Let’s be honest. When you want to find something out sometimes a quick google or wikipedia search is all you need. We all do it often enough. But what about when you need authoritative facts and figures – information you know you can trust?

Like teachers, librarians care about where our ‘facts’ come from. Which is why over the past few days we’ve been spending a lot of time exploring the brand new updated Oxford Reference site (one of many sites available for free to anyone with an Edinburgh Library card), and it’s an impressive undertaking.

With bitesize chunks and longer essays taken from over 200 books, this really is an ideal starting point for anyone who’s serious about learning and reseach; whether it’s for work, study or personal interest.

This is stuff that’s been written and checked by the experts, world leaders in their fields. Oxford Reference covers just about any topic under the sun. We’ve found fascinating stuff on The history of documentary photography, The rowan tree in Celtic mythology and The origin of British place names.

Don’t miss the incredibly useful and labour-saving timelines section, which are browsable not only by date but by subject too.

What will you learn? Log in free with your library card and start exploring today.