Online Reference Library
Online Reference
Update: problems with Oxford University Press have now been resolved.
To use a OUP resource, you must login to the OUP resource site using your library card number with the prefix ESX. For example, if your library card number is 0123456, use ESX0123456 as your card number in the OUP site; or if your card is C01234D, use ESXC01234D as your card number.
Digital library updates. Click here to find news on our digital offer.
Unfortunately, Libby no longer stocks The Economist. All back issues will be removed from Libby on February 1
We subscribe to lots of great information websites - including newspapers, reference books and family history sites - which you can use free of charge.
Inside library buildings - A larger range of resources is available in libraries.
Outside library buildings - Some resources are available at home using your library card and PIN. Just click the links marked 'sign in required'.
Business and legal
You can access: Grantfinder and IBIS World databases using the People's Network computers at BIPC Sussex's Hastings and Eastbourne libraries.
Information over 43 million companies across 71 countries worldwide.
Family and local history
You can access Ancestry and Find my Past resources using the People's Network computers in our libraries
Every family name in the UK with more than 100 bearers, and those that had more than 20 bearers in the 1881 census. Includes origins of the name, variant spellings, early bearers and geographical distribution.
Directory of influential people from around the world from 1897 onwards, written by the people featured in the directory. Read About Who's Who – Oxford University Press.
Online training and courses
Online simulation for learner drivers to practice for the UK's driving theory test.
For people preparing for the Life in the UK or British citizenship tests. Includes online study materials from the Home Office and practice test questions.
Reference resources inside library buildings only - Research
Research and Family History
In the library buildings you have also free access to:
- Ancestry
- Find my Past
- Which? online
- British Newspaper Archive
- JSTOR
- Access to Research
Book a library computer
Dictionaries and encyclopedias
Search a wide range of Oxford reference books for in-depth information on every subject from art to zoology. Also includes English dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries, timelines, images, maps and flags.
More than 45,000 articles on visual arts worldwide, from prehistory to the present day, including paintings, drawings, sculpture, jewellery and interior design. Includes 'Grove dictionary of art' and 'Benezit dictionary of artists'.
Worldwide music, with more than 45,000 articles on people and places, instruments and techniques, from classical to hip-hop. Includes 'Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians', Oxford reference books and music recordings.
Full access to the online encyclopedia. Browse the history timeline, magazine articles, atlases, videos and links to other websites.
Explore the lives of more than 57,000 people who shaped Britain's past from the 4th century BC to the year 2002. Search for people, places and organisations, themes such as kings and queens and over 10,000 portraits.
An unsurpassed guide for researchers in any discipline to the meaning, history, and usage of over 500,000 words and phrases across the English-speaking world.
eNewspapers and eMagazines
Read newspapers and magazines online including today's Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Mail, Vogue, Empire, Focus, Gardener's World, Closer and thousands of others.
Search the full text of articles, adverts, birth and death notices and images in the Times newspaper from 1785 to 2006. Also search The Sunday Times from 1822 to 2006 for news about the greatest crimes, careers and culture of the last 180 years.
Contains 250,000 pages and 750,000 illustrations covering world events such as the Boer war and domestic celebrations including the Great Exhibition of 1851. Highlights include reports by Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and Agatha Christie.
