Encyclopedias are a good place to start in order to get background info, brainstorm, and find topic ideas. When you do a search for an encyclopedia, type in topic AND encyclopedia. We have many encyclopedias and some may be checked out for 6 weeks. Check out the example online Extraordinary Animals Encyclopedia. Note the library catalog below. You can search within this catalog for an encyclopedia.
Online encyclopedias are also available via Credo Reference. See the second link below to explore online encyclopedias.
We have general dictionaries and subject specific dictionaries. For example, we have art dictionaries, science dictionaries, engineering dictionaries, psychology dictionaries, business dictionaries, technology dictionaries and more! You can look for dictionaries in our library catalog below. You can use a keyword search combining the topic AND dictionary. Or you can do a subject search with the topic --Dictionary.
A good English dictionary is The Longman English Dictionary Online.
Visual dictionaries and thesauruses are also available. Try The Visual Dictionary Online and Visual Thesaurus .
There are photo and picture/visual dictionaries available which are helpful for looking at vocabulary categories.
The NTID ASL Video Dictionary is available for free to the RIT/NTID community.