Research

Academic Search Elite

A renowned scholarly resource providing superior full-text, academic journals covering the major areas of academic research.

Acorn TV

Acorn TV offers world-class mysteries, dramas, comedies, and documentaries, including classic series like Poldark, Murdoch Mysteries, Foyle’s War, Midsomer Murders, Poirot, and Vera. Checkout and stream from the RBdigital app or website.

Cap:

Each checkout is for 7 days of unlimited streaming. VIRL has a weekly service cap for Acorn TV. This service cap overrides available checkouts. The cap resets Sunday mornings at 6 am.

Ancestry Library Edition

Genealogy collection including census, vital, church, court, and immigration records from the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and the United Kingdom.

• What’s the difference between Ancestry Library Edition and Ancestry.com?

AudioBookCloud

AudioBookCloud is an online collection of streaming, simultaneous-use audiobooks for all ages. Browse titles by category, or click on Index to see all titles in the collection. Access through your browser.

Auto Repair Source

Auto Repair Source provides service and repair information for thousands of vehicles, from 1974 to the present. The database includes step-by-step repair information, diagrams, maintenance schedules, parts and labour estimates, service bulletins and recalls, and more. All content comes from the original equipment manufacturers (OEM).

BC Assessment

BC Assessment produces independent, uniform and efficient property assessments on an annual basis for all property owners in the province.

BC Codes

Full text of the BC Building Code, Fire Code, and Plumbing Code for 2018 and past years. Access from home or mobile. In-branch access is no longer required.

BC Laws

BC Local Community News

Bringing BC’s communities together. News from around the province.

BC Stats

Statistics and reports on BC’s population, labour market, economy, business and more.

Business Plans Handbook

Actual business plans compiled by, and for, entrepreneurs seeking funding for small businesses. Presents sample plans taken from businesses in the manufacturing, retail and service industries which serve as examples of how to approach, structure and compose business plans.

Business Source Premier

Business Source Premier provides comprehensive coverage in all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, accounting, banking and finance. Additional full-text, non-journal content includes market research reports, industry reports, country reports, company profiles and SWOT analyses.

Canadian Newsstream

Full text access to over 500 BC and Canadian newspapers. Titles include the Vancouver Sun, The Province, Times Colonist, Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, Calgary Herald, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, and Winnipeg Free Press. Content for some titles starts from the 1970s. Canadian Newsstream is updated daily.

Easy access to back issues of local Vancouver Island newspapers: great for genealogists!

For home access to the Globe and Mail:

1. Launch Canadian Newsstream
2. Search Publications for “globe and mail”
3. Select the second result, with “Full text coverage: Nov 14, 1977 – present”, to open the Publication Information page
   
4. Click on the link to “Latest available issue”, e.g. Mar 24, 2020
   
5. Or scroll down the page to find links to back issues
6. Articles are listed individually, sorted by page order

Career Cruising

Career Cruising programs help people build more purposeful futures by assisting with career exploration and planning. This database offers career assessment tools, detailed occupation profiles, and comprehensive post-secondary education information.

Consumer Health Complete

Health and wellness from mainstream medicine to complementary, holistic and integrated medicines.

Consumer Reports

New database! Consumer Reports provides trusted ratings and reviews, recommendations and buying advice for thousands of products and services.
Subjects include:

• Appliances
• Cars
• Babies and kids
• Health, fitness and food
• Home and garden
• Money

Creativebug

Have a look at this introductory video by Creativebug to learn more.

Creativebug is an art and craft education resource for web and mobile apps. There are thousands of online video classes taught by leading instructors. Categories include:

Encyclopedia of British Columbia

Historical and contemporary information about BC. The Encyclopedia of British Columbia is the definitive reference work on British Columbia. With more than 4,000 entries and 1,500 accompanying photographs, maps, charts and tables, as well as sound and video clips, the EBC is the source of readable and authoritative information on significant British Columbian people, places and things.

Explora for Kids

Explora is an EBSCO database designed for kids. You can search for thousands of topics covering a wide range of subjects including art and music, literature, language arts, geography, history, social studies, world cultures and languages, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, health and sports. This is a great homework tool!

First Voices Language Archive

Thousands of text entries in many diverse Aboriginal writing systems, enhanced with sounds, pictures, and videos.

Flipster Magazines

Explore over 1,400 magazine titles in this Flipster trial from EBSCO. Includes popular Canadian and international titles like Cosmopolitan, Maclean’s, People, Sports Illustrated, and Time. Browse categories for Art & Design; Business; Entertainment; Fitness & Health; Food & Cooking; Home & Garden; Science & Technology and more. Browse French and Spanish language titles.

Login with your library card number. For mobile: download the app, search for and select “Vancouver Island Regional Library” and login with your library card number.

Freegal Music

Freegal (‘free & legal’) music provides access to the entire catalogue of Sony Music Entertainment, owner of many music labels. Freegal will work with any MP3 player and is PC and Mac compatible.

Cap:

Each library member can download five songs or two music videos per week.

Gale Home Learning

Gale, a leading educational publishing company, is offering free access to resources for teaching and learning. Resources include:

• Educational resources for students from Pre-K through Undergraduate
• Social emotional learning (SEL) resources
• Information on health and global issues

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Find eBooks for business, health, religion, and science topics. Find information on cultural topics like fashion and food. Includes titles from the Experiments for Future STEM Professionals series.

Gold Books Used Vehicle Guide

Sanford Evans Gold Book listings provide detailed information on cars, trucks, snowmobiles, motorcycles, ATVs, and personal watercraft for a broad range of model years.

Grant Connect

Grant Connect is offering a work from home service for Canadian charities. The sign-up form requests a charitable business number. Information and a link to the form here: https://imaginecanada.ca/en/wfhcommunityedition

New database! Grant Connect is a grant funding information database. With Grant Connect, you have access to:

• Over 11,000 Canadian foundations, 560 corporate giving programs, 370 government grant programs, 120 American foundations, and 200 other kinds of grant opportunities.
• Funder profiles that offer insights on specific grant programs, application preferences, financial summaries, and key decision-makers.
• Data on billions of dollars in past donations.

Hobbies & Crafts Reference Center

Find information on your favourite hobby or pastime, from toys and collectibles to model-building, arts and crafts, electronics and games.

Hoopla

Hoopla lets you borrow digital audiobooks, movies, and television shows. You can stream in your browser or download and enjoy offline on your phone or tablet.

Hoopla are offering a selection of titles that do not count towards the library’s daily service cap or your borrowing limit. Click here to browse the selection; use available options to limit results or change the sort order.

Cap:

Each library member receives 6 check outs per month. VIRL has a daily service cap for Hoopla, which overrides available check outs. This cap resets at midnight daily.

IndieFlix

This streaming movie service provides unlimited access to award-winning shorts, feature films, and documentaries from major festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca, Cannes. Thousands of films to choose from across more than 50 countries.

Indigenous People of North America

Indigenous Peoples: North America sources collections from across Canadian and American institutions, providing insight into the cultural, political and social history of Native Peoples from the seventeenth into the twentieth century.

Kanopy

Kanopy is a video streaming platform for libraries with one of the largest and most unique collections in the world. It features more than 26,000 movies, documentaries, and indie and foreign films from hundreds of producers, including The Criterion Collection, The Great Courses, Kino Lorber, PBS and thousands of independent filmmakers. Browse by subjects to explore and expand your interests.

Cap:

Each library member receives 6 checkouts (play credits) per month. VIRL has a monthly service cap, which overrides available checkouts. This cap resets on the 1st of the following month. Kanopy Kids and the Great Courses require no play credits. The message “Access is temporarily unavailable” or “This film is not available at your library yet” indicates that the library has reached its monthly budget cap.

KnowBC

KnowBC is the online portal for Harbour Publishing, an independent publisher based on the Sunshine Coast that focuses on British Columbian coastal history and culture. KnowBC features the Encyclopedia of British Columbia, along with essential publications and natural history field guides for the Pacific Northwest Coast, including

• The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names
• Far West: The Story of British Columbia, a provincial history for younger readers
• A Field Guide to Birds of the Pacific Northwest
• A Field Guide to Medicinal Wild Plants of Canada
• A Field Guide to Shells and Shellfish of the Pacific Northwest
• Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Encyclopedia of Invertebrates, Seaweeds and Selected Fishes
• Raincoast Chronicles 20: Lilies and Fireweed: Frontier Women of British Columbia

Knowledge Network

Knowledge Network, is a Canadian publicly funded educational cable television network serving the province of British Columbia. The station supports lifelong learning for children and adults by providing quality, commercial-free programming through its broadcast channel, websites and apps. Knowledge Network also invests in documentaries and children’s programs produced by independent filmmakers with more than 40% of their programming budget supporting original stories told by BC and Canadian filmmakers. Download their app and stream their content for free!

Lynda.com

Lynda.com is an online learning platform featuring video courses and tutorials. Lynda.com offers courses with a focus on skills for business, creative industries, education, information technology, software, and web development. The tutorials are high quality and led by industry experts.

Lynda.com includes topics, software skills, and learning paths for the following subject areas:

• 3D +Animation
• Audio + Music
• Business
• CAD
• Design
• Developer
• Education
• Information Technology
• Marketing
• Photography
• Video
• Web

Mango Languages

Language learning database designed to equip you with conversational abilities. Mango immerses you in real, everyday conversations in 45 different language courses. Some of the languages include: Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

MasterFILE Premier

Popular full text magazines covering virtually every subject area of general interest, including an Image Collection of over 350,000 photos, maps and flags. Access to Consumer Reports is included as well.

National Geographic Kids

Reputable, authoritative, and appropriate content that brings children aged 6-14 the world in a way they’ve never seen it before. Fun and substantive, National Geographic Kids will take them on amazing adventures in science, nature, culture, archaeology, and space.

National Geographic Virtual Library

National Geographic Virtual Library gives access to the complete archive of National Geographic magazine — every page of every issue — along with a cross-searchable collection of National Geographic books, maps, images and videos.

Naxos Music Library

Listen online to over two million tracks of various music genres: classical, blues, jazz, folk and world music.

Naxos Music Library – Jazz

All jazz, all the time. Listen online to an entire album or search for your favourite song or performer.

Naxos Music Library – World

Stream a wide range of world music, from legendary historical musical performances to contemporary world music. Almost 10,000 albums available, representing over 32,000 artists, 1500 cultural groups and 150 countries. Includes the complete Smithsonian Folkways catalogue.

Naxos Sheet Music Library (in-branch only)

By using the Naxos Sheet Music Library, users can search and download printable scores from the database of over 35,000 works.

NoveList Plus

Discover your next favorite book! Finish a great book and looking for more? NoveList’s librarian-created read-alike suggestions and appeal mixer can help. Search from home. Link to the library’s catalogue. Then borrow and read.

OverDrive

OverDrive is our most popular eBook and eAudiobook platform. All you need to get started is your library card and an internet connection. Download the Libby App for a simple and easy experience downloading eBooks and eAudiobooks for free.

Cap:

Each library member receives 10 check outs and 10 holds at any one time.

• Information on OverDrive’s new “deliver later” feature for holds is here: help.overdrive.com/en-us/2265.htm

OverDrive for Kids

OverDrive is our most popular eBook and eAudiobook platform and we’ve a space just for kids! All you need to get started is your library card and an internet connection. Download the Libby App for a simple and easy experience downloading eBooks and eAudiobooks for free.

Cap:

Each library member receives 10 check outs and 10 holds at any one time.

• Information on OverDrive’s new “deliver later” feature for holds is here: help.overdrive.com/en-us/2265.htm

OverDrive for Teens

OverDrive is our most popular eBook and eAudiobook platform and we’ve a space just for teens! All you need to get started is your library card and an internet connection. Download the Libby App for a simple and easy experience downloading eBooks and eAudiobooks for free.

Cap:

Each library member receives 10 check outs and 10 holds at any one time.

• Information on OverDrive’s new “deliver later” feature for holds is here: help.overdrive.com/en-us/2265.htm

PebbleGo

Includes the following three databases: PebbleGo Animals, Science, and Dinosaurs. These databases are for children from preschool to grade 3. Easy navigation and text make learning fun!

Points to the Past

Research portal to access searchable primary source material, including maps, photos, newspapers, manuscripts, pamphlets, portraits, sermons, poems, and more. Includes historical newspaper collections from 17th & 18th centuries; archives for the Economist, Punch, the Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and more; collections from Associated Press, the British Library, and the Smithsonian.

PressReader

The world’s largest online newspaper and magazine kiosk, where you can browse and read hundreds of full-content premium newspapers and magazines from around the globe.

Access to the Globe & Mail is in-branch only. Canadian Newsstream provides access to the Globe & Mail from home.

Please note that access to PressReader requires library customers to provide first and last name and email address to authenticate use. For more information, contact info@virl.bc.ca or review PressReader’s Privacy Policy here.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg offers over 54,000 free eBooks: Choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, especially older works for which copyright has expired. Project Gutenberg digitizes and diligently proofreads them with the help of thousands of volunteers.

RBdigital Audiobooks, Magazines & Videos

RBdigital has thousands of downloadable audiobooks and magazines, and offers streaming video from Acorn TV and IndieFlix. There is a small collection of eBook classics too. The audiobook collection has been expanded as of April 6, with approximately 30,000 unlimited titles — no holds, not waits.

Road to IELTS: General Edition

Road to IELTS: General Edition is the official, online IELTS (International English Language Testing System) preparation and practice database prepared by the British Council, for people learning English who need to pass the exam for educational, immigration, and occupational purposes.

RomanceBookCloud

RomanceBookCloud offers a great collection of romance eBooks. No limits, no wait lists. Browse by category; search authors, titles or genres; or click on Index to see all titles. Access and read through your browser.

Small Engine Repair Center

Online tool for small engine repair assistance, including: ATVs, commercial mowers, farm tractors, generators, motorcycles, marine (boats), outdoor power equipment, PWC (personal watercraft/jet ski), snow blowers, snowmobiles, tillers and other small engines.

TeenBookCloud

TeenBookCloud (aka TumbleBookCloud) has 600 titles for middle and high school readers! This collection contains a wide range of audiobooks, classics, graphic novels, novels, poetry, and short stories! National Geographic videos are available too.

Note: The TumbleBookCloud app no longer works with library sign in. For mobile device users, please tap Launch for browser access to the web platform. A new app is being developed by the vendor.

TumbleBookLibrary

Update: TumbleBooks is providing free access, no card required. Click on the Launch button to open.

An online collection of animated picture books, audiobooks, graphic novels, children’s classics, early reader chapter books, and National Geographic videos. A great resource to teach kids the joy of reading in a format they’ll love!

TumbleMath

TumbleMath is a collection of math picture books, complete with animation and narration, for grades K-6. The books are accompanied by supplementary materials such as lesson plans and quizzes. Access and read in your browser.

Click here for a guide for parents on using TumbleMath at home (pdf).

Vehicle Safety & Inspection Standards Online (in-branch only)

Provides current access to vehicle safety and inspection standards and related BC legislation from official sources.

Xwi7xwa Library

Xwi7xwa Library is a centre for academic and community Indigenous scholarship at the University of British Columbia. Its collections and services reflect Aboriginal approaches to teaching, learning, and research. Access archival material, research guides and more online at Xwi7xwa Library.