Exciting developments in electronic teaching resources

by Christine Backler

The range of electronic resources to support e-learning is continuing to expand and a number of new developments are now accessible from the library web pages.

The Oxford English Dictionary Online is now available and is available off-campus with an Athens password. The OED Online offers many features and benefits, including unprecedented access to the 20-volume Second Edition and the three Additions Series volumes, plus at least 1,800 new and revised entries each quarter. It offers everything from simple word look-ups to sophisticated Boolean searching, using any of the fields in the dictionary, plus you can find a term when you know the meaning but have forgotten the word, search for quotations from a specified year, search pronunciations and much more.

The Oxford Reference Online is also available off-campus with an Athens password. It is a collection of acclaimed Oxford University Press reference works across a wide range of subjects. The key features include over 120 key Oxford dictionaries and reference works, a wide range of easy-to-use search and browse options, extensive web of cross-references and links, regular updates to content and functionality and online help.

Empire Online is an electronic publishing project offering around 60,000 images of original documents in the fields of colonial history, politics, culture and society, linked to essays by leading scholars. It is available on-campus only. The sections available now are cultural contacts, 1492-1969 and Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire (available winter 2003/4). Additional sections will be added every year.

Education Media Online is available off-campus using an Athens password. It is a collection of films and videos that can be used freely in learning, teaching and research. The films are fully downloadable, either in full, or as segments. There are ten collections, including the Anglia Television Library, which covers the history and impact of the Romans in Britain, the rise of Christianity and the later influence of the Islamic Empires through to the Renaissance, Educational and Television Films Ltd, covering European films from the political Left and Films of Scotland, a collection of documentary films on all aspects of Scotland. For more information about the full range of films available please ask any of the library staff.

www.dundee.ac.uk/library