If you look around your office or home, you can probably find various reference materials: a dictionary, a thesaurus, an old set of encyclopedias, or maybe an electronic encyclopedia on CD-ROM. The Internet can also serve as a resource, providing you with access to a wide variety of reference materials.

To get you started in creating your own virtual reference desk, we'll visit five reference sites, and use links at each site to research practical information. Remember to use your network provider's "bookmark" feature to easily save the web site addresses that interest you.

Our first stop is the Research Institute for the Humanities , which contains a wealth of humanities-related information. For example, under the Literature and Languages section , you can find a Chinese language tutorial, the complete works of Shakespeare, a poetry archive and a Latin grammar hotline, plus hundreds of other links.

For this example, we'll be focusing on the Reference Shelf , which contains the White and Yellow Pages, various dictionaries (Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, and Latin), as well as history-related, philosophy-related, and computer-related reference links.

Suppose you wanted to learn the German word for "education" -- you can use an on-line German-English Dictionary . Scroll down until you come to the search box. Then click inside the box, type "education," and press "Enter." Scroll down again, and you'll find several entries relating to the word "education."

Next, you can use Who Where to determine e-mail or "snail mail" addresses. You can look up yourself or a family member for fun, or even find Elvis's current whereabouts. To perform the search, click in the "First Name" box and type your entry. Press "Tab" to move to the "Last Name" box, then enter that field.

To search for phone numbers and addresses instead of e-mail addresses, scroll down and click in the circle next to "Phone & Address" so that a dot appears in the circle. Then click on the red "Find" button. (If a security message appears, click on the "Yes" button to continue.) In a few moments, a list of matches appears.

The Virtual Reference Desk from Purdue University is the next place we'll visit. This site contains selected government documents, phone books, and various technology-related info, among other reference materials.

Did you ever wonder what "http" stands for at the beginning of each world wide web address? Click on the Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing to learn the answer . Then type in "http" (at the top of the screen, above the logo), and click on the "Search" button.

But just what is "hypertext transfer protocol?" . Click on those words to find out. It may be more technical information than you want to know! You can use the "Random" button to learn other computer terms chosen from the dictionary.

Our next stop is Martindale's The Reference Desk . This site provides access to dictionaries, science tables, weather reports, various science centers, maps, and more.

Need to know how far it is from one place to another -- say, Boise to Manhattan? Use the How Far Is It? page . Scroll down if necessary, then enter "Boise City, ID" in the "From" box. Click in the "To" box, and enter "NYC".

Then click on the "Look It Up" button to find the answer. (If a security message appears, click on the "Yes" button to continue.) You'll receive the distance information, plus population and other related data. You can even plan a road trip by getting driving directions!

Now, let's find a picture of a flag by using Flags of the World . Use the GeoIndex link(under the "Search the Site" heading). Then scroll down again, and click on the map until you reach your desired country. For example, to see the flag for Japan, start by clicking on Asia. When you click on the desired country, an image of its flag will appear.

What time is it in other parts of the world? Access the Local Times Around the World site to find out. For example, to determine what time it is on the Ivory Coast, first click on Times in Africa . Then scroll down and click on the link next to the Ivory Coast listing .

Next, we'll use The Project Bartleby Archive . This web site enables you to read poetry and literature on-line, as well as access reference works of general interest.

Who said, "Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it"? To find out, you'll use Barlett's Familiar Quotations . Scroll down until the search box appears, click inside it, and type "knowledge is of two kinds". Then click on the "Search" button. And the author is...

Our final stop: Encyberpedia -- The Living Encyclopedia from Cyberspace , which lists web sites categorized by subject. The Encyberpedia Index provides an overview of the subjects available, including such topics as Beanie Babies, bankruptcy, horticulture, and Princess Diana.

Scroll down to view the alphabetized subject index. For example, to find cat-related links, click on Cats under the letter "C." Scroll down again to see a sample of the cat web sites listed -- there are over 70! Not a cat-lover? Click on Careers instead -- there are over 30 sites related to job searching and career preparation.

That brings us to the end of our reference desk exploration. I hope these sites serve as the starting point for building your own on-line reference library. Please send any feedback on this article to editor@folksonline.com, or by clicking on "Contact FolksOnline" at the bottom of this screen. See you in cyberspace!