Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
1. Automatic Citation Generators
It has come to my attention that there are college students out there who don’t know about the existence of these marvelous, bibliography generating tools. There is the bare-and-bones Ottobib which automatically spits out citations for books (both in MLA, APA, and a few other formats) when you enter the ISBN number, as well as the fancier BibMe which will also take care of journal articles, magazines, and other media.
2. The Gutenberg Project
This public domain database is every Swattie’s dream! It contains thousands of free works of literature written in over thirty different language. You can read everything from a Manual of Surgery, to Pride and Prejudice, to the Kamasutra (attention aspiring sex-columnists!).
3. Cadaver for Sale
Ever wonder how much your cadaver was worth? Are you wondering now? (Mine is worth $4,333. Cha-ching?).
4. Anywhere.FM
This site is like having your iPod travel with you on the Internet. You can upload your entire music collection to the site, and then access it from any computer you want. Pretty sweet.
5. Naked Alarm Clock
So you know how you promise yourself you’ll only spend 5 minutes on YouTube or Facebook, and then an hour later, you still haven’t printed your Blackboard readings? This web-based alarm clock is the antidote. No actual nudity involved (sorry).
Thanks for the references to automatic citation generators. There are also several websites that enable you to store a personal library of references that can then be exported in bibliographic format. For instance, with Citeulike, you can post journal articles directly to your library (often without entering bibliographic information by hand) and then export that library in BibTeX or RIS format.
I’m fond of ZOTERO for firefox, which not only enables you to save references but actually stores images of pdf files and websites so you can access them offline and can make notes on them using the computer.