Research tools

We have online resources that you can access with a National Library of Scotland (NLS) login. If your main address is in Scotland you can use many of these from any computer.

To register for access, go to licensed digital collections.

There are also a number of resources there that you can use without having to register.

We recommend the following resources for:

Teachers researching a topic
Higher / Advanced Higher pupils carrying out independent research.

British Literary Manuscripts Online circa 1660-1900
A full-text digital archive containing over 600,000 pages of author manuscripts including poems, plays, novels, private correspondence, and diaries, providing an intimate look into the lives and works of Britain's major writers across 200 years.

Credo Reference
Credo is an online reference tool with trusted content sourced from academic publishers and contains:

Full-text entries from encyclopaedias, dictionaries, reference works and more
Image databases and topic pages giving overviews of hundreds of subject areas.

Early English Books Online
A full-text digital archive of some 100,000 books printed between 1473 and 1700. This consists of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America, and works in English printed elsewhere.

18th-century Collections Online, Parts 1 and 2
A full-text digital archive of over 200,000 books printed between 1701 and 1800. In essence, every significant title printed in the United Kingdom and the former British territories is available, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.

Europeana
Website where you can search for items from across Europe in: