Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Use these sources to find authoritative definitions and summaries – a useful starting point for seminar presentations and projects. They are a reliable alternative to Wikipedia!
General works and collections
These resources allow you to search for definitions and summaries in all subjects.
- - search across the full 32 volumes of Encyclopædia Britannica
- - search across multiple works in all subjects
- - search across multiple works in all subjects
- Summon - search our discovery service to find definitions from many of our online dictionaries and encyclopedias
See also our list of Quick reference sources.
Some More specific sources
This is a selection of reference works and collections we have purchased for specific subjects. To find other individual titles .
- - cereal chemistry
- - building cost data
- - encyclopedia of the ancient world
- - covers arts and humanities
- - a gateway to the most influential scientists and scholars
- formerly Hoover's Company Profiles
- - industry market research
- - fragments of ancient text
- - drug and healthcare information
- - Oxford English dictionary
- - chemical analysis
- - English literature
- - bilingual French, German, Italian and Spanish dictionaries
- - access to Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science
- - corpus query system
- - experimental methods