INFOPLEASE®ALL THE KNOWLEDGE YOU NEED.

A Ready Reference Instructional Guide

WHAT IS INFOPLEASE.COM? WHERE CAN I FIND IT?

Infoplease.com is the world’s largest free reference website, and an excellent one-stop shop for information.

It combines an encyclopedia, a dictionary, atlases, and several up-to-the-minute almanacs into one comprehensive, fully searchable website!

And it’s available on any Internet-connected computer or device.

Simply, type www.infoplease.com into your browser and, viola!, you’re there!

WHY USE INFOPLEASE.COM?

Infoplease.com is dedicated to providing:

Reliable and engaging information

Easy accessibility

Straightforward searching

The site has over 5 million visitors per month!

WHO SHOULD USE INFOPLEASE.COM?

Everyone!

Infoplease.com is especially popular with teachers, students, and parents, but anyone can, and should, use it.

It’s a great place to search for a variety of authoritative, but fun, facts.

Fully accessible, with little jargon.

INFOPLEASE.COM: A HISTORY Infoplease.com began as the Information

Please! weekly radio quiz show, which ran from 1938–1952 on NBC.

Due to the show’s popularity, the creators began publishing an annual Information Please Almanac in 1947, which they still publish today.

In 1997, Information Please partnered with TIME to publish their almanac as The TIME Almanac with Information Please.

Infoplease.com launched in 1998, and users have flocked to it ever since.

AWARDS

Best of the Net 2001, Wall Street Executive Library

Family PC Recommended Site, April 2001, Family PC Magazine

100 Best Sites, September 2000, Entrepreneur Magazine

10 Best Geographical Resources of 1999, About.com

WHAT CAN YOU FIND?World—Countries, news, world rulers, statistics, etc.

U.S.—States, cities, history, military, gender issues, etc.

Homework Help—Geography, math, mythology, science, etc.

People—Academia & culture, arts & entertainment, newsmakers, etc.

History & Gov’t—U.S. elections, U.S. Supreme Court, timelines, etc.

Science & Health—Aviation, inventions, weather, etc.

Calendar & Holidays—Seasons, holidays, holiday features, etc.

Business—Consumer resources, employment & labor statistics, etc.

The Fifty States—Profiles for each state with maps.

WHERE DOES ALL THIS INFORMATION COME FROM?

The TIME Almanac with Information Please

The TIME for Kids Almanac with Information Please

The Information Please Business Almanac and Desk Reference

The Information Please Environmental Almanac

The ESPN Sports Almanac with Information Please

The Information Please Baseball Almanac

The Information Please Women’s Almanac and Sourcebook

The Arts and Entertainment Almanac with Information Please

The Information Please Kids’ Almanac

The Information Please Almanac for Girls

Random House Webster’s College Dictionary and Thesaurus

Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition

TOOLS

Calculator Conversion Tool

Spelling Checker Perpetual Calendar

Place Finder Year by Year

Distance Calculator Fact Monster (for kids 9–13)

Periodic Table

Infoplease.com also includes these handy tools:

POPULAR AREAS

Year-by-Year Encyclopedia

Dictionary 50 States

Thesaurus Country Profiles

Atlas Homework Center

The most popular areas on Infoplease.com are:

OTHER FEATURES

Each day Infoplease.com’s homepage features:

A main topic of general interest for the day

Most popular searches and terms

A biography of the day

Poll question

Just for fun games, quizzes, and crosswords

SEARCHING

You can search infoplease.com in several easy ways:

Keyword search

Browse by source

Browse by category

KEYWORD SEARCHING

First, let’s search by keyword…

KEYWORD SEARCHING

Enter your search term in the search box, in this case, we’re looking for information about “halloween.”

Press “Enter” on your keyboard or click on the “search” button.

The search engine will automatically search the almanacs, atlases, encyclopedia, dictionary, and thesaurus simultaneously.

Search box

KEYWORD SEARCHING

Results are displayed 15 at time, with the most relevant listed first.

Everything related to “halloween” is displayed (120 total hits), including games, costume ideas, history, movie references, etc.

You can refine your search by limiting the search to one source. Let’s limit ours to the encyclopedia only.

Click on “encyclopedia” on the “Refine your search” bar.

Refine your

search

Additional searches

Number of hits

KEYWORD SEARCHING

We now have only six hits, a much more manageable number.

From this page, you can also conduct

the same general search on Google, search for parenting materials on Family Education, or find lesson plans and teaching resources at teachervision.com.

Additional searches

Number of hits

BROWSING BY SOURCE

Now, let’s browse by source…

Click on the appropriate icon at the top of the page or select your source from the Infoplease Sources box.

Let’s select “Dictionary” for our example.

BROWSING BY SOURCE

Sources

BROWSING BY SOURCE We want to know the definition of “halloween.”

From the dictionary page, type “halloween” into the keyword search box.

Here is our result:

“halloween”

BROWSING BY CATEGORY

Lastly, let’s browse by category…

To browse by category, click on the appropriate tab on the top navigation bar.

For our example, let’s choose “World” and “Structures & Buildings.”

With your mouse, scroll over to “World” and drag the cursor down until “Structures & Buildings” is highlighted and click.

BROWSING BY CATEGORYNavigation

Bar

From here, we can click on “The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,” and get a list of them with a brief history of each one.

Or, we can click on “Skyscrapers History” to learn about the development of skyscrapers.

Or, we can click on “World’s Tallest Buildings,” where we will find a list of the tallest buildings in the world ranked by height with the year of completion.

BROWSING BY CATEGORY

CONCLUSIONWhether you want to find general information about a holiday, or a word

definition, or specific information about a building or structure, Infoplease.com can help you find it.

You may also discover serendipitous knowledge you didn’t even know you needed!

Infoplease.com is a great resource for all manner of questions and curiosities. It’s reliable, it’s informative, and it’s fun!

Give it a try!

CITATION

Infoplease. Boston, MA: Pearson Education. http://www.infoplease.com/.

HELP!

If you have any questions about this resource, or if we can be of any other help to you, please either click the ASK A LIBRARIAN icon on our webpage or give us a call at 312-444-1111.

We look forward to assisting you in the future!

Kristin A. SumnerOctober 27, 2014