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The children's library at Archway Library is currently closed

This is because we're carrying out improvement works. It will re-open on Wednesday 15 January 2025. The adult library is open as usual.

Christmas and new year opening times and services

Find out our opening times and service changes over Christmas and New Year holidays. This includes changes to bin collection days, parking and customer contact centre opening hours.

Islington Town Hall will be closed from Thursday 2 to Monday 6 January 2025 for planned maintenance. Registrar services will be reopen on Monday 6 January 2025.

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Oxford Dictionaries and Oxford Online reference library

You can use Oxford Reference online resources for free as a library member

  • Oxford Dictionaries

    The OED 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, past and present. To access the OED free from a home or office computer using your Islington library card, just click on the link above and fill in your library membership number where indicated.

  • Oxford Reference Online

    ORO brings together over 100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works into a single, cross-searchable resource.

  • Oxford Art Online

    Oxford Art Online combines Grove Art with the Oxford Companion to Western Art, the Encyclopaedia of Aesthetics, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, to create the most extensive and easily searchable online art resource available today, a virtual art reference library of unparalleled scope and depth.

  • Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

    The ODNB details the lives of over 55,000 people who have shaped British history over the last 2,400 years - from Julius Caesar and Boudicca to Princess Diana and Sid Vicious. Includes 10,000 portrait illustrations.

  • Oxford Bibliographies

    Oxford Bibliographies provides faculty and students alike with a seamless pathway to the most accurate and reliable resources for a variety of academic topics. Every article in our database is an authoritative guide to the current scholarship, written and reviewed by academic experts, with original commentary and annotations.

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