I spent many years at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center doing research, and can remember spending long hours looking through the Index Medicus for old articles concerning some arcane research topic.  Thankfully, those days are gone.  Now it is possible to do research on medical topics of all sorts (including all other kinds of research) largely from the familiar surroundings of your personal computer.  This has produced profound implications not only for the research community, but also for science; better research tools leads to better research.  Still, it is sometimes difficult to know exactly where to look on the Web - where to start.  There are so many sites from which to chose, and some sites are - well - better than others.  In an attempt to provide a centralized list of research areas that are important to me, and possibly important to others, I have made a listing.

Top Search Engines - Offline

Copernic 2000 4.5 - This site raises research to new heights by offering impressive organization and collaboration tools.  You can save results to custom folders, e-mail results to others, eliminate broken links by clicking on the Validate button, and sort entries by relevance criteria.  The free version submits your query to dozens of search engines simultaneously.  The Plus and Pro versions work with hundreds of general and specialized engines, and let you perform such advanced options as removing banner ads from results pages and (in the Pro version) running unattended scheduled searches.

GuruNet - This is a tiny utility that lets you find references, definitions, and links to any word displayed on your screen.  Launch any application, and click on any word you wnt to research.  Within seconds, a popup box will show you information that's pertinent to your work.

X-Portal - This source combines 22 localized references (dicionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, and an atlas).  The $60 CD-ROM package needs about 200 MBytes of hard drive space, and integrates into Internet Explorer.  X-Portal queries multiple search engines and its built-in reference works, then sorts results by relevance.  The program weeds out many superfluous and not so relevant links from the list it presents to you at the end of the search.

Top College Sites

    Research on General Topics

        The Encyclopedia Britannica.  If you need to do some reserach on any subject, you will not only receive a free listing of its entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica - arguably the best encyclopedia in the English language, but also be referenced to outside Web sites, clippings, magazine articles, and book titles.  Also, the site provides daily site picks as well as quick links to the Meriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.