Library: Education at Webster University Library: Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

Why use encyclopedias and dictionaries?

You use dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works to:

Credo Reference
Searchable online collection of over 3,470,168 full text articles in 880 encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, biographies, language dictionaries, and other reference titles.
Biography (Gale in Context)
A comprehensive biographical reference database that provides more than 300,000 narrative biographies on noteworthy individuals from around the world, throughout history and across all disciplines and subject areas. Information is drawn from nearly 80 Gale biographical sources such as Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of American Biography, Scribner's Encyclopedia of American Lives, Encyclopedia of World Biography, as well as full-text magazine and newspaper articles.
Oxford English Dictionary
A historical dictionary of English which traces words back to their entry into the language. Each entry describes where the word came from and shows how it has been used in various writings through the years. Continuously updated to include language from the present day.