The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. The CMS deals with various aspects of editorial practice, from American English grammar and usage to document preparation. It also prescribes writing and citation styles widely used in publishing. The platform offers the full contents of the most recent two editions.

The Oxford English Dictionary is a guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words and phrases, both present and past, from across the English-speaking world. It traces the usage of words through 3.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts, song lyrics and social media posts.

Oxford Handbooks Online is a collection of handbooks in 17 subject areas, bringing together the world's leading scholars to write review essays that evaluate the current thinking on a field or topic, and make an original argument about the future direction of the debate. For the first time, all Handbooks are available online as well is in print across the subject areas. Monthly updates introduce articles in advance of print publication and beyond the book, online-only content ensures the most current, authoritative coverage anywhere.

Various dictionaries are available.

The SpringerLink platform provides MPG staff with access to a huge collection of English and German eBooks from 2005 onwards, as well as the English and the German collection of the Springer Book Archive (1842-2004). In addition, the content of selected book series is available. Includes major reference works and dictionaries. Max Planck researchers who publish a monograph or edited volume with Springer Nature as an Open Access eBook receive a discount on the standard Book Publishing Charge. MPDL covers the costs remaining on a pro rata basis. Further details are available on the MPDL website.

Wiley Online Library Books feature over 15,000 scholarly and professional books, handbooks, dictionaries, companions and landmark book series from Blackwell Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, and Wiley-VCH. From this collection, a set of more than 1,000 e-books was purchased for users from the Max Planck Society. This selection is continuously extended by single e-book acquisitions by MPG libraries. In addition, the MPG purchased 9 electronic Major Reference Works and the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences.