UMass Boston

Online Reference Resources

General Reference Works

Britannica Online
Britannica Online is a general encyclopedia covering all subjects. It also includes current events journal articles, selected and reviewed web links, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and timelines with images and links.

Credo Reference
Credo Reference provides access to a broad variety of reference sources from dictionaries to encyclopedias covering topics from the arts to the sciences. It has an image collection, maps, customizable data, and audio pronunciation files. You can search the whole collection or a specific subject area.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

Specialized Reference Works

American Jurisprudence
American Jurisprudence 2d (Am Jur 2d) is available through the Nexis Uni database. It is an encyclopedia that provides summary and analysis of all fields of U.S. state and federal law. It contains many citations to cases, statutes, and law review articles. It also includes analysis of the spirit and intent of the courts in construing the law, and legislative intent in enacting and amending the law.

Cambridge Companions Online
Online access to the complete Cambridge Companion series. The Companions cover the fields of literature, classics, philosophy, religion, and cultural studies. Each Companion includes essays devoted to a particular person or subject such as Freud, Hemingway, modern Latin American culture, and the African American novel.

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
Contains physical constants and formulas, properties of elements and organic and inorganic compounds, and other chemical data. It is also available in a print edition.

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
An in-depth and scholarly encyclopedia covering all branches of the social and behavioral sciences.

Oxford Art Online
A comprehensive art reference collection that covers all the visual arts from prehistory to the 1990s. Through the Oxford Art Online gateway, you can search the Grove Art Online encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, the Oxford Companion to Western Art, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms together or individually. There are also links to images, related content and art timelines.

Only five users at a time can access Oxford Art Online.

Oxford Music Online
Through the Oxford Music Online gateway, you can search as a group or by individual title, the Grove Music Online, which includes the full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, as well as the Oxford Dictionary of Music and the Oxford Companion to Music. Together these works form a comprehensive music reference site where you can find information on composers, musical styles, and major musical works.

Only five users at a time can access Oxford Music Online.

Sage Knowledge

SAGE Knowledge is the ultimate social sciences digital library for students, researchers, and faculty. With more than 2,500 titles, it includes an expansive range of SAGE eBook and eReference content, including scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, series, professional development titles, and more.