24 Hour Library - reference and family history

Description: More than 1.5 billion names in over 4,000 collections covering the United States, Canada and the UK.

Key sources include:

• UK census from 1841 to 1901, with images of the original records.
• Index to Births, Marriages and Deaths for 1837-1983.
• Parish and probate records from the 1500s to 1800s, with some non-parish records from as early as the twelfth century.
• Reference and finding aids such as surname dictionaries and gazetteers.

Home login: Not available.
Library access: No Username or password needed.

Use Ancestry Library Edition.
Download a user guide.
Instructions for using Ancestry (pdf, 434 KB) (pdf, 434kb)

Description: The cyberLibrary is a comprehensive list of hundreds of free websites chosen, road-tested and described by librarians from public library services across south-west England. There are local links for every area as well as the best sites covering a wide range of topics.

Home login: No Username or password needed.
Library access: No Username or password needed.

Use Cyberlibrary.

Description: This resource allows digital access to the John Johnson Collection, housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Collection is widely recognised as one of the most important collections of printed ephemera in the world. It includes 65,000 items covering aspects of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Home login: Not available.
Library access:No Username or password needed.

Use the John Johnson Collection.

Description: Search for 1.7 million books, DVDs, CDs and other material on the LibrariesWest library catalogue. You can also request or renew items quickly and conveniently online around the clock (with your library card).

Home login: Library card membership number and PIN required for requests or renewals.
Library access: Library card membership number and PIN required for requests or renewals.

Use the library catalogue.

Description: 50,000 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, from the earliest times to the year 2004.

Home login: Once connected do not enter details into the Subscriber Login User name/ Password box. Instead, go to the 'Library card login' box - enter the letters ANP followed by your complete library card number with no gaps. Then select 'Go'.
Library access: No Username or password needed.
Other formats:Latest edition available in book format in the Reference Library.

Use Oxford DNB.
View Instructions for using the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (pdf, 347 KB). (pdf, 347 kb.)

Description: The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past.

Home login: Once connected fill in the 'Library Card Number' box - enter the letters ANP followed by your complete library card number with no gaps. Then select 'Sign in'.
Library access: No Username or password needed.

Use OED from a library.
Use OED from home.
View Instructions for using the Oxford English Dictionary (pdf, 189 KB). (pdf, 190 kb.)

Description: The Oxford Reference Online brings together language and subject reference works from one of the world's biggest reference publishers into a single cross-searchable resource. The Core Collection contains over 100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press.

Home login: Once connected do not enter details into the 'Subscriber Login User name/ Password' box. Instead, go to the 'Library card login' box - enter the letters ANP followed by your complete library card number with no gaps. Then select 'Go'.
Library access: No Username or password needed.

Use Oxford Reference Online.
View Instructions for using Oxford Reference Online. (pdf, 233 KB) (pdf, 234 kb.)

Description: Who’s Who, published annually since 1849, and one of the most respected works of reference. It contains over 33,000 short biographies, continually updated, of living noteworthy and influential individuals. Approximately one thousand new entries are added every year.
Who Was Who has proved invaluable in identifying not only those who shaped the events of their time but others, now forgotten, who were familiar names in their own lifetimes.

Home login: Once connected fill in the 'Library Card Number' box - enter the letters ANP followed by your complete library card number with no gaps. Then select 'Go'.
Library access: No Username or password needed.

Use Who's Who (and Who Was Who).