 Welcome to another training video produced by the information team at West Sussex Library Service. This video will introduce you to using Oxford Reference, one of the databases on the eInformation Online Reference Library. Oxford Reference is a database of over 100 reference works including dictionaries, thesauri, timelines, maps, flags and encyclopedias published by Oxford University Press. Oxford Reference is available to use on all West Sussex Library computers via the eInformation Online Reference Library. West Sussex Library card holders can also access Oxford Reference remotely at home or on mobile devices via our website at www.westsussex.gov.uk forward slash eInformation, where they can sign in using their library card barcode number. This short video will show you how to access Oxford Reference from both West Sussex Library PCs and remotely. It will also show you how to carry out a basic search of the Oxford Reference database. To access Oxford Reference from the eInformation Online Reference Library web page, click on A to Z of Electronic Resources on the left hand side of the screen. The A to Z of Electronic Resources page will then appear on the screen. All the information resources are listed in alphabetical order. Scroll down the page to the letter O. Click on the link marked Oxford Reference. The Oxford Reference home page will now appear. If you are accessing Oxford Reference from a West Sussex Library PC, you will be automatically logged in to use this database. If you are accessing this resource remotely away from a West Sussex Library, you will have to do the following. Click on the tab on the left hand side marked Sign In. Then click on the box marked Log In with your library card. Click in the box and type in the letters W-S, followed by your library card barcode number. Then click on Log In. You will now be able to access Oxford Reference. Remember, you only have to type your library card number in if you are logging in remotely. Now let's look at using Oxford Reference to search for information. Click on the box marked Search at the top right of the screen. Type your search term here. In this case I am looking for information on a book called Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. So this is what I type in. Once this is done, click on the orange search symbol on the right hand side of the box. Oxford Reference now searches through its database of titles to find entries matching the terms entered. As you can see from the results page, there are over 800 search results from books on the Oxford Reference database. If you look on the left hand side of the screen, you can see that these search results can be broken down into groups, such as by reference type, with results containing quotations or timelines, subject types, where the search result comes from a book on art, history, medicine or science, or results where an illustration is included. These can all help you narrow down the list to just the results which may have the information required. In this case I am looking for a good description of the book Heart of Darkness. If I look at the results I can see that they show information that will help me make a decision on which article to use. At the top of the page you can see the results are listed at 10 items to view at a time and by relevance. You can use the drop down arrow next to each of these boxes to amend this listing of the results. You can show more results per page or change the listing to put the results in order of title, author, date or word count. You can also move along the number of pages of results if you wish. In this case I don't need to do this, instead I will look at the results by relevance. Each search result is shown with the article title, the title of the book or work it has been taken from, and where possible a cover image of the book. The type of work, the publication date and the article length are also shown. As I scroll down the page I can see that this article from the Oxford readers companion to Conrad is quite substantial at over 2,000 words. As it is from a reference work specifically about the author it would look like a good article to use. To open the article I click on the article title. The article is now displayed on the screen. By scrolling down the page I can see that there is a great deal of information on this particular book. So this is the article I will use on this occasion. I have decided to print the article out, which I can do by scrolling to the top of the page. At the top of the page on the right hand side is a print symbol. By clicking on this, Oxford Reference turns the article into a document that can be printed easily from any PC printer. So from this point on you can print the page using the print option on any internet browser like Chrome, Edge or Firefox. I can get back to the Oxford Reference homepage by clicking on Oxford Reference at the top of this page. Oxford Reference also offers other ways to search the database. By hovering the mouse cursor over each of the pictures or tiles shown on the home page you can see that the name of the subject related to that picture appears. Subjects include art and architecture, history, law, medicine and health and science and technology. By clicking on one of these tiles you go through to a page listing what books and resources are available on Oxford Reference on that subject. I can return to the home page by scrolling to the top of the page and clicking on Oxford Reference. Another way to conduct a search on a specific subject is to select the option Search within my subject specialisations. This can be done by clicking on the option on the top right hand side of the screen under the search box. This drop down box appears, you can select specific subject areas to search by clicking in the boxes. In this case I choose Law because I want to find a legal definition of the term Federal. Then when I type the search term into the search box and run a search Oxford Reference will just look for articles about the term Federal that are related to the subject of Law. As we can see here by scrolling up and down the screen. I can then select an article and print it out if I wish. You may wonder why you should use a resource like Oxford Reference when it might be faster or easier to search on Wikipedia. Some good reasons are Oxford Reference articles are written by academics and researchers with specific subject knowledge. Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles will be written by subject specialists. Oxford Reference uses published works which have been edited and reviewed to ensure accuracy. This is not always the case on Wikipedia. Finally, Oxford Reference and the works shown in it can always be cited in any research the information might need to be used for. Many organisations will not accept Wikipedia as an authentic source of information. This is the end of the training. Thank you for watching this video, one of a series produced by the West Sussex Library Service Information Team.