Bartelby.com
Internet publisher of free e-books, covering mainly literature, reference and verse. Books are free to download.

Bibliomania
A free online collection of thousands of classic texts, study guides, and articles, with new items evaluated and added each month.

British Library
Britain’s National Library, holding over 13 million books plus journals, newspapers, sound recordings and patents on its integrated catalogue. Based in London with reading rooms at Boston Spa near Wetherby. Many items can be ordered via Inter Library Loan via your local library.

British Library Direct Journals
An online catalogue from the British Library searching across 20,000 journal holdings, which can be ordered directly online, or via your local library Inter library Loans service.

COPAC
The Copac® library catalogue gives free access to the merged online catalogues of major University and National Libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library. Many items can be ordered via Inter Library Loan via your local library.

Encore
Online union-catalogue of sets of performance music in UK Libraries: a project of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres, United Kingdom and Ireland Branch. Includes details of UK public music libraries, through whom sheet music can be obtained.

Google Scholar
A search engine for abstracts of research papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Similar to Microsoft Live Search Academic.

Library of Congress
The National Library of the United States of America, with catalogue holdings of millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts. The Library is based in Washington DC. Items not available for loan in the UK.

Microsoft Live Search Academic
A Microsoft search engine searching for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, conference proceedings, dissertations and academic books. Please note that this site is currently a Beta Test Version. Similar to Google Scholar.

Project Gutenberg
A collection of thousands of full-text e-books, free to browse and download, created and hosted by a not-for-profit organisation powered by volunteers. Covers out-of-copyright books of all types.