Digital Library

Bibliographies

Oxford Bibliography of British and Irish Literature - As a key part of Western literary and cultural history, British and Irish literature encompasses a massive range of periods, authors, and works that make it one of the most active fields in academia today.

Oxford Bibliography of Victorian Literature - The Victorian period is often regarded as a high point in literary history, generating a wealth of material that is still regarded as canonical as well as a diverse range of literary genres. This period, which encompasses the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901, produced a large number of prominent authors such as Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, and Oscar Wilde, and witnessed a huge expansion in the literary market (partly because of the rise in literacy).

Business resources

COBRA - People the world over dream of setting up their own business and working for themselves but are often overwhelmed by the prospect. COBRA contains around 4000 factsheets, market reports, contacts, and sources of funding and support to help entrepreneurs plus hundreds of practical guides to starting up more than 350 different types of business.

Dictionaries

The Oxford English Dictionary 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. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

Family and local history resources

Ancestry Library Edition - Ancestry is one of the most well known subscription genealogy sites in the world. It has over 4 billion names in over 4,000 collections. Ancestry provides the most genealogical information in one place including many historical records that have previously not been available online. It is continually expanding. Ancestry Library Edition is distributed exclusively to libraries and is ideal for the family historian or local historian. You can only access Ancestry Library from within Bradford Libraries.

Find My Past - is an online family history resource. It is available in addition to Ancestry.com, and contains several resources which are unavailable on Ancestry and is more orientated towards the UK.
Available in Bradford Libraries only.

Famous people and biographies

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is an illustrated collection of more than 50,000 specially written biographies of the men and women from around the world who shaped all aspects of Britain's past.

American National Biography - Over 19,000 biographies of significant, influential or notorious figures from American history written by prominent scholars

Who's Who and Who was Who - Over 35,000 autobiographical entries of noteworthy and influential people who impact British life.  Includes Who Was Who with over 94,000 entries for deceased people

Driving and citizenship tests

Go Citizen - for people preparing for the Life in the UK test or British citizenship test. This site includes an online version of the latest official study materials licensed from the Home Office, plus hundreds of practice test questions in the same format as the official test.

Theory Test Pro: Practice the Driving Theory Test and Hazard Perception Test online in the library or from home with your library card. Email address needed to register.

Music resources

Rock's Backpages is the biggest online database of pop music writing in the world. It is a unique resource unavailable elsewhere online. The database contains an ever-expanding collection of primary-source, full-text music writing. Sourced from the pages of the music and mainstream press, it is a library of articles (reviews, interviews, features and more) from the early '60s up to present day and includes a growing collection of exclusive audio interviews.

Access this resource on any device with an internet connection via your library card. * Note if your library card number starts with an 8, you will need to prefix your library card number with an "R" when logging in, eg the library card number 831245324 should be entered as R831245324.

Newspapers, journals and magazines

The Access to Research service is a new initiative to give free access to a wide range of academic articles and research in public libraries across the UK. Subjects include art, architecture, business, engineering, history, languages, politics, philosophy, mathematics and the sciences. Access is only available in the library.

The British Newspaper Archive website gives access to over 6 million fully searchable pages, featuring more than 200 newspaper titles from every part of the UK and Ireland. These newspapers - which mainly date from the 19th century, but which include runs dating back to the first half of the 18th century - cover every aspect of local, regional and national news. Access is only available in the library.  To use this service you need to register before you can access content within the library.

INFOTRAC: Access current and historical full text articles from 50 journals and 10 newspapers.
Full text articles from selected National Daily and Sunday Newspapers, as well as popular journals such as: Lancet, Good Housekeeping, Animals, The Bookseller, British Journal of Psychology, The Literary Review, Computer Weekly, Community Care, Design Week and many others. Search specific journals or all journals with a range of search options. You will need to be a member of the library to use this service from home. Please enter your library card number when prompted.

NewsBank -  Local Newspapers
Papers include:
Bradford Telegraph and Argus from 2007 to date, Craven Herald and Pioneer, Keighley News, Keighley Target, Bradford Target, Aire Valley Target, Wharfedale Newspapers from 1998-2008
North Yorkshire, Yorkshire Evening Press, Selby Star, York Star, York Gazette and York Herald and York Advertiser from 1998-2008

Nineteenth Century Newspapers: Explore over 2 million pages of nineteenth century British Library newspapers. All text fully searchable with keywords.

PressReader - provides access to over 7000 daily newspaper and magazine titles from more than 100 countries, in over 60 languages while connected to the Internet. 

Read a newspaper or magazine in its original or screen-friendly format, print articles, listen to audio narration, and translate content from around the world in up to 17 languages.

E-Books, E-Magazines and E-Audio

Borrow Box - Download eAudiobooks and eBooks on your tablet, smartphone, PC or Mac. You'll need to download the BorrowBox app to read them on your smartphone or tablet.

PressReader - provides access to over 7000 daily newspaper and magazine titles from more than 100 countries, in over 60 languages while connected to the Internet. 

Read a newspaper or magazine in its original or screen-friendly format, print articles, listen to audio narration, and translate content from around the world in up to 17 languages. 

Information for living

Information4living allows you to find reliable sources of information to support critical aspects of your life - such as your health and wellbeing, money, benefits or work. It is fully searchable by postcode.