ARCHIVES AND INDEXES
General --
Non-English Language --
Specialty
There's a vast range of online literature beyond what we index individually
on The Online Books Page. Below we list some of the major sources and
indexes of free online texts, in all languages, both general and specialized.
General
These are large, general-purpose collections with substantial English-language
listings. For archives that mainly carry other languages, see the
non-English languages archive listings.
We break these out into categories:
Large-scale repositories --
Significant indexes and search aids --
Significant smaller-scale archives
Large-scale repositories
These are big collections of texts, big enough to act as small library-like
collections in their own right. The threshold for inclusion here may rise
over time. Listed alphabetically.
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Google Books (page images of 10,000,000+ fully readable volumes, plus many more copyrighted books available via excerpts and snippets)
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HathiTrust Digital Library (3,000,000+ freely readable titles, and additional search-only titles, from Google and elsewhere)
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Internet Archive Ebooks and Texts (20,000,000+ freely readable volumes; page images and some transcriptions)
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Project Gutenberg (over 70,000 items, mostly book transcriptions)
Significant indexes and search aids
The sites below primarily provide
search engines, indexes or useful link lists for finding online books.
Significant smaller-scale archives
Everything else we see worth listing that doesn't fit in
more specialized categories.
Non-English Languages
Specialty Archives
These are listed by category:
Academic Presses and Institutions --
Agriculture --
Architecture --
Art and Crafts --
Audio --
Blacks --
Books, Printing, and Publishing --
Children --
Comics and Graphic Novels --
Computing --
Dissertations --
Drama --
Economics --
Film, Televison, and Radio --
Folklore --
Historical --
Home Economics --
Literary --
Military --
Music and Dance --
New Original Works --
Occult and Paranormal --
Philosophy --
Poetry --
Politics, Government, Law --
Portable Reader Editions --
Regional --
Religion --
Science, Technology, Social Science and Math --
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror --
Serials --
Sports, Games and Recreation --
Textbooks and Instructional Materials --
Women
Academic Presses and Institutions
Some presses and academic institutions have put a substantial number of free online books on their site.
They are listed below.
- ANU Press (800+ open access ebooks, with print copies for sale, from the Australian National University)
- AU Press (100+ open access ebooks in English and French, with print copies for sale, from the Athabasca University in Canada)
- Bloomsbury Open Access Titles (190+ open access academic books)
- Bristol University Press (40+ open access books)
- CaltechAUTHORS books (200+ open access books from Caltech authors)
- CORE (aggregation of millions of open access research texts, including some books)
- Digital Culture Books (50+ free current and recent titles from the University of Michigan Press)
- Directory of Open Access Books (17,000+ open access academic books from 300+ publishers; JavaScript required)
- Fordham University Press (40+ open access backlist books)
- Georgetown University Publications (80+ volumes from Georgetown University Press, many from Georgetown's Round Table on Languages and Linguistics)
- Gutenberg-e (36 open access monographs from Columbia University Press and the American Historical Association)
- JSTOR Open Access eBooks (5000+ titles from various academic publishers, many also available on publisher sites)
- Manchester Openhive (200+ open access books, 3 open access journals)
- Monash University Publishing (60+ open access books)
- MIT Press Open (100+ open access books)
- National Academies Press (9000+ free online books in sciences and social sciences)
- NYU Press Open Square (70+ titles, mostly from the 1990s)
- OAPEN Library (9000+ open access books in humanities and social sciences from various scholarly publishers)
- Ohio State University Press Open Access initiative (70+ free online books in humanities and social sciences; additional free OSU Press titles, mixed in with some information on recent in-print books not yet online, are here)
- Project MUSE Open Access books and journals (1800+ books and 5 journals from various university presses)
- Purdue University Press Books (50+ open access titles)
- SpringerOpen open access books (about 1000 titles published 2010-present)
- Sydney Open Library (50+ open access titles from Sydney University Press)
- UCL Press (University College London: 30+ free academic books)
- University of Adelaide Press (40+ free academic books)
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University of Calgary Press Open Access Books (100+ titles)
- University of California Press:
- Luminos (70+ post-2014 books, released open access upon publication)
- UC Press E-Books 1982-2004 (700+ free pre-2005 books under "public books" advanced search option)
- University of Georgia Press Georgia History Ebooks (49 books on Georgia history, mostly mid-20th century)
- University of Hawaii Press (80+ open access books and journals)
- University of Michigan Press Open Access (200+ free academic books)
- University of Minnesota Library Publishing Services (journals, books, textbooks)
- University of Minnesota Press Open Access titles (150+ free scholarly monographs)
- University of Ottawa Press Open Access Publications (80+ open access books, in English and French)
- University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions (700+ free scholarly monographs, 1938-2004)
- Utah State University Press Publications (100+ free scholarly monographs)
- Wayne Open Books (50+ free academic books)
Agriculture
Architecture
Art and Crafts
Audio
Black Writers and Subjects
Books, Printing, and Publishing
Children's Literature
Comics and Graphic Novels
Computing
Dissertations and Theses
Drama
Economics
Film, Television, and Radio
Folklore
Historical
This section includes general or wide-area historical archives and
indexes. For sites that focus on a particular country, state, or
region, see the regional section.
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Blue Mountain Project (Historic avant-garde periodicals; at Princeton)
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British Library
Treasures in Full and Digitised Manuscripts
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Center of Military History (historical books and documents by the US Army)
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Chief George Manuel Memorial Indigenous Library (Indigenous studies digital documents; at cwis.org)
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De Re Militari (medieval military history)
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Digitized Medieval Manuscripts (index of 500+ libraries with digitized manuscripts)
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Disability History Museum Library (books, images, and other artifacts)
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Early Americas Digital Archive (at Maryland)
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ETANA Core Texts (Near Eastern text archive)
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France-Angleterre, 700-1200 (800 medieval manuscripts)
- Google News newspapers (most are historic and from the US and Canada, but some are newer or from elsewhere)
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History of Economic Thought Archives (at McMaster)
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The Internet Classics Archive (Greek and Roman texts)
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Internet History Sourcebooks (at Fordham)
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LacusCurtius: Into the Roman World (history of ancient Rome: at Chicago)
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Libro (Iberian historical resources, at the Univ. of Central Arkansas)
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The Luminarium (medieval - 17th century English literature)
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The Medieval and Classical Literature Library (at mcllibrary.org)
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Missionary Research Library Pamphlets (3000+ works about various parts of the world, from Columbia)
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Nineteenth Century Schoolbooks (at Pitt)
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Online Historical Directories (and newspaper links; most free, some by subscription)
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ORB Library (medieval texts)
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Perseus Project (classical Greek texts in translation; at Tufts)
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Renascence Editions (16th-18th century texts, ed. by Richard Bear)
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Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection (thousands of pamphlets at Cornell)
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Schulze-Greenleaf Library (250+ 16th-century printed books; at Northwestern)
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Sid Lapidus Collection on Liberty and the American Revolution (2700+ books and other documents, mostly British and American)
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Spirit of America Digital Collection (800+ 18th century pamphlets and almanacs, mostly imported from outside America)
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Victorian Women Writers Project (at Indiana)
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Witchcraft Collection (at Cornell)
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World Digital Library (digitized heritage materials from all countries)
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World War I Document Archive (at BYU)
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World War I Pamphlet Collection (at Penn)
- Yizkor Books (Holocaust memorial books; at NYPL)
Home Economics
Literary
See also historical (for literature from a
certain period),
and new original works (for web-published literature)
and poetry.
Military
Music and Dance
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An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490-1920 (at Library of Congress)
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ChoralWiki / Choral Public Domain Library (thousands of choral scores)
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Historic American Sheet Music (3000+ pieces, 1850-1920: at Duke)
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IMSLP Petrucci Music Library (500,000+ scores, 50,000+ recordings; in Canada)
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IN Harmony: Sheet Music From Indiana (10,000+ pieces from various Indiana institutions)
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Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection (30,000+ pieces of American popular music; at Johns Hopkins)
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Library of Congress Digital Collections with sheet music (40+ collections with over 100,000 pieces)
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Mutopia (2,000+ newly formatted scores of classical music, free to reuse)
- Sheet Music Consortium (search for 250,000+ sheet music items from 40+ institutions)
New Original Works
These archives have substantial collections of material that has been first
published
first on the Net, or that appeared on the Web shortly after their
original publication. See also Wikipedia's article on
Web fiction, which
mentions or indirectly links to a number of sites featuring online writing
from amateurs and professionals.
Occult and Paranormal
Philosophy
Poetry
Politics, Government, Law
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African Activist Archive (thousands of documents, images, and other materials on 20th century African political activism; at Michigan State)
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American Radicalism Collection (at MSU)
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The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School (historic law-related texts)
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Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (at GPO; includes digital and print)
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CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room (declassified CIA reports, documents, and histories)
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Congress.gov (US laws and legislation; see also US Congress Bulk Data Set on Bills)
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Congressional Research Service reports:
Official site --
EveryCRSReport
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Constitutions of the World Online (1000+ constitutional documents; in Germany)
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Council on Foreign Relations reports (250+ publications on US-international issues)
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Debs collection of political pamphlets (hundreds digitized from a collection of 2000+ print pamphlets; at Indiana State)
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Early American Marxism (covering 1864-1946; at marxisthistory.org)
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Fabian Society Online Archive (500+ British tracts, 1884-2000)
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Georgetown Law Library digital collections (historic legal dictionaries, law journals, etc.)
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GovInfo (searchable index to US government documents)
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Hamlyn Lectures series (law lectures, 1949-recent; in the UK)
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International Humanitarian Law: Treaties and Documents (at icrc.org)
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Legal Information Institute (index to law text resources; at Cornell)
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Lehman Lee Law Library (Chinese laws and commentary)
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Marxists.org Internet Archive (at marxists.org)
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Online Library of Liberty (1000+ full text books and pamphlets, sponsored by Liberty Fund, Inc.)
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OpenCRS (public access to research reports on current political events prepared for the US Congress)
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Reason in Revolt: Source Documents of Australian Radicalism (in Australia)
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Socialist History Project (primary sources and recent essays on Canadian socialism)
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Spunk Library (anarchist and related texts; in the Netherlands)
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Trial Pamphlets Collection (contemporary accounts of 17th-19th century US trials; at Cornell)
Portable Reader Editions
- Feedbooks (thousands of public domain titles in EPub, Mobi, Kindle, and other formats)
- Manybooks.net (over 25,000 titles formatted for PDAs, Kindles, Iphones, and other devices)
- Microsoft Reader Free eBooks (for PocketPC and Windows platforms; for-pay books also offered)
- PalmPilot E-Text Ring (80+ sites featuring free or for-pay texts formatted for Palm readers)
- Qvadis Library (free texts in proprietary Palm format; requires purchase of reader software)
- A few sites make many of their titles available in popular formats
for portable devices, as well as standard Web formats. Notable sites in this category include
the Baen Free Library.
Regional
Books concerning various regions can also be found
in general resources in the historical section.
- Africa:
- General and multinational:
- Egypt:
-
Egyptian journals (free articles in 500+ titles, at Egyptian National Library and Archives)
- South Africa:
- Asia:
- General and multinational:
- Burma (Myanmar):
- China:
- India:
- Israel:
- Japan:
- Korea:
- Persian Gulf region:
-
Qatar Digital Library (modern history and culture of the Gulf area, in English, Arabic, and other languages)
- Philippines:
- Singapore:
-
BookSG (rare publications on Singapore and vicinity from the National Library of Singapore; most but not all free to read in full)
- Turkey / Ottoman Empire:
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Wikilala (digitized printed texts from the Ottoman Empire)
- Europe:
- General and multinational:
- Austria:
- Belgium:
- Germany:
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ZEFYS (historic German and German-language newspapers)
- Hungary:
- Ireland:
- Poland:
- Spain:
- United Kingdom:
- North and Central America:
- Canada:
- Caribbean Area:
- United States:
- General:
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Alcohol, Temperance, and Prohibition (US anti-alcohol history, 1800s through 1933; at Brown)
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America at War, 1941-1945 (Army Talks and G.I. Roundtable pamphlets; at University of Richmond)
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American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement (at Wisconsin)
- American Prison Newspapers, 1800s-Present: Voices From the Inside (open access at JSTOR)
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Antislavery Literature (historic and contemporary slavery narratives and commentary; at eserver.org)
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Center of Military History (historical books and documents by the US Army)
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Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (at Library of Congress)
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College, University, and High School Yearbooks (free yearbooks from schools around the US)
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Early American Marxism (covering 1864-1946; at marxisthistory.org)
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Historic Government Publications From World War II (at Southern Methodist University)
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Historical Newspapers Online (various US newspapers inside and outside the LC collection above)
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Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930 (at Harvard)
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Japanese-American Internment Camp Newspapers, 1942-1946 (at LC)
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Library of Congress Digital Collections (historical texts and other media, mostly US-related)
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Making of America (mid-19th century American texts)
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National Park Service History (at nps.gov)
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NewspaperCat: Catalog of Digital Historical Newspapers (from the US and the Caribbean; at the University of Florida)
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Primary Source Documents Pertaining to North American History
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Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection (thousands of pamphlets at Cornell)
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Sid Lapidus Collection on Liberty and the American Revolution (2700+ books and other documents, mostly British and American)
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U.S. Telephone Directory Collection (at the Library of Congress)
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Women Working, 1870-1930 (women in the US economy; at Harvard)
- US regions:
- US states:
- Alabama:
- Arizona:
- Colorado:
- Connecticut:
- Florida:
- Georgia:
- Hawaii:
- Illinois:
- Kansas:
- Kentucky:
- Louisiana:
- Minnesota:
- Mississippi:
- Nevada:
- New Jersey:
- New York:
- North Carolina:
- Ohio:
- Oregon:
- Tennessee:
- Texas:
- Utah:
- Vermont:
- Washington:
- Wyoming:
- Oceania:
- South America:
Religion
Science, Technology, Social Science, and Math
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror
Serials
The following are some major directories of open-access serials.
See also our
own serials listings.
Sport, Games, and Recreation
Textbooks and Instructional Materials
Women
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The Inside Story
Edited by John Mark Ockerbloom (onlinebooks@pobox.upenn.edu)
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