World Databases

The best:

  • Lexis-Nexis    Lexis-Nexis is the king of databases.  It is not free, but it can be well worth the money.· The largest news and business online information service, including comprehensive company, country, financial, demographic, market research and industry reports. You can tap into thousands of worldwide newspapers, magazines, trade journals, public records, legislative records, data on companies and their executives. The Nexis Web Search runs searches against an exclusive database of 300,000 relevant Web sites collected from its extensive newspaper and wires sources. Company Dossier, with 500,000 listings, allows users to enter a company name or ticker symbol and pull together a full company report

The rest:

  • Britain's Rich List         Readers of the Internet version of the Sunday Times Rich List 1997 can search the database of Britain's richest 1,000 and Ireland's richest 75 by wealth, by name or by keyword using the buttons on the left.
  • Art Guide            A guide to the art collections of Great Britain and Ireland.  Browse for exhibits by artist, museum, or geographic location:  over 1,900 artists, 650 museums, and 4,500 individual listings.
  •   Bibliofind         An online database of books for sale with a great search engine.
  • International Nuclear Safety Program     Soviet designed reactors distributed throughout Eastern Europe and of Ukrainian nuclear power reactors.Information about each reactor is available by clicking on the maps
  • Lycos Searchable World databases
  • World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo). Information on patent systems, legal data bases, the latest on intellectual property law
  • Unesco Archives of the Security Services of Former Repressive Regimes    Initiated and funded by UNESCO, a group of international experts prepared a study on the management of state security records of former repressive regimes
  • World Political Database     Iinformation on contemporary leaders from 185 countries, the office-holders longest in power,  women leaders, European governments since 1990,   African rulers, heads of state killed in or out of office, and obituaries of prominent leaders who have died since 1990.
  • Thesaurus of Geographic Names    The Getty Information Institute offers this massive browsable and searchable "structured vocabulary" of almost one million place names and 900,000 places around the world.