General sources of information

Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABs) :

• Advice Guide  [by NACAB]
  www.adviceguide.org.uk
• Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABs)
  There are CAB offices in most towns. They provide unbiased, free information and confidential advice to the public on consumer matters, law etc.
• Citizens Advice - National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux (NACAB)
  www.nacab.org.uk

Libraries

Councils, Committees and Boards (CCB)

Printed directory by CBD Research Ltd. Hardback, c750 pages.
High quality, comprehensively indexed.  Note - The word "councils" in the title refers to national bodies (eg the National Consumer Council) rather than local government councils.

Directory of British Associations (DBA)

Printed directory by CBD Research Ltd. Hardback, c750 pages.
Authoritative, high quality, comprehensively indexed.
A new edition is published every couple of years.

Wikipedia
www.wikipedia.org

Huge online international encyclopedia.
Free, not-for-profit, collaborative.
2.6 million articles in English.

www.192.com

The website provides free searches for telephone numbers. Also allows searching of the edited Electoral Roll.

British Telecom (BT)
www.bt.com

The website provides free searches for telephone numbers.

Thomson Local
www.thomsonlocal.com

Yellow Pages
www.yell.com

UK Directory
www.ukdirectory.co.uk

Printed directory of websites. UK, was 2-3 times a year. Around £3.99.
"Find, not search ... 22,000 UK websites categorised like a telephone directory."
Publication of the hardcopy version has been discontinued. However a modified version is available online.

Note - searching the Net: Useful keywords include :

• charity, charities, charitable, charity shops, charity clothing collections, charitybags, charity bags, house-to-house, house to house, door-to-door, door to door, re-use, recycling, donations, cons, scams, bogus, fraud, misleading, fake

Search engines - eg Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves, Excite, Google, Lycos, Yahoo

Google
www.google.co.uk