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2012

Oxford Reference has relaunched

September 19, 2012

OUP is pleased to announce the launch of Oxford Reference

Today OUP launches Oxford Reference, the new home of Oxford’s quality general reference publishing. Bringing together 2 million entries, we have integrated the superb reference content from Oxford Reference Online and the Oxford Digital Reference Shelf onto the new Oxford Reference platform. The new service enables users to access and cross-search Oxford’s prestigious reference works at the click of a button, and hugely extends its usefulness by opening up free material for general web searching and linking.  
 
The new Oxford Reference platform is made up of two collections:

Oxford Quick Reference provides concise entries for readers wanting to quickly check a fact or find key information on a concept, person, or term from 125 core subject, quotation, and language dictionaries. Oxford is committed to ensuring that Oxford Quick Reference content continues to provide answers you can trust, with the quality and authority readers have come to expect. Our active editorial program now provides monthly updates to this dynamic current collection, and adds entire new titles and major revisions three times a year.

The Oxford Reference Library is made up of over 180 more specialized works including award-winning Oxford Companions and multi-volume Oxford Encyclopedias. These titles are fully cross-searchable with those in the Oxford Quick Reference collection, and provide longer, in-depth, academic content as well as essays and specialist definitions. Oxford Reference Library also brings a selection of scholarly titles from other prestigious publishers, such as Brewers and Continuum.

A major aim of the new service is to widen use and open up new paths to further reading. Oxford Reference now offers a wealth of easily discoverable, freely available content including over 300,000 new free Overview pages, providing a quick definition for every unique topic plus onward links to deeper content and related topics;  270 free Timelines containing links to over 9,000 free reference entries; a new, free, online-only Quotations title; and regularly published topical theme articles.

Oxford Reference is the perfect reference point for research at any level, and is designed to help readers save time, whatever they’re looking for -  from concise definitions of a term through to in-depth articles, on topics from Art to Zoology or Aristotle to Zeus.  The quick search and advanced search functionality of the site enables results to be easily sorted by relevance, title, author name, current online version date, or length, while also enabling you to filter by reference type, subject, content set or illustrations. Many new links to related content lead on to further research. Each user can also personalise Oxford Reference by saving their favourite books, entries, and searches, so they can easily retrace their steps to learn more. 

Discoverability to help people find and use the content:

  • Over 300,000 new Overview pages offer free definitions of topics and networks of links to related material
  • 270 new Timelines containing links to 9,000 free reference entries
  • A new online-only Quotations title, Oxford Essential Quotations
  • Featured topical articles
  • All findable from general web search
  •  

  • Over 16,000 illustrations, including colour photographs, line diagrams, maps, and tables
  • Oxford Quick Reference contains 125 core subject and language dictionaries
  • Oxford Reference Library offers 180+ in-depth, specialist, long entry titles
  • Quick search and advanced search with easy sort and filter options
  • Subject pages with featured content: Search or browse titles in the same subject area, plus featured content carousel that highlights new or topical books and entries
  • Personalisation features: Save searches, favourite books, and entries saving valuable research time
  • Social Media links and bookmarking: Share content with friends and colleagues with integrated tools including social bookmarking, email, and citation export
  • Oxford Index: Fully linked to the OI via an Oxford Index bar that allows users to explore other Oxford content related to their search


***End***

For further information or press access contact:

Gabby Fletcher
Press Officer, OUP
01865 35 39 69
Gabby.fletcher@oup.com