Assignment Editor is intended for journalists, and does require registration. But it is one of the best collection of media resources I've seen. Plus cool tips and tricks for things like how to report on a train crash.

Although not necesarily the best way to find out what book you want in the first place, isbn.nu is the best way to compare prices for books.You can view the results with or without the shipping costs of a single book, and also sort by the time the bookstore estimates it will take to acquire the title and get it out their door.

Of course we all know and love Google and it's toolbar. (iLOR does not impress me, by the way) When I want to be thorough, however, I also check out Ixquick. This metasearch engine pretty much searches all of the major search engines except for Google, returns good results and has very minimal paid listings.

I've recently become obsessed with Nova's Secrets of Lost Empires. Essentially, Nova is trying to build and move some of the amazingly large and heavy things that ancient cultures managed to do without cranes, complicated engineering techniques or chainsaws. There's a midieval throwing contraption, and Egyption oblisk, the giant heads on Easter Island, a Roman bath and a Chinese bridge. The interesting part about the shows is the bickering and cheating. Assorted archeologists, timber framers, riggers, historians, and engineers bicker about how the ancients did it, who's theory is right and who's fault it is that the contraptions aren't working. There is also entensive use of cranes, complicated engineering techniques and chainsaws. In each location, they also manage to exploit locals into doing the actual pulling of tons of stone. Interesting, there is little bickering among the laborers. The official nova sites don't highlight the reality tv aspects of the show, go watch it yourself.

The Library of Congress realy does an amazing job of getting primary resources up on their web. Their American Memory Project is a collection of collections. While you can search and browse across all collections. Each collection is a complete resource in it's own right. Recent additions include: The Irving Fine Collection: Ca. 1900-1990, Emergence of Advertising in America 1850-1920 and Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian Photographic Images . When you hear about some new, awesome, complete collection of primary sources that has just gone online, chances are it's part of the American Memory Collection. Also check out the digital companions to their physical exhibits, most amazingly their collection of pre WWI color photography from russia. Yes pre-WWI COLOR photography.

"The American Dime Museum (ADM) is the world's only exhibition, research, and performance space dedicated exclusively to variety and novelty entertainment, perhaps the oldest form of entertainment and one identified as the country's most treasured forms of Americana." These people take themselves too seriously. Marsh's Free Museum, home of Jake the Alligator Man is the real deal.