Your digital library

Audio and ebooks

Your library has a fantastic collection of audio and e books and e-magazines for both adults and children, for you to download onto your smartphone, tablet, computer or e-reader. All available from the comfort of your own home, for free, as a library member.

Online resources

Library services across the country also offer free access to a range of online resources that can be used at home. Please do check with your local library service to see what's on offer. The following resources are just a selection of the type of services that may be available with your library membership.

Ancestry
UK's largest family history site. Some libraries have managed to arrange free online access to library members via a special link, available when members log into their online account.

Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury Digital Resources, which provides academic content in Humanities and Social Sciences, are now available to the library and education community for free through the end of May 2020.

Britannica Library
The world famous Britannica Library is a recommended source of general information and comes in three different levels. Junior, Student and Adult. It contains lots of images and videos as well to help bring topics alive

Cobra
The Complete Online Business Reference Advisor (COBRA) is an encyclopaedia of practical information for anyone involved in setting up, running or managing a business enterprise.

Find My Past
Some libraries have managed to arrange free online access to library members via a special link, available when members log into their online account. However there have been some issues around privacy of searches that you may want to consider.

Freegal
Spotify for libraries. They have an offer open to all libraries in the UK that do not currently have a subscription with Freegal. From now until June 30, libraries can sign up for Freegal Music with no set-up fee, no contract, and no commitment.

Go Citizen
An online study resource for candidates preparing for the Life in the UK test or the British Citizenship test.

Naxos Music Library
A comprehensive classical music streaming platform.

Newsbank
Newspaper archive of UK local and regional newspapers.

Oxford Bibliographies
Exclusive, authoritative research guides across a variety of subject areas. 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

Oxford Dictionaries
Free online english dictionary from Oxford Dictionaries. Translate from English to Spanish, French, Italian, and German with bilingual dictionaries.

Oxford Reference Online
A collection of language and subject reference works: quick search through all at once, or choose from the huge range of works available.

Oxford Research Encyclopedias
Long-form overview articles written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars.

PressReader
An online subscription that provides instant online access to today's newspapers and magazines from various countries in full-colour, full-page format and in over 60 languages.

Times Digital Archives
A fully searchable database of the Times newspaper from 1785 to 1985.

Theory Test Pro
Practise your driving theory test, including hazard perception test and the highway code.

Universal Skills
An online subscription service to help users learn basic IT skills, support through the Universal Job Match and Universal Credit process, and learn job skills including CV creation.

World Book Online
World Book is offering free access to public libraries until 31 May 2020. It has16 different databases for all ages plus World Book eBooks library has over 3,500 different eBooks.


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Reading at home

Free audio and e-books, online reading groups, podcasts, videos and more.



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Learning at home

Free online learning resources and webinars for children, adults and businesses.



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Information at home

Advice and information on COVID-19 from the government and for key affected groups as well as general consumer advice and media information.



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Health and Wellbeing at home

A collection of resources and contacts to help support positive mental health and wellbeing during the Covid-19 crisis.



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Educational resources at home

A list of online educational resources by subject and key stage