A.  Internet (in general)

Evaluation criteria for Internet resources (UM)
http://www.lib.umich.edu/acadintegrity/students/web/intelligent/evaluation.htm
Addresses the standard "five criteria":  accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency and coverage.

Selection and use of search engines (Internet Public Library)
http://www.lib.umich.edu/acadintegrity/students/web/intelligent/evaluation.htm

Google
http://www.google.com/
Google is often the first choice, due to its size, speed, and ability to estimate the relevance of websites to the question being asked.

B. General resources

Michigan eLibrary (MEL)
http://mel.lib.mi.us/
Available in schools and libraries, and to all Michigan citizens, this includes a wide variety of online databases, newspapers and magazines (e.g. General Reference Center Gold, or Infotrac Kid's Edition), reference sources, and selected free websites ("Best of the Internet").
http://www.mel.org/melindex.html

Internet Public Library (IPL)
http://www.ipl.org/
"The IPL's own collections of over 40,000 Internet resources, hand picked, organized and described by librarians and library students."

The "Reference Center"
http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/ref00.00.00
Provides links to useful sources on geography, biography and more.

IPL Subject Collection:  Europe
http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/rci30.00.00/

The IPL "Kidspace"
http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/
Provides links to a variety of useful material, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs (e.g. Information Please Almanac), maps, historical and biographical material.

Librarians' Index to the Internet
http://www.lii.org/
From the Library of California, the site's motto is "Information You Can Trust." A directory of "Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians for their usefulness to users of public libraries."

C. European Studies and the European Union

Government Documents Center, UM University Library
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/
Carefully selected links organized by level of government; see "foreign" for individual countries, "international" for the UN, EU, World Bank, etc.)

European Union in the US
http://www.eurunion.org/
Provides a wide variety of information, including "The EU for Young People" (multimedia learning resources, and links to relevant websites of EU member states).  See "EU Basics" for the "EU Guide for Americans".

Europa: The European Union On-line
http://europa.eu.int/index-en.htm
The official site of the EU; see esp. "The EU at a Glance", and "Institutions".

Center for West European Studies (U. Pittsburgh)
http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/cwes/
Sponsors a number of useful resources, including:

WWW Virtual Library: West European Studies (U. Pittsburgh)
http://www.library.pitt.edu/subject_guides/westeuropean/wwwes/

Center for European Studies (UM)
http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/ces/

European Union Center (UM)
http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/euc/

WESSWeb
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/wess/
General and country specific resources selected by librarians; helpful for finding newspapers and other materials.

D. Primary sources

Eurodocs:  Primary Historical Documents From Western Europe: Selected Transcriptions, Facsimiles and Translations
http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/

Internet Modern History Sourcebook
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook.html
A searchable collection of links, also organized by topic (e.g. "Postwar Western Europe")

Magna Carta (British Library)
http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/magna.html
Images, with translation.

The US Bill of Rights (1791)
http://memory.loc.gov/const/bor.html
The Library of Congress provides many other outstanding online resources, esp. in the "American Memory" collection.  The National Archives also provides images of the document: http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charters_of_freedom/bill_of_rights/bill_of_rights.html

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (France, 1789)
http://www.hrcr.org/docs/frenchdec.html

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

E. Maps, data and additional resources

Maps: may be physical, political, historical, social, economic or cultural. The best general online collections include:

Geography.com
http://geography.about.com/

University of Texas Map Collection
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/index.html

Odden's Bookmarks
http://oddens.geog.uu.nl/index.html

Animated map of EU expansion (from EUROCIS Atlas of Europe)
http://www.geog.fu-berlin.de/eurocis/eu/eu-beitritte7.html

World Factbook (CIA)
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
A good source for brief, basic information on the geography, population, government, and economy of particular countries.  Includes a reference map of Europe (and other regions of the world) suitable for downloading (JPG or PDF):  http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/refmaps.html

Inside Europe (BBC)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/europe/2001/inside_europe/

PBS
http://www.pbs.org/

History Channel International
http://www.historyinternational.com/

Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/
Includes an extensive multimedia learning center.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/
See esp. the "Learning Center" (good text, many photos, an animated map, and more)

F. Print resources

Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations (Timothy L. Gall and Susan Bevan Gall, eds.).
UXL (Gale), 1999 (2^nd ed.).
9 vols. of country-based articles, including geography, environment, population, history, government, economy, health, culture, transportation, social indicators, famous people and more; some maps, charts, tables and further reading.

Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life (Timothy L. Gall, ed.).
Gale, 1998.
4 vols. ; some overlap with the Nations series.

Historic World Leaders (Anne Commire, ed.).
Gale Research, 1994.
5 vols. by region – vols. 2-3 are Europe.

Women in World History:  A Biographical Encyclopedia (Anne Commire, ed.).
Yorkin Publications (Gale), 1999.
17 vols. of signed articles, with suggested readings.  Indexes include occupation/experience (e.g. "film director") and country (then name/dates).

Statistical Abstract of the World (Annmarie Muth, ed.)
Gale Research, 1997 (3^rd ed.).

International Historical Statistics:  Europe, 1750-1993 (Brian R. Mitchell)
Macmillan Reference, 1998 (4^th ed.)

Western Europe.
Europa, 2001 (4^th ed.)
One of the very fine Europa "Regional surveys of the world", which provide brief overviews and a wide range of detailed information about individual countries.

The Economist Atlas of the New Europe.
Holt, 1992.
An outstanding thematic atlas, covering a wide variety of topics.

Bryan Skib
European Studies Librarian
University of Michigan
bskib@umich.edu
10/24/02