The open-access reference collections are arranged across three rooms: the main, middle and Electronic Resources Reading Rooms.
Main Reading Room
In the main Reading Room, you will find:
- Almanacs, chronologies and year books including Whitaker's Almanack and the Statesman's Year book.
- Bibliographies and guides to newspapers and periodicals including the British Union Catalogue of Periodicals (BUCOP), the complete series of Newsplan Reports, the complete series of the Bibliography of British Newspapers and the Waterloo Directories.
- Biographical guides including Who's Who and, Who Was Who.
- News Digests including Keesing's Record of World Events and Facts on File.
- Press Directories including complete sets of Benn's Media (and its predecessor, the Newspaper Press Directory) and Willings Press Guide and Sell's Dictionary of the World Press.
- Recent editions of the UK Press Gazette.
Middle Reading Room
In the middle Reading Room you will find:
- Indexes to UK, Irish and US newspapers and periodicals including the British Humanities Index (and its predecessor, the Subject Index to Periodicals), the Official Index to The Times, Palmer's Index to The Times, the Times Literary Supplement Index, and the New York Times Index.
- Monograph collection on the history and development of the UK and overseas newspaper and magazine press. This collection includes histories of individual newspapers and biographies of many prominent figures associated with newspapers such as proprietors, publishers, columnists, journalists and cartoonists.
Electronic Resources Reading Room
In the Electronic Resources Reading Room you will find:
- Indexes to overseas newspapers including titles from Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, France, South Africa, and other countries.
- Indexes published in microfilm or microfiche format including indexes to the Guardian 1842-1985 and the Jewish Chronicle 1841-1911, 1947-88.
- The Times microfilm 1875 onwards.
