Bath and North East Somerset Libraries

Access to Research is a service that provides free access to more than 30 million academic articles in public libraries across the UK.

Subjects covered include the sciences, art, architecture, business, engineering, history, languages, politics, philosophy, mathematics and much, much more.

You can search for articles from home, and visit Bath Central, Keynsham or Midsomer Norton Libraries to read the full texts.

Click here to search Access to Research

Through Grove Music Online, get access to search The Oxford Dictionary of Music and The Oxford Companion to Music

The authoritative resource for music research with over 52,000 articles written by nearly 9,000 scholars charting the diverse history and cultures of music around the globe.

You can also browse by topic, instrument, era or region!

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit Oxford Music Online

The gateway to Oxford’s art reference works, including the peer-reviewed, regularly updated Grove® Dictionary of Art.

Includes over 200,000 articles that span ancient to contemporary art and architecture, as well as over 19,000 images of works of art, structures, plans, and artist signatures.

Browse by field, medium, era or region.

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit Oxford Art Online

You may also be interested in Victoria Art Gallery Staff Recommendations.

Oxford Reference spans 25 different subject areas, bringing together 2 million digitized entries across Oxford University press's Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias.

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit Oxford Reference Online

Oxford Bibliographies offers exclusive, authoritative research guides combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia. This cutting-edge resource directs researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects.

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit Oxford Bibliographies

Theory Test Pro is a highly realistic online simulation of the UK's driving theory tests for all vehicle categories.

You can take a mock UK driving theory test. It includes all the official test questions from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, and an online version of the Highway Code.

This service is completely free to access at home. You will need to sign up with Theory Test Pro by using your library card number and creating a username and password.

Click here to sign up to Theory Test Pro

A comprehensive and definitive resource for artists’ biographies, published since 1911.

Includes 149,000 biographies as well as auction records, exhibition histories, and over 11,000 images of artists’ signatures and stamps of sale

This service is completely free to access at home, just sign in with your library card number.

Click here to visit Benezit Dictionary of Artists

You may also be interested in Victoria Art Gallery Staff Recommendations.

An online study resource for candidates preparing for the Life in the UK test or British citizenship test.

Includes the latest official study materials licensed from the Home Office, the people who write the handbook. It has hundreds of practice test questions in the same format as the official test and additional interactive learning resources and teaching aids.

This service is completely free to access at home. You will need to sign up with Go Citizen by using your library card number and creating a username and password.

Click here to sign up to Go Citizens

Current, peer-reviewed trustworthy research, read in 30 minutes or less across 26 encyclopedias.

With today’s overabundance of information, and misinformation, students and researchers alike can be overwhelmed in identifying what’s trustworthy, what’s up-to-date, and what’s accurate. Oxford University Press has invested in the Oxford Research Encyclopedias to meet this challenge. Working with international communities of scholars across all fields of study, they are developing new comprehensive collections of in-depth, peer-reviewed summaries on an ever-growing range of topics.

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit Oxford Research Encyclopedias

The New Oxford Shakespeare Online comprises the Modern Critical Edition (with modern spelling), the Critical Reference Edition (with original spelling), and the Authorship Companion, integrating all of this material on OUP's high-powered scholarly editions platform. This unique online edition provides the perfect resource for the future of Shakespeare studies.

Choose to read either edition, or read both, scrolling alongside each other
- Customize your reading experience and see as many or as few of the different types of notes as you like, alongside the texts
- Personalize the site with your own sets of plays to work within
- Search for words across the whole set of editions, and use the intelligent search to narrow down to just the play texts, or to a specific play, or to scenes written by a particular collaborator
- Compare the edited text with linked images of the early editions
- Navigate straight to any line, using familiar Act, Scene, Line terminology
- Cross-referred passages in the notes are just a click away

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit The New Oxford Shakespeare

You may also be interested in our Verse For Young Adults book list.

The World Shakespeare Bibliography Online is a searchable electronic database consisting of the most comprehensive record of Shakespeare-related scholarship and theatrical productions published or produced worldwide from 1960 to the present.

Search international Shakespeare scholarship including articles, books, chapters, dissertations, editions, adaptations, and digital projects.

You can access this service for free from the Public Network computers in Bath Central, Keynsham or Midsomer Norton Libraries.

You may also be interested in our Verse For Young Adults book list.

Over 63,000 biographies, 75 million words, 12,000 portraits of significant, influential or notorious figures.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century.

The Dictionary offers concise, up-to-date biographies written by named, specialist authors. It is overseen by academic editors at Oxford University, UK, and published by Oxford University Press. The Oxford DNB's General Editor is Professor Sir David Cannadine.

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

The Oxford African American Studies Center provides students, scholars and librarians with more than 20,000 articles by top scholars in the field.

Over 2,500 images, more than 700 primary sources with specially written commentaries, and nearly 200 maps have been collected to enhance this reference content.

Discover over 60 "Focus On" articles which feature essays, photographic essays, and a selected list of articles that will further guide the reader.

The Oxford African American Studies Center combines the authority of carefully edited reference works with sophisticated technology to create the most comprehensive collection of scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit Oxford African American Studies Center

Discover biographies of more than 19,000 men and women — from all eras and walks of life — whose lives have shaped American history and culture.

From missionaries to musicians, social workers to statisticians, cowboys to chemists, and Vikings to astronauts, the portraits in the American National Biography Online reflect the rich diversity of American life from people who lived in pre-colonial times to those who have died only in the last five years.

Featuring thousands of illustrations, and tens of thousands of hyperlinked cross-references and links to other websites, the ANB is a powerful research tool for all levels of study.

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit American National Biography Online

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to the world’s great literature, and for the first time they are being brought together on a single online resource.

Currently providing access to novels, and other writings, from the Medieval Period, 16th and 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century, you can support your research using the comprehensive introductions, clear explanatory notes, chronologies, and bibliographies available in every book.

This database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit Oxford World’s Classics

Research your family tree, access historic military records and past records from across the world.

To access Ancestry, use the computers in Bath Central, Keynsham, and Midsomer Norton Libraries. Ask staff how to get started.

Find guides on using Ancestry's Library Edition on Proquest's LibGuides: proquest.libguides.com/ancestrylibraryedition

You may also be interested in our Family History Booklist.

Get free access to Which.co.uk, where you can read full articles and monthly magazines. With expert testing, reviews and advice, Which? reviews products and services so that you make the best purchase decisions for your needs.

The service is available at Bath, Keynsham and Midsomer Norton libraries. Ask a member of staff for details on how to use this service.

Access to digital content is provided by a third party supplier who delivers access to the platform and content through their own systems. Please be aware that the supplier will be the data controller for the information it collects.

The supplier has servers in the US and has their own terms and conditions which you will need to read before choosing to use their service. The Library Service is not responsible for third party content, and the information you share with the third party supplier.

Find news stories, obituaries, birth notices, and more from the Times Newspaper.

Covering 229 years of history, every complete page of every issue is fully text searchable — every headline, article, editorial, announcement, image and advertisement.

This fascinating database is completely free to access at home using a computer, tablet, or smartphone, just log in with your library card number.

Click here to visit The Times Digital Archive

You may also be interested in our D-Day Non-Fiction Booklist.

BFI Replay is a free streaming service available exclusively for UK public lending libraries, from the British Film Institute. It features thousands of digitised videos and television programmes from the collections of the BFI National Archive and UK regions and nations film archives, alongside contributions from other significant archives such as Channel 4 and ITV.

From BFI Replay.org.uk:

It is the result of one of the UK’s largest mass digitisation programmes, all of the titles have been drawn from the vaults of the BFI National Archive and partner UK Regions and Nations Film Archives.

The content uncovers stories from across the UK, its history and its people. Vividly captured in over 60 years of film, television and video from all corners of the UK — what we, our parents and carers, grandparents and communities watched. 

The platform provides access to 1000s of precious videotapes through the meticulous replay and digitisation of collections from across the UK, lovingly collected and cared for by archivists for over half a century.

You can access this service for free from the Public Network computers in Bath Central, Keynsham or Midsomer Norton Libraries.

Dictionaries for a range of languages

English Dictionary

Find out the history of words, as well as their meaning and pronunciation.

To sign in:

Visit: www.oed.com

Select the person icon in the top right

On the pop-up, select 'Sign in with library card'

Enter 'bath' in the 'Find your library' box, selecting 'Bath and North East Somerset Libraries' when it appears, then enter your library card number in the lower box.

Other Languages

Translation dictionaries for Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese.

To sign in:

Visit: premium.oxforddictionaries.com

Select 'Log in' in the top right

Enter your library card number in the box

On the next page, choose 'Bath and North East Somerset Libraries' from the list.