LibGuides: Full-Text Digital Collections: Collections of Collections

Digital Collections

What are digital collections?

They are collections of books, documents, manuscripts, and other texts and images that are completely available online. Images may also be included, such as photographs, maps, artwork, sheet music, and text page images. Some of these are available for download and printing; others can only be viewed online. Some are arranged into online exhibits around a theme; others are searchable by key word, date, or other criteria.

Best Bets

The largest collections of free online full-text books and documents.

Project Gutenberg
Over 57,000 free ebooks.
Bartleby.com
Bartleby is named for a "scrivener" or professional copyist, from a short story by Herman Melville. This site offers a wide selection of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. It includes the Harvard Classics.
Digital Collections of the Library of Congress
Materials spanning the collections of one of the largest libraries in the world.
Digital Public Library of America
Growing collection of primary sources, documents, images, and more from museums, libraries, and archives across the United States.
Internet Archive - Texts
Originally designed as a "way back machine" for websites, Internet Archive has branched out to offer access to major full-text digitization projects.
LibriVox
Provides free audio files of classic literature and other works in the public domain.

Google Books (& magazines)

Google Books now includes full text of several popular magazines, including Life Magazine. You'll see Magazines when you browse the categories, or use the Advanced Search to search by title or to narrow to magazines only (or books only).

Large Collections A-Z

Collections: Digital Library Program
Indiana University's digital library includes Victorian women authors and the papers of the songwriter, Hoagy Carmichael.
Columbia University: Digital Library Collections
Columbia University has several outstanding collections included, among them: dictionaries of the languages of Asia and women's history.
Cornell University Library Digital Collections
From hip-hop to ornithology and mores - Includes New York and American history, as well as scientific materials.
Digital Collections
UCLA Library
Digital Collections
From the Albertsons Library Special Collections at Boise State University.
Digital Collections of the Library of Congress
Materials spanning the collections of one of the largest libraries in the world.
The Digital Library: The New York Public Library
Includes "The African American Migration Experience."
Digital Public Library of America
Growing collection of primary sources, documents, images, and more from museums, libraries, and archives across the United States.
Duke Digital Collections
Duke University Libraries Digital Repository
Hathi Trust Digital Library
Scanned volumes from major libraries.
Internet Archive - Texts
Originally designed as a "way back machine" for websites, Internet Archive has branched out to offer access to major full-text digitization projects.
MIT Libraries: Digital Collections
MIT's collections include sheet music in PDF format and both American and Islamic architecture files.
Online Exhibits
University of California - Berkeley.
Project Gutenberg
Over 57,000 free ebooks.
Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image
This University of Pennsylvania Library site includes the NEH - funded collection "The English Renaissance in Context" that contains multimedia tutorial on four Shakespearean plays as well as four on the history of the book.
Stanford University - Online Exhibits from the Digital Collections
The University of Chicago Library: Digital Library Activities
Digitized collections from Chopin to environmental photography.
World Digital Library
Primary source documents, literature, art and other materials of significance to cultures worldwide. Sponsored by the United Nations and cultural institutions.
Bloomsbury Open Access
Open access (free full text) books from a well-known academic publisher.