Dave, here is a good introduction to the universe.
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/
This catalogue contains positions, magnitudes and parallaxes (distances) for millions of stars.
http://vizier.cfa.harvard.edu/viz-bi...?-source=I/280
distance (in light years) = 3.26 / parallax (in arcsecs)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax