Life Sciences Communication : Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

This guide provides an introduction to reference sources in the collections of UW-Madison Libraries.

An online database of animal natural history, distribution, classification, and conservation biology at the University of Michigan. Features thousands of species accounts about individual animal species and descriptions of levels of organization above the species level, especially phyla, classes, and in some cases, orders and families.

The Bartleby.com edition of Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body features 1,247 vibrant engravings—many in color—from the classic 1918 publication, as well as a subject index with 13,000 entries ranging from the Antrum of Highmore to the Zonule of Zinn.

Focuses on vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories. The PLANTS Database includes names, checklists, automated tools, identification information, species abstracts, distributional data, crop information, plant symbols, plant growth data, plant materials information, plant links, references, and other plant information.

Provides access to a standard English dictionary. Can also search Merriam-Webster Thesaurus from the same interface.

Collection of terms used to index websites and materials dealing with agriculture, such as the USDA, ARS, and AgNIC. Useful for locating search terms for use on agricultural web sites.

A search engine for words and phrases. More than 5 million words in more than 900 online dictionaries are indexed.

Contains the complete contents of the 20-volume Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and three Additions volumes published from 1993-97. Each of the 616,000 entries contains the etymology, definition, part of speech, date of origination, pronunciation, cross-references, and quotations.

A portal for language and language-related products and services on the web with more than 1,800 dictionaries with more than 250 languages.