tools.
Gallery 263 (free except for events): Through diverse programs including juried shows, artist-curated exhibits, music, dramatic arts, and residencies, Gallery 263 empowers artists and nurtures innovation. The building housing Gallery 263 has a long history entwined with the Cambridge art scene.
Museum of Fine Arts: Today the MFA is one of the most comprehensive art museums in the world; the collection encompasses nearly 500,000 works of art. [Bank of America has a "Museums on Us" program that allows card-holders to be admitted for free on the first full weekend of each month.]
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: Museum of international art founded by collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart Gardner. [A hidden gem.]
MIT Museum: The mission of the MIT Museum is to engage the wider community with MIT's science, technology, and other areas of scholarship in ways that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century. [This is a deceptively large museum. Bank of America has a "Museums on Us" program that allows card-holders to be admitted for free on the first full weekend of each month.]
Harvard Museum of Natural History: The Harvard Museum of Natural History was established in 1998 as the public face of three research museums: the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Harvard University Herbaria, and the Mineralogical & Geological Museum. [See the glass models of plants.]
Museum of Science: Features a revolving schedule of temporary exhibits, IMAX films, and Planetarium shows, plus details on more than 700 interactive permanent exhibits, live presentations, and more.
Harvard Film Archive: The Harvard Film Archive is one of the largest and most significant university-based motion picture collections in the United States, with a collection of well over 25,000 audio visual items from around the world and from almost every period in film history.
List of Approved Non-profits in MA: Just like it sounds.
Spare Change News: Spare Change provides a locus of stability and community, and serves as a nexus of life transition for its primary customers – the newspaper vendors. [One can buy this for $2 or more from a street vendor, who buys the newspapers for 35 cents. Very locally informative.]
Pine Street Inn: Pine Street Inn provides a comprehensive range of services, including permanent supportive housing, job training and placement, emergency shelter, and street outreach to more than 1,600 homeless men and women each day. Founded in 1969, Pine Street is the largest resource for homeless men and women in New England.
Baycove Human Services: Human service agency in Boston serving individuals facing the challenges of developmental disabilities, addiction, mental illness, and/or aging.
Boston Housing Authority: Provides affordable housing to more than 58,000 residents in and around the City of Boston. Residents are assisted through a combination of public housing and federal and state voucher subsidy programs that provide a wide variety of housing opportunities. As the largest public housing authority in New England, the BHA houses close to 9 percent of the city's residents.
Boston Public Health Commission: An independent public agency comprised of a variety of preventive health services.
Horizons for Homeless Children: Today, we provide high-quality early education, opportunities for play, and family support services to more than 2,000 homeless children each week in Massachusetts.
Rosie’s Place: Today, Rosie’s Place not only provides meals and shelter but also creates answers for 12,000 women a year through wide-ranging support, housing, and education services.
Y2Y Harvard Square: A student-run overnight shelter for young adults experiencing homelessness. Y2Y guests will have opportunities to collaborate with service providers, other young adults experiencing homelessness, and student volunteers to create sustainable pathways out of homelessness and develop skills for long-term success. [Y2Y employs a 30-day model.]
Friend's of Boston's Homeless: Friends supports a number of vital programs in the City of Boston that help end homelessness including Housing First, vocational training and workforce development, adult education, employment services, and transitional and permanent affordable housing, and the emergency shelters, Woods Mullen and 112 Southampton (formerly Long Island Shelter) run by Boston Public Health Commission.
Greater Boston Food Bank: The largest hunger-relief organization in New England and among the largest food banks in the country. Last year, we distributed more than 54 million pounds of food, enough to provide healthy meals to over 500,000 people.
Big Brothers Big Sisters: BBBSF collects used clothing & household items, converts them into cash and gives 100% of the profits to mentoring programs supporting more than 16,000 "Littles" & "Bigs" across Eastern MA & Southern NH.