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This brief introduction to Oxford Reference Online: Premium Collection highlights the main features of the service, and will demonstrate how quick and easy it is to find the information you need.
Free 30-day trials are available to libraries and institutions.
The Premium Collection
Subscribers to the Premium Collection have access to the following content:
- 175+ Oxford reference titles
- Over 1.3 million entries, many from an expanding range of acclaimed titles in the Oxford Companions series
- All 20,000+ quotation entries from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
- 15,540+ illustrations, including colour photographs, line diagrams, tables, etc
- 42 Timelines
- 775+ maps
- 36,000+ invaluable bibliographies
- 167,000+ biographical entries
- 3,165+ external web links
- Enhanced search functions to access results by category
- New and revised titles added regularly
The Premium Collection Home Page
Once you are signed in the Home Page looks like this:
There are four main search and browse options:
- Quick search
A fast and efficient search option available from every page, quick searches look for matches in entry headings first, but will automatically default to a full text search if there are no results in entry headings.
- Advanced search
Use this option for more refined searches, such as to search across a defined range of subjects, or to find references to people or dates only.
- Browse the whole database
The Browse option enables you to view entry headings in the A-Z sequence in which entries appear in the printed book.
- Search within a subject
Choose from one of the subjects listed on the Home page for more refined searching or browsing.
Other features of the Home page include a New to ORO section with handy tips on how to search using wildcards etc, a What's New section with news on current and future updates, and a link to the ORO Fact of the Day.
Search Results Page
Here are the results from a Quick search for "global warming". There are results from a wide range of sources - everything from A Dictionary of Ecology, to The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English.
The search results page offers these main options:
- View an entry
Click on an entry heading to view the full entry.
- Reorder your results by category
Select one of the tabs along the top of the results list to reorder your results. The category options are: Subject reference longer entries; Subject reference shorter entries; English dictionaries; Bilingual dictionaries; Quotations.
- Refine your results by subject
Limit the results displayed to a specific subject by selecting one of the subject links in the left-hand column.
- Widen your search
If your search doesn't return sufficient results you can use the Widen search option. This allows you to broaden your search with one click of a button, catching more references to your search term.
- Conduct a new search
Type a new keyword or keywords into the Quick search box and click Go or press return on your keyboard.
Entry Pages
The Entry Pages display the individual articles or entries in ORO. The entry below for "Picasso, Pablo", is taken from A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art.
From an entry page you can do any of the following:
- View the next and previous results from your search
Click on Previous result or Next result in the left-hand column to see the entries on the search results page before or after the one you selected.
- Return to the full results list
This will return you to the search results page you came from.
- Go to a theme relevant to an entry in Timelines (if the entry contains a link to Timelines). This enables you to examine the entry in a wider context.
- Browse adjacent entries from the book
View the entries in the book that come before and after in the A-Z sequence.
- Follow links to related entries within the book
Links in the text (blue, underlined) will take you to related entries from the same book.
- Look up any word anywhere in the database using the Cross-Reference tool
Highlight a keyword or keywords in an entry and click on the Cross-Reference tool and it will search across the entire database.
- Email the entry to a friend or colleague
Click on the Email this entry button and follow the instructions on how to send someone you know the entire text of an entry for free.
- Perform another Quick Search
Type a new keyword or keywords into the Quick search box and click Go or press return on your keyboard. You can choose to search the whole database or just entries from the book that you are currently in.
Long Entries
Some entries, such as quotations from Shakespeare's works and from the Bible in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, span many pages (there are hundreds of quotations listed for these two sources). To make it easier to navigate these long entries, there is a list of Entry sections on the left-hand side of the page, to allow users to go directly to a specific section of the article.
Subject Home Pages
The Subject Home pages allow you to focus your research within a specific subject area. To search or browse within a subject, just click on a subject link from the list of subjects in the centre of the Premium Collection Home page. From here you can perform a quick search that is limited to that particular subject.
Other options from the Subject home page include:
- Advanced subject search
Select the Advanced search tab on the global toolbar and you will be taken to the Advanced search page for that subject.
- Browse this subject
Click on the Browse this subject link to view the A-Z sequence of entries in this subject.
- Links for this subject
Follow this link to see the list of external, editorially selected websites we have recommended for each subject.
- Go to a specific Book within this subject
From a subject page, you can narrow your scope further before starting to search or browse, by clicking on one of the book links listed under Search within a book. This will take you to the Home page for that book.
Advanced Search
To begin an Advanced Search, click on the Advanced Search button on the main navigation bar at any time. Note that if you are currently on a subject or book level page, you will only search that subject or book.
With Advanced search, you can refine your search in the following ways:
- Search the full text of the database, or just entry headings
- Search for people or dates
Use the drop down menu to select one of these options.
- Select which subjects or books to search
If you are at the global level, you can restrict your search to one or more subjects by ticking the appropriate boxes. Click on the subject to go to a subject level Advanced search page.
- Choose your method of searching: Standard, Boolean, or Pattern
A Standard search looks for exact matches for your search term, but also looks for plurals and other forms of your search term (for example, "world" will find "worlds", "world-famous", "world-soul", etc.). Standard search is also the default option used in Quick search.
Use Boolean searching to construct searches where you want to include and exclude terms. For example, "Cubist NOT Picasso" will find articles on the art movement that do not mention Picasso.
Use Pattern search when you're not sure of the exact spelling. For example, a search for Milenium will find results for Millennium.
Browse
The Browse option enables you to view entry headings in the A-Z sequence in which entries appear in the printed book. You can browse in this way at the global, subject or book level.
The Browse list displays each instance of an entry heading, together with the title of the book in which it appears. Use the A-Z buttons to jump to your chosen letter, or type the word that you want to find into the Go To box and you will be scrolled to the correct place in the browse list. Clicking on an entry heading will take you straight to the relevant entry.
External Links
At the subject and book level there are lists of external web links to further help you in your research.
Add Oxford Reference Online to your browser
You can also look up words in Oxford Reference Online from anywhere on the Web by simply downloading the "Add Oxford Reference Online to your browser" icon (available from the home page) to your internet browser toolbar. Then if you're looking at a foreign language web page and don't know what a word means, just highlight the word, click the Search Oxford button on your browser toolbar, and a new window will open showing the results of a search for the word in Oxford Reference Online.
Find out more
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