Digital library
OverDrive
OverDrive allows you to borrow e-books and audiobooks for free from bestsellers to classics. For more information on how to get started, get in touch with your local library or visit OverDrive help (the website currently works best using Mozilla Firefox and recent versions of Internet Explorer).
OverDrive also provides e-reading rooms for children and teens, allowing them to browse safely and see a selection of age appropriate titles.
You can borrow five titles at any one time.
The OverDrive app is available to download from:
Libby
Libby (by OverDrive) allows you to borrow a wide selection of e-books and e-audiobooks for free. You can borrow up to five items at once and also place up to five reservations.
For more information or help using the app, visit OverDrive/Libby.
The Libby app is available to download from:
BorrowBox
BorrowBox offers easy access to a broad choice of e-books and audiobooks for you to borrow and listen to through a simple app for smartphones and tablets. You can also borrow and download the items to your PC or Mac to put onto an iPod or other MP3 player. Loans automatically expire at the end of the three-week loan period, so you won't need to return them. BorrowBox includes a selection of titles for adults, young adults, and children.
You can borrow four titles at any one time.
For Windows phones and tablets, use the website for direct downloads.
The BorrowBox app is available to download from:
uLIBRARY
uLIBRARY lets you download and listen to professionally recorded audiobooks, brought to life by some of the world's best performers.
With a great selection of bestselling authors, including Lee Child, Ann Cleeves and James Patterson, you can take 'that book you keep hearing about' with you wherever you go.
Boasting titles for everyone's taste - from 'sleep with the lights on' thrillers, to sweeping family sagas - you'll be sure to find something to listen to. Best of all, there's no late fees. With uLIBRARY the titles return automatically, allowing you to move onto your next listen with ease.
The uLIBRARY app is available to download from:
PressReader
PressReader offers thousands of newspapers and magazines from one hundred countries in sixty languages. Choose from The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Jewish Chronicle, Empire, Elle and lots more.
Download the PressReader app, sign in with your library card for free then read. After thirty days, log out and sign in again.
The PressReader app is available to download from:
Useful guides
- Quick start guide
- 'How to' video playlist (sign in to PressReader to view)
- Help centre
- Tutorial video
Libby
Libby (by OverDrive) allows you to borrow a wide selection of e-magazines and e-comics for free. You can borrow up to five items at once and also place up to five reservations.
For more information or help using the app, visit OverDrive/Libby.
The Libby app is available to download from:
British Newspaper Archive
British Newspaper Archive is a partnership between the British Library and brightsolid online publishing to digitize up to 40 million newspaper pages from the British Library's vast collection over the next ten years. New pages are added every day from hundreds of local and regional newspapers from across the UK and Ireland. Get a real sense of Britain's history. Read it today, as it happened.
It includes pages from newspapers published up to 1950, concentrating mainly on post 1800 material but some editions as early as 1716 are available.
What you can search:
- News articles
- Family notices
- Letters to the editors
- Obituaries
- Advertisements
- Illustrations
Only available at Local Studies.
Investors Chronicle
Investors Chronicle has been helping investors make their money work harder for over 150 years. Independent coverage of the UK stock market. Library access only.
The Times Digital Archive
The Times Digital Archive has the full text of every article to appear in the Times newspaper from 1785 - 2008. Access is limited to two concurrent users and so may not be available at all times.
Financial Times Online
Financial Times Online gives you free access to five years’ worth of Financial Times business statistics and analysis. Library access only.
Business
- COBRA is a comprehensive resource providing information on starting, running and managing a small business. It covers a range of industries and has over 4,000 factsheets and local area profiles. To use COBRA for free, contact Enterprise Enfield.
Dictionary corner
- Oxford English Dictionary Online is the full text of the world's most comprehensive dictionary
- Oxford Dictionaries encompasses an English dictionary, a thesaurus, language dictionaries (including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish) and grammar rules. It collects, processes and analyses language, including how its changing, its usage, history and how it relates to other languages.
Driving and citizenship test help
- Driving Theory Pro - Pass first time is a free-to-try realistic online simulation of the UK's driving theory test. It contains the official test questions, hazard perception video clips and an online version of the Highway Code. It translates into over 40 different languages and is licensed from the Driving Standards Agency (DSA), who set the test.
- Go Citizen - Citizenship test training is an online study resources for candidates preparing for the Life in the UK or British Citizenship test. This is a comprehensive and proven study package, with an online version of the latest official study materials, licensed from the Home Office, who write the handbook. It also includes hundreds of practice test questions in the same format as the official test.
Family history and genealogy
- AncestryLibrary is only available in our Local Studies and Archive
- Find my Past is a family history database (with added 1911 Census) only available at our Local Studies and Archive
- The Genealogist Diamond Library enables you to trace your family history. With records including Births, Marriages, Deaths, Census, Parish Records, Non-Conformist Records, Wills, Military Records and Tithe Records. This database is only available in our Local History Unit.
Homework and reference
- Access to Research has free access to millions of academic articles. Get in-depth information on topics including: art, architecture, business, engineering, history, languages, politics, philosophy, mathematics and the sciences. This resource is only available in Enfield Town and Edmonton Green libraries.
- Berg Fashion Library is a unique online portal which offers access to an expanding range of Berg content collections, including the full text of the Encyclopaedia of World Dress and Fashion online, e-books, reference works and images. Written by an international team of over 600 renowned scholars, the encyclopaedia and Berg Fashion Library serve as the go-to source for all issues relating to the art and anthropology of costume, dress, and fashion. This resource is updated three times a year.
- Britannica Online: Encyclopedia Britannica is a great homework, study or research resource with in-depth articles, photos, audio links, videos, diagrams, index, A-Z browse, interesting links, a dictionary and much more for 14 years old and up
- Britannica Online: Britannica Student - a version of the Britannica adapted to children aged ten to 14
- Britannica Online: Britannica Junior - a version of the Britannica that’s suitable for children aged five to ten
- Oxford Art Online has articles, images and a comprehensive series of links covering painting, sculpture, architecture, decorative arts, textiles, jewellery, design and furniture
- Oxford Reference Online - Premium Collection is a compendium of over 175 subject dictionaries, plus the World Encyclopedia, offering unrivalled coverage of everything from art to accountancy, politics to physics and computing to classics
- Oxford Music Online has articles and sound clips covering musicians, genres, record companies, music, festivals and songs
- UK Who's Who and Who Was Who contains over 33,000 short biographies, continually updated, of noteworthy and influential individuals from all walks of life, worldwide. Approximately one thousand new entries are added every year. Who Was Who contains over 100,000 entries from the archives of Who's Who dating back to 1898, the definitive roll-call of the last 150 years of British history.
- Very Short Introductions is the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. It offers books for students and scholars, and the avidly curious, offering a bridge between reference content and higher academic work. All titles provide intelligent and serious introductions to a huge range of subjects, written by experts in the field who combine facts, analysis, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make challenging topics highly readable.
Languages and learning
- Alison Courses offers free online courses from the world's leading publishers. This includes over 300 courses in computers, IT, literacy, languages, health and safety, and liberal arts and sciences. All courses contain audio, video, online quizzes and assessments. After successfully completing these courses, you will be able to download a Certificate of Completion.
- Community Learning with Enfield Libraries - if you wish to learn the basics of using a PC, try the free Learn My Way Page. If you have the basics but wish to improve your skills, try Alison.
- Future Learn offers free online courses from the world’s leading universities and institutions (including the British Council, the British Film Institute and the European Space Agency). Courses cover a broad and diverse range of subjects including science, language, teaching, history and literature.
- Transparent Languages Online is a language learning resource featuring more than 80 languages. You can learn reading, writing, speaking and listening skills from a native speaker. There are also courses included for English as a second language. (Requires speakers, headphones and a microphone if you want to record yourself.)
- Excel Easy offers a free, easy to follow, fully illustrated Excel tutorial (including VBA programming) with 300 examples