Resource: TIME Almanac with Information Please Assigned: General facts online Location: open source, online: http://www.infoplease.com/ Audience: This presentation is intended for any adult or high school student

1. TIME ALMANAC
A ready reference instructional guide to a free, online almanac
Adam Apo
LIS 704 99

2. History
• This almanac was first published in 1947 as the
Information Please Almanac.
• Since 1997, TIME partnered with Information Please to
release what is now called the TIME Almanac with
Information Please1
• This resource is available both online and in print.

3. How to access:
• Time Almanac can be accessed, free of charge, from any
computer with access to the internet by visiting:
http://www.infoplease.com/
• This website also provides information from
encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and various archives.

4. Who does this almanac serve?
Because TIME Almanac provides in-depth facts and figures
on a myriad of topics while also providing general
information for building foundational knowledge on a topic,
it can be used by adults of most technological abilities.
TIME and Information Please also produce an online
children's almanac2 that can be found at:
http://www.factmonster.com/

5. What questions can TIME answer?
• General information and up-to-date facts and figures in
the following areas:
• World
• U.S.
• History & Government
• Biography
• Sports
• Calendars
• Arts & Entertainment
• Business
• Society & Culture
• Health & Science

6. What questions, specifically?
Due to the broad sweep of areas covered by TIME Almanac, it is
difficult to cover the total granularity of questions that can be answered
by this resource. But here are some examples:
1. How many births were in Arkansas in 2012?
2. Who won Best Picture at the 1967 Academy Awards?
3. What percentage of same-sex couples in the U.S. have children?
4. What religion is most represented in the global population?
5. What percentages of individual income tax returns have been filed
electronically through the years?
6. What country produced the greatest number of refugees last year?
7. On what day was Easter in 1861?
8. When was the longest running overtime game in Stanley Cup
history?

7. Arrangement of information
TIME Almanac arranges information both by:
• reference source (e.g. encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, etc.)
• subject area (e.g. biography, health, arts, etc.)
The various reference sources used are the result of
partnerships with Columbia Encyclopedia, Magellan Geographix,
and Random House Dictionary.3
While a new print edition is released yearly, the online almanac
is updated weekly to include news and current events.

8. How to use
Information can be accessed one of three ways:
1. Search by keyword
2. Browse by reference source
3. Browse by subject
The next few slides will take us through the process of
searching by each of the above methods.

9. 1. SEARCH BY KEYWORD

10. 1. Search by keyword
The search bar can be located in the top right corner of any
page of the Information Please website. Let’s run a sample
search for the city of Chicago.

11. 1. Search by keyword
Always check the source format (e.g. almanac, dictionary, etc.) and
subject (e.g. United States, Arts & Entertainment, etc.) from which the
result was taken. This is found in parentheses.

12. 1. Search by keyword
When we click on the result taken from “Almanac—United States”, we
can see the subject thread in the top left and links to “Chicago” listed in
the Encyclopedia in the bottom right.

13. 2. BROWSE BY
REFERENCE SOURCE

14. 2. Browse by reference source
We may also browse information exclusively from each
reference source. This can be found at the bottom of the
homepage.

15. 2. Browse by reference source
If we click on “Atlas,” for
example, one can browse
maps, cities, countries,
flags, etc.
Each of these tools links us
to other sources as well. For
example, we find
encyclopedia entries from
information found in the
atlas

16. 3. BROWSE BY SUBJECT

17. 3. Browse by subject
At the top of every page, one can find the subject menu bar
by which you may browse via subject area.

18. 3. Browse by subject
For example, if you click on “cities” within the “U.S.” subject, one may
browse more specific sub categories within that subject.

19. Questions
If you have any further questions about using this resource,
you may contact me at apoadam@my.dom.edu.
Adam Apo
March 22, 2015

20. References
1 TIME Almanac with Information Please. (2015). Retrieved from
http://www.infoplease.com/
2 TIME Almanac for Kids with Information Please. (2015). Retrieved from
http://www.factmonster.com/
3Information Please—Partners. (March 2015). Retrieved from
http://www.infoplease.com/partners.html