What are computer encyclopedias and reference books? Education

Only a few decades separate us from the time when electronic computers occupied entire halls, and the people who worked on them were considered almost geniuses. How could you not get confused in hundreds of thousands of wires and terminals?! Then none of us could have imagined that some twenty years would pass and computers would become personal, that they would appear in our home and, moreover, would become an integral part of our lives. The number of computer users is growing day by day. Of course, none of them claims to be a software engineer, but everyone in whose house a personal computer “lives” certainly does not consider himself an amateur in relation to his electronic friend.

Yes, indeed, for many people a computer is a reliable friend. With its help, people quickly explore the world around them, gain knowledge, and reach new heights. For some, a computer has become simply necessary as a working tool. Life has brought us to this simple conclusion: if we want to realize ourselves to the fullest, we must be computer literate. Lack of computer user skills is often perceived as a disadvantage. Although voices are increasingly heard comparing a computer to a Trojan horse. They argue that people are simply unable to appreciate the danger that computerization poses, that they cannot take into account the incredible speed of technological improvement in machines. For example, in Japan there is already a computer that can perform 300 billion operations per second, and very soon a machine with a speed of 1 trillion per second will appear. Many people still believe that a computer is a dangerous invention that, with its artificial intelligence, can influence human consciousness. But even they cannot deny the simple truth: the computer has firmly entered our lives, and the future of humanity lies with it.

The current situation requires us to be certain in our attitude towards technology, intelligence and creativity. Remember Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics? “Think about how to maintain the goodwill of your creation and not lose the status of its creator.” Of course, such thoughts never occur to many of us. We would like to gain basic knowledge about working with a personal computer, so that we are not overcome by an inexplicable fear of this smart machine. But believe me, in order to become an ordinary, ordinary, and then an experienced user of a personal computer, no brilliant intellectual abilities are required.

On the pages of this book, all the necessary knowledge for novice users is presented in a simple and accessible form. We promise: from the very first page your awe of the PC will begin to dissipate, and by the fifth or sixth it will completely disappear. You will see that there is nothing difficult in communicating with a computer, that even a preschool child can easily master it. The book describes the successive stages of getting to know a computer, starting with its design and practical tips when buying it. With the help of the book, you will learn how to work with basic programs, text, graphics, photographs, music files, learn how to burn CDs and DVDs, access the Internet, and besides this, you will receive a lot of useful tips and necessary information. You will soon be surprised to realize that you have become a confident user of your personal computer. Good luck, dear reader!

Maybe you think you have enough understanding of a machine called a computer. But don't rush to skip the first chapter, especially if you are a novice computer user. We can bet that much of the information you will glean from this chapter will turn out to be completely useful and even useful for you.

Let's start with the etymology of the word "computer". It comes from the English “compute”, which means “calculation”. But the functions of a computer are not limited to electronic calculations, like a calculator.

The capabilities of an electronic machine are hundreds of times wider and, with the rapid development of new technologies, they are growing every day. A computer can perform operations not only with numbers, but also with any information - text, sound or graphic image. Of course, all this is first converted into digital form. The computer, in addition, can formulate commands and use them to control various external devices - a monitor, a printer, speakers, etc.

You think you know what a computer looks like, but the device you purchased and installed on your desk is far from the only member of the computer family. In fact, there are already a great many such smart machines. And what’s interesting is that most of them in appearance are not at all similar to the personal computer we are used to. It is impossible to name any branch of industry or sphere of human activity where a computer is not used in one form or another. It is with its help that airplanes, cars, submarines, and spaceships are controlled in the modern world. Only such computers are called special.

In everyday life, of course, they use completely different computers, which are usually called personal computers - PCs, and the English abbreviation for such machines is PC. There are handheld or pocket computers - PocketPC, PalmTop, portable - laptops. And in this book we will talk about desktop personal computers (Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. Types of modern personal computers: a – pocket computer; b – laptop; c – desktop personal computer

You've probably heard of IBM-compatible desktop personal computers. IBM is the name of a well-known company producing personal computer equipment. In the recent past, IBM products were the most popular and widespread in the computer market. Currently, computers from this company have practically disappeared from sale, but the concept of IBM compatibility still sounds relevant. At the dawn of the computer era, most manufacturing companies kept all the components of their machines in the strictest confidence. This was called the principle of closed architecture. And IBM, unlike others, provided information about components to everyone and, moreover, called on competitors to also use the principle of open architecture and produce similar computers with similar components. IBM took a leading position in the computer equipment market and for a long time enjoyed the unlimited trust of consumers. Gradually, specialists from other manufacturing companies appreciated the advantage of IBM-compatible models, mastered their production and began to develop their own versions of components, which often turned out to be of better quality than the products of the company that gave birth to modern PCs. Thus, IBM products were very quickly forced out of the market by competitors. Only the name of the company continues to live, since computers from modern well-known companies are still called IBM-compatible.

All desktop and laptop PCs that exist today are IBM compatible. The exception is Apple computers, but in our country they are used only in printing, and even then extremely rarely. Initially, handheld computers were not IBM-compatible, but recently modifications have been developed that allow the installation of a reduced version of Windows.

In the classical sense, an encyclopedia is always a solid paper reference publication containing, in an abbreviated version, accumulated information in a highly specialized field or in all areas of knowledge at once. However, today there is not the slightest sense in going to the library to look through an encyclopedia or an encyclopedic dictionary, because many virtual analogues of encyclopedic publications have appeared on the Internet. We will talk about the most famous among them.

Encyclopedic dictionaries

Access to most encyclopedic dictionaries is provided by a specialized project from Yandex - Yandex.Encyclopedia (http://encycl.yandex.ru/). Here, visitors can enjoy both general (Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Small Encyclopedic Dictionary by Brockhaus and Efron, Explanatory Dictionary by Dahl, Dictionary of Russian Synonyms and Similar Expressions by N. Abramov) and specialized online publications (Encyclopedic Dictionary “History of the Fatherland from Ancient Times to the Present Day”, Encyclopedic Dictionary “Political Figures of Russia 1917”, Economic and Financial Dictionaries Glossary.ru, “Accounting, Taxes, Business Law”, “Dictionary of Basic Criminal Procedure Concepts and Terms”, “Dictionary of basic criminal legal concepts and terms”, “Encyclopedic Dictionary “Constitution of the Russian Federation”, “Register of Medicines of Russia”).

Universal encyclopedias

The All-in-one encyclopedic reference book (http://www.sci.aha.ru/ALL/) allows you to easily and quickly obtain numerical and factual information on almost all areas of human activity. In addition to purely scientific information, you can find here a lot of simply interesting facts and comparisons from different fields of knowledge. The dictionary is compiled on the basis of the reference books “Alpha and Omega”, “Nature Management”, as well as the “Chemical Encyclopedia”, “Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary”, “International System of Units SI”, “Mathematical Dictionary” and “Small Atlas of the World”.

Of considerable interest is the universal encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius (http://mega.km.ru/), which contains information on all branches of knowledge, including over 76 thousand articles, 10 thousand drawings, portraits and slides. It is based on the Great Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius 2000, created using the Great Encyclopedic Dictionary and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

Students and schoolchildren should take a look at the Krugosvet encyclopedia (www.krugosvet.ru/), which will not only provide information on a variety of areas of knowledge (countries of the world, history, sports, science and technology, medicine and healthcare, culture and education, humanitarian sciences, geosciences), but will also help test existing knowledge.

Computer encyclopedias

“Encyclopedia of the Personal Computer” by Cyril and Methodius (http://mega.km.ru/pc/) is a good reference guide on a personal computer and the required minimum software. It combines feature articles, interpretation of computer terms, information about useful programs and reference books, as well as information on the history of the development of the personal computer.

The Linux OS and other Unix systems are dedicated to the virtual Linux Encyclopedia ( http://www.linuxcenter.ru/enc/), which is a systematized catalog of links to Russian-language Internet resources on the Linux operating system.

Encyclopedias Internet

On the pages of the "Encyclopedia of Internet Advertising" ( http://book.promo.ru/book/book) you will find materials telling about the basics of online advertising, all the ways of advertising influence on network users, as well as the possibilities of planning and analyzing marketing campaigns. The encyclopedia's materials are of interest both to advertisers and advertising agencies, and to owners of advertising platforms.

More than 50 articles and about 700 illustrations, terminological and bibliographic reference books, over 10 thousand links to the most interesting web resources are contained in the encyclopedia “The Internet is your way out” (http://www.ukr.net/book/). In fact, this is not an encyclopedia, but a detailed guide to working on the Internet, written taking into account the specific interests of the Russian-speaking readership.

Economic encyclopedias

The website “Encyclopedia of Taxes” (http://tax-nalog.km.ru/) is dedicated to various taxes, duties and fees in different countries (from Russia to African states) and in different historical periods. It is worth noting that the developers tried to look at the problem with some degree of humor, and on the pages of the encyclopedia, along with serious information on taxation, there are many simply funny cases - there are famous and not so famous statements about taxes by various historical figures, and historical examples of tax collection up to the most incredible, but nevertheless took place (tax on baths and eyes, on household garbage and on servants, etc.).

The encyclopedia of marketing (http://marketing.spb.ru/) is aimed at entrepreneurs, managers and marketers, as well as marketing research specialists, covering the main issues of marketing activities and giving advice on conducting marketing research and business planning for enterprises.

Anyone interested in both specific and general concepts of economic topics should look into the “Economic Dictionary” of Cyril and Methodius (http://mega.km.ru/business/), dedicated to various concepts of modern microeconomics and macroeconomics.

Historical and local history encyclopedias

"Encyclopedia of the Third Reich" ( http://eru.tubank.msk.su/mif/reich/cp1251/oglavl.htm) contains about 3 thousand articles on the history of the Third Reich and the ideology of fascism, about party and military leaders, military ranks, military operations, genocide of peoples, trials, etc., many articles are accompanied by illustrations. It is worth recognizing that the work was created mainly on English-language sources, and therefore the issues of war in Africa, the Balkans and Western Europe are better covered than in Russia.

A convenient reference guide for historians and numismatists can be the “World Wide Coins-Encyclopedia: 20th century on world coins” (http://wwc.coins.ru/images/), which contains articles about the primary sources of images on coins minted in the 20th century, including personalities, geographical objects and monuments, plants and animals, historical and memorable dates. The encyclopedia combines information from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the Children's Encyclopedia in 12 volumes, the Compton Electronic Encyclopedia, the Cyril and Methodius Encyclopedia, and data from official websites of governments around the world.

The encyclopedia “Peoples and Religions of the World” (http://www.cbook.ru/) is devoted to religious topics, containing review articles on world religions, general concepts, a dictionary of terms, a classification of peoples and religions, a calendar of religious holidays, recordings of ethnic music in the format mp3, etc..

You can also look into the mythological encyclopedia (http://myfhology.narod.ru/), in which, although there is no classical search, but thanks to well-systematized information you can quickly learn about heraldic monsters and spirits, witches and sorcerers, pantheons of gods and heroes of myths and legends, mythological places and mythical peoples.

Folklorists, ethnographers, archaeologists and linguists may find it interesting to visit the encyclopedia “Komi Mythology” ( http://www.ksc.komi.ru/illi/folk/myth/2.htm). And those interested in Japanese history should take a look at the encyclopedia “Japan” (www. japantoday. ru/japanaz/), which contains over a thousand illustrated articles about events and phenomena from the history and culture of Japan. Explanations and links to information on Tibet and the features of the Buddhist religion can be found in the encyclopedia dictionary on Buddhism and Tibet ( http://www.tibet.ru/encyclopedia/). And literally everything about Israel and the Israelis is in the encyclopedia of the Israeli Russian-language portal SOYUZ (http://souz.co.il/israel/).

Travel encyclopedias

The only site on the network that can to some extent lay claim to the title of a travel encyclopedia is located at http://www.travel.vseved.ru/. For tourists, detailed information about a variety of countries, cities and resorts is available here. Moreover, here you can get not only modern information, but also learn unique stories about ancient civilizations with locations and detailed historical maps.

Military encyclopedias

A popular interactive book about weapons can easily be considered the “Encyclopedia of Arms” by Cyril and Methodius ( http://mega.km.ru/weaponry/alphabet.asp), which contains articles on various types of military equipment from daggers and crossbows to modern strategic weapons, as well as biographies of famous military leaders.

Information about tanks and aircraft, firearms and nuclear weapons, rocket and space defense, chemical and biological weapons, mines and much more is freely available in the arms encyclopedia ARMS.ru (http://www.arms.ru/). And the well-known “Encyclopedia of Ships” on the Internet (http://ship.bsu.by/) today covers about 305 classes of ships and 55 types of weapons and covers all the main battles of the First and Second World Wars and modern times.

Automotive encyclopedias

The one-of-a-kind “Automotive Encyclopedia” of Cyril and Methodius (http://mega.km.ru/auto/) contains articles dedicated to leading manufacturing companies, inventors and designers, famous racing drivers and sports teams, famous car models. There are also about 5 thousand articles from the catalog of cars, trucks, motorcycles and more than 2 thousand illustrations, as well as traffic rules.

Encyclopedias of astronautics

Looking at the Encyclopedia of Cosmonautics ( http://www.cosmoworld.ru/spaceencyclopedia/), you can find out information about astronauts, scientists and designers, space programs and spacecraft, cosmodromes and launch vehicles, international space stations and manned flights, as well as access a database of space launches.

Medical encyclopedias

An encyclopedia with a rather loud name “Big Medical Encyclopedia” is available at http://www.farmo.ru/encik/index.shtml. In fact, it cannot be considered a medical encyclopedia in the full sense, because it, alas, does not unite all issues in this area, but despite this, the encyclopedia can be very useful. In it you can get information on many existing diseases, ask a doctor a question (however, the list of consulting doctors is limited only to a general practitioner, venereologist and gynecologist) and look for medications in Moscow pharmacies.

It is worth visiting the “Encyclopedia of Health” by Cyril and Methodius ( http://mega.km.ru/health/alphabet.asp), which contains over 7,000 articles about various diseases and methods of their diagnosis and treatment, including non-traditional ones, about ways to bring a figure to ideal standards and about the rules for providing emergency care. A component and important element of the encyclopedia is the “Pharmacological reference book”, where you can get detailed information describing the composition of the drug, its mechanism of action and methods of use.

A convenient reference book on medications with the possibility of an advanced search both by the name of the drug and the name of the manufacturer or based on indications for use is the “Encyclopedia of Medicines” (http://www.rlsnet.ru/), which will help you quickly navigate regarding a particular drug.

Biological encyclopedias

An excellent visual aid for pet owners is the “Encyclopedia of Pets” by Cyril and Methodius (http://mega.km.ru/Animals/), containing articles on the care, feeding, education and treatment of your pets.

The illustrated “Encyclopedia of the Aquarist” (http://aqualuxe.narod.ru/) will introduce you to the manufacture, design and technical equipment of aquariums, and will tell you about the conditions for keeping and breeding a large number of aquarium fish and plants.

The Encyclopedia of Vegetables ( http://www.caravan.ru/~ogorod/enc_veg.htm), which contains about 50 articles with illustrations about various vegetables from watermelon to tarragon (history, general characteristics, recommendations for cultivation and use).

Plant lovers should also visit the website “Encyclopedia of Ornamental Garden Plants” ( http://home.onego.ru/~otsoppe/enciclop/), which provides a lot of useful information about plants that are used in ornamental gardening.

A fairly complete illustrated encyclopedia of ornamental plants is available at http://www.lujok.ru/encyclop/, where, along with information about ornamental garden and indoor plants, advice from leading florists and specialists in the field of landscape and interior design is given. And you can get acquainted with the encyclopedia of indoor plants on the website of the Moscow Club of Indoor Floriculture ( http://www.lapshin.org/club/plants.htm).

World of Art

The most detailed in the field of cinematography, without a doubt, is the “Encyclopedia of Cinema” by Cyril and Methodius (http://mega.km.ru/cinema/), which contains a lot of information on domestic and foreign films. In addition to articles devoted to actors, directors, and film terms, the encyclopedia includes film reviews, as well as an extensive filmography for many articles about personalities.

A fairly complete encyclopedia of theater and cinema, KinoExpert.ru (http://www.kinoexpert.ru/), thanks to the ability to organize a search both by films and actors, and by genres, companies and years, will help you quickly obtain up-to-date information in the field of cinematography and theatrical art.

Movie lovers should also visit the KinoX.ru website ( http://www.kinox.ru/kinox/index.asp), which is an encyclopedia of cinema and allows you to obtain interesting information about films and actors.

The first “Bulgakov Encyclopedia” also appeared in electronic version (http://www.bulgakov.ru/). And although it cannot be called an encyclopedia in the full sense, it contains the most interesting information about the life and work of Bulgakov and reveals clues to many of the secrets of Bulgakov’s biography.

And the “Encyclopedia of Rock, Jazz and Pop Music” by Cyril and Methodius (http://mega.km.ru/rock/) contains many articles about rock and pop musicians, rock groups, jazz performers and bluesmen, representatives of the songs, famous composers and producers and recording companies, as well as much more from the world of both domestic and foreign music.

Culinary encyclopedias

The most complete in this area is probably the Culinary Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius ( http://mega.km.ru/kitchen/alphabet.asp), which will contain over 2,800 articles with recipes for both the simplest and most exquisite exotic and ancient dishes, as well as the secrets of culinary skills and information about kitchen tools.

The variety of different national dishes (first and second courses, salads and appetizers, pastries and desserts) in the culinary encyclopedia Kuharke (http://www.kuharka.ru/) is amazing. There is literally everything in the field of national cuisines, and their breadth is not limited to traditional European ones, but also includes Asian cuisines (Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Mongolian, etc.), South American and African.

The encyclopedia of spices, herbs and seasonings “Idigo” ( http://www.aidigo.ru/index.php), where a lot of useful and interesting information is freely available about the history, origin and use of world-famous herbs, spices and seasonings, useful tips on how not to make mistakes when buying them, and recommendations on the use of herbs and spices in the treatment of many diseases.

And those interested in the culture of drinking alcoholic beverages should look into the “Brief Alcohol Encyclopedia” at http://www.ocean-plus.ru/common/inf_likbez1.htm.

And finally, for young mothers, literally everything about baby food (recipes, tips, articles, expert advice, product reviews, baby food market news) is in the “Big Encyclopedia of Baby Food NYAM” (http://www.nyam.ru/ ).

Encyclopedias of etiquette

A useful guide for every day for all business people can be the “Encyclopedia of Etiquette” by Cyril and Methodius (http://mega.km.ru/eticet/). She will introduce you to the basic principles of etiquette, from behavior in everyday life to the rules of behavior on computer networks and the Internet, and will help you create your own image.

Thematic resources

Computer reference books and encyclopedias

• Megaencyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius
  http://www.megabook.ru
  Ten encyclopedias (universal, automotive, health, cinema, cooking, music, etc.). Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, English-Russian and Russian-English dictionaries, economic dictionary.
• World of encyclopedias
  http://www.encyclopedia.ru
  The site reveals to you the world of encyclopedias: basic concepts, the history of encyclopedias, their modern development. Most of the materials are devoted to Russian-language encyclopedic publications - encyclopedias, encyclopedic dictionaries, reference books. The site materials try to cover all encyclopedic publications in Russian
• Continuing Education
  http://erudit.narod.ru
  Selected links to the most significant educational Internet resources are presented. The information provided may be useful to high school students, students, engineers and scientists. At your service are electronic libraries, dictionaries and reference books, distance learning resources, abstracts and drawings, as well as many other useful links.
• "Pedagogical encyclopedic dictionary"
  http://dictionary.fio.ru
  A complete electronic version of the dictionary, published in 2002, edited by the scientific publishing house "Big Russian Encyclopedia". The dictionary contains about 3,000 detailed articles that provide the teacher with modern and interesting information in the field of educational theory. The dictionary most fully reflects all changes in the science of domestic education, in particular, business education and distance learning. A significant place in it is occupied by data on methods, technologies and techniques of education. In fact, in addition to background information, the reader can find theory and examples of practical importance for a teacher or researcher.
• Virtual encyclopedic and reference publications
  http://www.openweb.ru/stepanov/library/referen.htm
  Annotated links to encyclopedias, dictionaries, translators (Britannica, Microsoft Encarta, Cyril & Methodius, Prompt, etc.).
• Rubricon
  http://www.rubricon.com
  The server provides access to more than three dozen of the most famous domestic encyclopedias, dictionaries and reference books. Among them are the complete edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1969-1979), personal articles from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1890-1906), Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary, Small Medical Encyclopedia, Encyclopedic Dictionaries "History of the Fatherland" and "World History", "Explanatory Dictionary" living Great Russian language" by Vladimir Dahl and others. All sources are presented in full text with a full list of illustrations and bibliography. Internal links between articles have been converted into hypertext links, which allows you to easily move from article to article, getting acquainted with all aspects of the issues being studied. Rubricon is distinguished by high request processing speed and a comfortable user interface. To date, 14 publications are paid sources, and their number is likely to gradually increase. However, the cost of access to all paid publications is only 1 dollar
• Encyclopedia "Around the World"
  http://www.krugosvet.ru
  It is an expanded and corrected translation into Russian of Collier's Encyclopedia, which was published in the USA from 1952 to 1998. For this reason, the content and style of presenting material in Krugosvet clearly gravitate towards the American original. consist in extending the chronology of articles related to modern times and adding a significant number of personal articles about Russian figures, including those living today. In addition to texts, illustrations are included: portraits, maps, views of cities and historical monuments. Search is possible both by keyword and by branches of knowledge.
  At the end of each article of "Around the World" there is a function "Search on the Internet." In this case, a request that exactly repeats the name of the encyclopedic article is redirected to the Aport search engine.
• Encyclopedia Britannica
  http://www.britannica.com
  Online version of the world's most authoritative encyclopedia. Contains more than 72 thousand articles on all branches of knowledge. Updated annually. The search result includes not only texts from the encyclopedia, but also links to Internet resources, as well as selected journal publications. Articles are provided with hyperlinks to other sections of the encyclopedia. In many cases, illustrations, tables, and video files are presented. Britannica is currently a completely paid resource. If you need to use its resources, you can sign up for a free “trial access” lasting 72 hours.
• Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia
  http://encarta.msn.com/reference
  A free version of the well-known universal encyclopedia, published annually by Microsoft on CD-ROM. Contains more than 18 thousand articles and 2 thousand illustrations (photos, maps). You can search using keywords to clarify your area of ​​knowledge. The texts of the articles include hypertext links to other sections of the encyclopedia. Some articles and illustrations are available only to subscribers.
• CIA Fact Book
  http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook
  Contains detailed factual and statistical information about all countries of the world and major international organizations. Information is included on the geographical location, size and composition of the population, political activity and the degree of development of the main sectors of the country's economy. An indispensable source for obtaining reliable statistical data on the economic, military, social and cultural development of any country in the world. The illustrative material is represented by a political map and flag of the country. Information is updated annually.
• English-Russian/Russian-English dictionary on the Rambler server
  http://www.rambler.ru/dict
  It is also based on the New Great English-Russian Dictionary, published in 1993-94, edited by Yu. D. Apresyan and E. M. Mednikova, containing about 250,000 words. The result of the translation is made in a different form - in particular, comments on the use of terms are collapsed and shown to the user only at his request. Due to this, it is easier to navigate the results than the results produced by MultiLex. The same server contains German-Russian and Russian-German dictionaries.
• Online translator of the company "Promt"
  http://www.translate.ru/Rus
  The server contains a whole range of interactive dictionaries that provide mutual translation from/to English, German and French, as well as one-way translation from Italian and Spanish. The most valuable characteristic of Promt dictionaries is their ability to translate entire phrases, complete sentences and even entire documents. The quality of the translation is quite high. A special feature also allows you to translate entire web pages and emails.
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary
  http://www.m-w.com
  Full-featured Webster's dictionary in electronic form. It not only searches for interpretations of terms, but also makes it possible to listen to both the main word and its derivatives.
• Roger's Thesaurus
  http://www.thesaurus.com
  Well-known source in electronic form. In response to the entered English term, it produces a list of words related to it in meaning. A serious resource for professional linguists and translators.
• Biographical database on the Biography server
  http://www.biography.com
  Contains brief information about more than 25 thousand people, from heroes of the Ancient World to modern figures from different countries. The search is possible both by entering a surname in the search line, and by sequentially viewing the alphabetical list. A standard curriculum vitae contains dates of life and a brief history of the individual.
• Aviation from A to Z
  http://www.cofe.ru/Avia
  A very informative encyclopedia of world aviation in Russian, including brief characteristics of aircraft and their photographs. The search is carried out by the name of a specific aircraft or helicopter, types of aircraft, and also by entering keywords.

Internet encyclopedia Internet encyclopedia or Encyclopedic Internet project encyclopedia operating in a web environment. They can be divided into two groups. The first group includes encyclopedias written by a special team of authors (in fact, an analogue of a paper encyclopedia, only transferred to a web server). Examples include the Around the World encyclopedia or the electronic version of the Orthodox Encyclopedia. The second group includes encyclopedias, which are created by its readers in accordance with the rules of each project. They are characterized by a high speed of development, great freedom of access to editing the contained materials, forums introduced into the project for communication between participants, etc.

The rapid development of Internet encyclopedias of the second type was largely made possible thanks to the advent of wiki technology. This technology was able to introduce methods that were well suited for creating encyclopedic projects, and also provided tools that were not a barrier, but facilitated the rapid development of encyclopedic projects. Currently, most Internet encyclopedias, both “general” and narrowly focused, describing specific areas, are built on wiki technology.

Working on the creation of an encyclopedia on the Internet makes it possible to unite people who are no longer connected with each other in their work. These people, as a rule, are specialists or amateurs in some field of knowledge. It often turns out that there are specialists in some areas in the project, but not in others, and therefore even in large encyclopedias, such as the English section of Wikipedia, some topics are worked out quite deeply, and some are very poorly worked out, or not at all.

An important difference between Internet encyclopedias and classic “paper” encyclopedias is that they develop continuously, and, as a rule, there is no specific final goal after which work on the encyclopedia can be stopped. There are also no “fixed”, “stable” versions of the encyclopedia; readers see articles in the form in which they are located at the moment.

Modern encyclopedic Internet projects: Tradition Tradition Work is carried out measuredly. A developing Internet project with a great future. Some members of the “Tradition”, believing that this encyclopedia claims to be a global alternative to Russian Wikipedia, argue that because of this, Wikipedia participants have repeatedly used and continue to apply pressure on some participants of the “Tradition” (in their opinion, including through third-party wiki projects, LJ communities, etc.) in order to reduce their work in the project to nothing.

Russian-language section of Wikipedia An encyclopedia project that positions itself as a deliberately secondary source of knowledge (and even a “tertiary” source, since according to the rules, Wikipedia relies primarily on secondary sources). When writing articles, a mandatory requirement is to link to authoritative sources that are beyond the personal knowledge of the participants. In practice, no more than half of articles cite authoritative sources, and, according to some estimates, about a third of articles have no links at all.

Kashchepuziya Kashchepuziya (from kaschenizm and puzia - i.e. pedia) is a special Wikipedia in the jargon of Kaschenites (the self-name of kashchepuziya). Currently there are more than 200 articles, mostly humorous. The project interface has been partially translated into the “language” of the Kaschenites.

Experimental Scientific Encyclopedia As of November 18, 2007, includes articles and images. The founders of the project initially assumed that gentlemen scientists would write articles here about their research. However, practice has shown that it is difficult to do this without the involvement of administrative resources. Therefore, at present, the bulk of articles are from “Brockhaus and Efron” (940 articles in the category) and the Small Soviet Encyclopedia of 1931 (884 articles). In addition, there is a regional section called “Electronic folk encyclopedia of the Shatura region” (170 articles).

Absurdopedia Ru Absurdopedia The work is being carried out quite calmly, over 120 articles have been written in 2.5 months. Absurdopedia is not, in the full sense of the word, an encyclopedia containing accurate data, rather the opposite. Absurdity and humor are the main components of the articles in this “encyclopedia”.

Lurkomorye Russian-language encyclopedia of network subcultures. Serves as a reference book on the concepts and terminology of Russian online life in all its manifestations. Number of articles (by December 2007) 847. The number of articles is not recorded on the main page of this project.

Russian writer Russian-language literary encyclopedia on the wikia.com project of articles, work is carried out at a measured pace. Contains biography and bibliography of poets, writers, prose writers and translators of literary works from the distant past to the present.

Zoos of the World Encyclopedia World of Zoos is an open international non-profit information and encyclopedic project about the life and activities of zoological gardens and parks, aquariums and terrariums, their inhabitants and caring people, employees of botanical institutions, as well as famous figures from around the world associated with the work of these institutions and contributed significant contribution to zoo business.

Wikipedia The Russian-language part of the free multilingual encyclopedia, which includes over 163 thousand articles. The English version contains more than 1 million 700 thousand articles. Wikipedia allows you to find extensive information on the topic: encyclopedia articles are provided with notes, links to printed sources and Internet resources.

Encyclopedias on the Internet All-in-one. Directory Contains information on all branches of knowledge, providing numerical and factual systematic information.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia asp Contains the full text of the third edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE).

Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary asp Contains articles of a humanitarian and cultural nature from Brockhaus, Dahl's Dictionary and the Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary (IED) of the Great Russian Encyclopedia publishing house.

Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron Contains articles on all branches of knowledge of the early 20th century. Based on the “Encyclopedic Dictionary” of the publishing company “F. A. Brockhaus - I. A. Efron.” Reworked and expanded. and %20Efron/

Encyclopedic Foundation of Russia Contains articles on all branches of knowledge. Collection of encyclopedic and scientific works (section of scientific publications).

Russian information network. Dictionaries

World of Dictionaries A collection of dictionaries and encyclopedias in various fields of knowledge: economic, political, sociological, legal, medical, construction, etc. There are over 30 titles in total.

Universal Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius Collection of encyclopedias. Sections: "Society, economics and politics"; "Countries, continents, oceans"; "Fauna and Plants"; "Story"; “Art and Literature”; “Science”, etc. More than 10 encyclopedias, 130 thousand articles, 30 thousand illustrations. Search topics and keywords.

Yandex. Encyclopedias Encyclopedias and dictionaries are divided into sections: “General”, “Economics and Finance”, “Society”, “Law”, “Internet”, “Natural Sciences”, “Countries and Cities”. In total, users are offered about 20 reference resources - electronic versions of well-known printed publications and online sources.

Encyclopedia "Around the World" The site was created to help schoolchildren and students. Main sections: history, humanities, culture and education, medicine, science and technology, earth sciences, countries of the world, sports. The search is carried out in one or all sections at the same time.

Encyclopedias Mail.ru The site contains the "Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary", "World Biographical Encyclopedic Dictionary", the encyclopedias "World History", "Myths of the Peoples of the World", "Peoples and Religions of the World".

Glossary.ru Service of thematic explanatory dictionaries. The site contains more than 4,000 glossaries on economic, biological, technical and related topics. Simple search system.

Dictionaries and reference books A large collection of dictionaries on various topics: Russian language, computer science, economics, business, construction, marketing, art, political science, architecture, numismatism. Searching is possible in all dictionaries at once.

Dictionaries, reference books, encyclopedias A huge collection of links to online reference resources on the humanities, medicine, programming, etc.

Russian Biographical Dictionary The basis of this dictionary is made up of articles from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of the publishing house Brockhaus and Efron and the New Encyclopedic Dictionary. The dictionary contains almost biographies of figures of Russian history and culture, as well as articles about Russian semi-mythical and folklore characters, materials from the volume "Russia", including reviews of Russian history, Russian political, legal and financial systems, articles on the history of culture and science, etc. etc., written by outstanding scientists of the early twentieth century.

Online reference books and encyclopedias

In some cases, it may be necessary to find not just a document containing a keyword, but the interpretation of a certain word. When you search for an unfamiliar term using a search engine, you risk getting a whole series of articles in which this term is used, and at the same time you will not know what it really means.

In some cases, you can use a search with keywords like “what is (unknown term)”, “(unknown term) is” or “(unknown term) is”, etc.

However, unless it is a new term, it is preferable to start such a search in an online encyclopedia.

Universal

One of the largest online encyclopedias is the Yandex. Encyclopedia resource (

http://encycl.yandex.ru/) - this project contains 14 encyclopedias, including articles from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia and the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia. The largest ones include the Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius, which can be found at www.km.ru.

· Universal encyclopedias:
Brockhaus online, The world around us, Universal Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius, All-in-one: Encyclopedic reference book. Specialized: Great Russian Legal Encyclopedia, Medical and Biological Encyclopedia, Peoples and Religions of the World, Theater Encyclopedia, Economic Dictionary (Cyril and Methodius), Encyclopedia of Religions,

· Regional:
Americana. English-Russian linguistic and cultural dictionary, Bashkortostan: Brief encyclopedia, Odessica - encyclopedia about Odessa, Omsk region: Encyclopedic reference, Pskov encyclopedic dictionary, Traditional culture of the peoples of the European north-east of Russia, Encyclopedia of the Ivanovo region, Japan from A to Z: (Popular encyclopedia)

· Special:
Aviation from A to Z: Encyclopedia of World Aviation, Automotive Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius, Palaces of St. Petersburg, Internet. Your way out, Culinary Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius, Komi Mythology (Ural Mythology. Vol. 1), Extelopedia of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Economic Terms, Encyclopedia of Arms of Cyril and Methodius, Encyclopedia of Pets of Cyril and Methodius, Encyclopedia of Health of Cyril and Methodius, Encyclopedia of Cinema of Cyril and Methodius, Encyclopedia of Moscow University (1755-1917), Encyclopedia of Vegetables, Encyclopedia of the Personal Computer of Cyril and Methodius, Encyclopedia of Rock, Jazz and Pop Music of Cyril and Methodius, Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, Encyclopedia of Fiction (Yu. Vitkovskaya), Encyclopedia fiction (Vl. Gakov), Encyclopedia of miracles, riddles and secrets, Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius etiquette, This day in history, GraphInfo - an encyclopedic dictionary on computer graphics, multimedia and CAD, World Wide Coins-Encyclopedia: 20th century on world coins.

· Personal:
Large Russian Biographical Dictionary, Orenburg Pushkin Encyclopedia, Orenburg Tolstoy Encyclopedia, Orenburg Shevchenko Encyclopedia

· Universal encyclopedias: Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Illustrated Dictionary, Russian Encyclopedia. Dictionary, Brockhaus and Efron “Rubricon”

· Dictionaries: New Dictionary of the Russian Language, Dahl Explanatory Dictionary, American English, Medicine and Health, Minor Medical, First Medical Aid, Dictionary of Medical Terms

· History: “World History”, “History of the Fatherland”, America - Russia, Encyclopedia of Ships

· Biographies: Biographical Dictionary, Political figures. 1917

· Russia: “Constitution of the Russian Federation”, “Moscow”, “St. Petersburg”, “Cities of Russia” “Geography of Russia”

· Countries, peoples, religions: “Peoples and Religions of the World”, Biblical Encyclopedia “Latin America”, “Americana”, “Australia and New Zealand”, “Great Britain”

· Art: Popular fiction, “Great Masters”, Rock Encyclopedia “Cinema”

· Economics: Information technology, Mutual investment funds, Largest banks, “Enterprise economics”, “Finance and debts”

· Statistics: Countries of the World 2000, Countries and Regions 2000, OECD Countries 2000

· Agriculture: Agriculture, Veterinary Medicine, Miscellaneous, “Animals in the House”

· OUTLOOK

· CALENDAR

· WORLD FLAGS

Brockhaus on-line
The basis of the encyclopedia was the “Small Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron” St. Petersburg 1907. The dictionary also uses pre-revolutionary dictionaries of foreign words by Pavlenkov, Mikhelson, and “Starchevsky’s Dictionary”. Contains more than 46,000 articles.

Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Cyril and Methodius
Multiportal: Knowledge about everything. One of the sections of the site is a megaencyclopedia. Contains 130,000 articles, 30,000 illustrations, more than 1,400 tables and much more. You can also search by industry sections of the encyclopedia.

Information Please
The Information Please project provides the ability to select reference resources by topic.

Britannica Online
Encyclopedia Britannica. A 30-day free trial is provided. Without registration, it is possible to conduct a search, the result is several sentences from the beginning of the article with the searched word.

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia
A free version of the well-known universal encyclopedia, published annually by Microsoft on CD-ROM. Contains more than 16 thousand articles and 2 thousand illustrations (photos, maps). You can search using keywords to clarify your area of ​​knowledge. The texts of the articles include hypertext links to other sections of the encyclopedia.

Encyclopedia.com
Presented by Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., contains 14 thousand articles

Online dictionaries and encyclopedias
Modern Encyclopedia, Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary, Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary, Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary, Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia, Muller's English-Russian Dictionary, Large Encyclopedic Dictionary, Financial Dictionary, Economic Dictionary, English-Russian Dictionary of Financial Terms, Dictionary of Depository Terms, Historical Dictionary, 1000 biographies, Encyclopedist.

Edic - Encyclopedic dictionaries

· Dictionaries: Big Encyclopedic, Historical, Myths of the Peoples of the World

· Encyclopedias on Mnogo.ru: Musical Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of Animals, Encyclopedia of Plants, Encyclopedia of Fashion, Culinary Encyclopedia, Catalog of Coins of the 20th Century, Encyclopedia “People on Coins”, Numismatic Dictionary, Dictionary of Education on Economics

Universal explanatory dictionaries. Dictionaries of abbreviations

Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary of the Russian language

Russian dictionaries
The website presents a joint project of the Russian Language Institute. V.V. Vinogradov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the publishing house "Azbukovnik".

· Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language by S. I. Ozhegov and N. Yu. Shvedova

· Russian spelling dictionary

· Popular dictionary of foreign words

· Dictionary of foreign words

· Russian semantic dictionary

· Dictionary of Pushkin's language

· Dictionary of Russian synonyms and similar expressions

· Dictionary of Russian argot

· Dictionary of Russian personal names

Oxford Reference Online
Access to more than 100 different dictionaries across a full range of disciplines.

WWW Webster Dictionary
Full-featured Webster's dictionary in electronic form.

Roger's Thesaurus
Well-known source in electronic form. In response to the entered English term, it produces a list of words related to it in meaning.

Dictionaries for translation

Internet translators of the PROMT company
English-Russian and Russian-English online translator
German-Russian and French-Russian online translator
Russian-German and Russian-French online translator
The English version of the site contains an English-French, German-French, French-English and French-German online translator
.

English-Russian Dictionary MultiLex™

English-Russian/Russian-English dictionary
Electronic translator. In response to the entered term, it returns not only its translation in another language, but also the most common expressions using this word.

French-English Dictionary
ARTFL Project - English-French and French-English dictionary.

OneLook Dictionaries
Its database has indexed more than 2,800,000 words from 585 different dictionaries operating on the network. The answer to the request is presented in the form of a list of links to dictionaries (both explanatory and multilingual), which contain the searched word.

Biographical reference books

Russian who's who

Biography Find
Biographical database on the Biography company server. Contains brief information about more than 20 thousand people, from heroes of the Ancient world to modern figures from different countries.

Biographical Dictionary
It contains information about more than 25 thousand inhabitants of the Earth who left their mark in various areas of life, from the Ancient World to the present. You can search by name, keywords and dates. There is an in-depth request form.

International Biographical Center (IBC)

Who's Who Online

WIC - Biography Index
Biographies of women

Search for reference books, dictionaries, encyclopedias

List.ru: Information
AU!: Help Desk
Sections of the Russian Internet catalog @Rus (AU!):
Dictionaries
Directories

Yahoo!: Reference
Yahoo Internet resource catalog sections:
Dictionaries Encyclopedia

The world of encyclopedias. Encyclopedias on the Internet

Dictionary.com
Search for dictionaries by thematic sections.

Encyclopedias, dictionaries
Collection of links on the server "Electronic and traditional dictionaries" (ETS)

www.study.ru
The site presents more than 100 dictionaries of various fields.

Dictionaries
A collection of links to various dictionaries (for translation, thematic, explanatory).

Encyclopedias, dictionaries, reference books

 Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia Britannica. You can search through encyclopedia articles.
URL: http://www.britannica.com/

 Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Electronic version of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Convenient search by alphabet and words.
URL: http://www.oval.ru/encycl.shtml

 Large encyclopedic dictionary
About 90,000 articles from all spheres of life and society. Search only by the title of a dictionary entry.
URL: http://www.sci.aha.ru/ALL/VOC/index.htm

 Wikipedia
A free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. At the moment, Wikipedia contains over 187,000 articles in Russian.
URL: http://ru.wikipedia.org

 Glossary
Service of thematic explanatory dictionaries.
URL: http://www.glossary.ru/

 World of encyclopedias
Search in Russian-language encyclopedic and pseudo-encyclopedic publications (encyclopedias, encyclopedic dictionaries, encyclopedic reference books). Thematic search is possible.
URL: http://www.encyclopedia.ru/encyclopedias.html

 Rubricon
The largest encyclopedic resource on the Internet. Encyclopedias, encyclopedic dictionaries and reference books: Great Soviet, illustrated dictionary, Brockhaus and Efron, Dahl's dictionary, dictionaries "History of the Fatherland" and "World History", Small Medical Encyclopedia, World Encyclopedia of Classical Art, etc. Search is provided. Access to full electronic versions of the most important encyclopedias and dictionaries published over the last hundred years in Russia.
URL: http://www.rubricon.com

 Russian biographical dictionary
The Internet version of the Russian biographical dictionary is prepared on the basis of the CD-ROM “Brockhaus and Efron. Encyclopedic Dictionary. Biographies. Russia". It is based on a selection of articles from the 86-volume Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1890-1907) and the New Encyclopedic Dictionary (1911-1916), unfinished by the publishers. All articles are adapted to the modern Russian language. Alphabetical search. Free access.
URL: http://www.rulex.ru/

 Dictionaries and encyclopedias On-line
A large resource of a wide variety of dictionaries and encyclopedias (Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary, BES, Financial, Economic, Historical, Geological Dictionary, Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia, 1000 biographies, Ozhegov and Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary). Allows you to search by word in the title and content of a dictionary entry.
URL: http://dic.academic.ru/

 Dictionaries on the server of the Russian Information Network
Large Encyclopedic Dictionary, medical, linguistic and other dictionaries. Several dictionaries of terms by industry, bilingual dictionaries.
URL: http://dictionaries.rin.ru/

 ABBYY Lingvo electronic dictionaries
The Lingvo electronic dictionary was created by specialists from the Russian company ABBYY, one of the world's leading software developers in the field of applied linguistics. Offers multilingual electronic dictionaries: English-Russian, Russian-English, German-Russian, Russian-German, French-Russian, Russian-French, Italian-Russian, Russian-Italian, etc.
URL: http://www.lingvo.ru/

 Encyclopedias and reference books on the RNL server
Provides links and annotations to encyclopedias and reference books of universal content, translation dictionaries, abbreviations dictionaries, biographical reference books, search reference books, dictionaries, encyclopedias. Information about all directories of the Russian Internet.
URL: http://www.nlr.ru/res/inv/ic_www/cat_show.php?rid=69

 Encyclopedias and reference books on the Yandex server
Encyclopedias of universal content, in particular the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, encyclopedias on economics, law, history, and medicine.
URL: http://slovari.yandex.ru/

 Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius
The collection of 10 online encyclopedias was initially based on the two-volume Great Encyclopedic Dictionary of the 1996 edition, then supplemented by a large number of original articles. Currently contains 130,000 articles and 30,000 illustrations.
URL: http://mega.km.ru/