Online reference resources

Members of Ealing libraries can access a number of databases from home. Click on the links below and then on the next page you will be asked to enter your library card number.

Please note, you can only access the sites by going to this page first, each time you use them. Bookmark this page and not the pages for the individual databases.

General reference

Oxford Reference Online *
The Premium Collection contains over 100 titles from Oxford University Press on a wide range of subjects including art, English dictionaries and thesauruses, computing, economics, history, law, literature, medicine, politics, religion and science plus all 20,000 quotations from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and over 50,000 articles from titles in the Oxford Companions series.

* you will be asked for your library card number. This should be preceded by EAL eg EAL123456789.

Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica Online gives access to the equivalent of a full-size multi-volume encyclopedia. There is also a world atlas and a dictionary and thesaurus of American English.

Britannica Student
The student edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (for ages 12-18).

Britannica Junior
The children’s edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (for ages 5-11).

Oxford English Dictionary * 
The complete multi-volume version is now available electronically.  You can easily search for the word or phrase you need in the full text of the dictionary, or in selected areas such as quotations or etymologies. There are also quarterly updates including updated entries and complete new words being added.

* you will be asked for your library card number. This should be preceded by EAL eg EAL123456789.

Biography

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography *
Contains specially written biographies of 55,000 people who helped shape history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the start of the 21st century. There are regular updates and more than 10,000 illustrations, researched in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery.   

* you will be asked for your library card number. This should be preceded by EAL eg EAL123456789.

Art

Grove Art Online *
Contains the full text of the 34-volume Dictionary of Art together with the Oxford Companion to Western Art.  Some of the articles have been revised since their appearance in print and others have been added.

* you will be asked for your library card number. This should be preceded by EAL eg EAL123456789.

Music

Grove Music Online *
The full text of the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera and the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.  Some articles have been updated since their appearance in print.

* you will be asked for your library card number. This should be preceded by EAL eg EAL123456789.

Newspapers

NewsUK
NewsUK gives you access to articles in the major British national and regional newspapers and also the Economist, New Statesman and Spectator for recent years. The list includes 67 titles, with files going back in one case as far as 1991, and all can be searched by keyword to find news and information.  

Times Digital Archive
Researchers can search through the complete digital edition of The Times (London), using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching.

John Johnson Collection
This collection provides access to thousands of items selected from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Categories include Nineteenth-Century Entertainment, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Crimes, Murders and Executions, and Advertising.