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Your Library in the Cloud:
A Guide to Using Digital Collections


Few physical libraries can match the vast collection of volumes on the Internet. It can be difficult, however, to dig deep into these online libraries. This session will help you find documents relating to your families and the places they lived.

Sample sites accessible from your home

Internet Archive
From hundreds of libraries, scans of all of the books that are officially out of copyright

Internet Archive Wayback Machine
To recover files from old sites

Open Library
More than a million free titles

HathiTrust Digital Library
One of the largest mass digitization projects, with more than five million book titles.

Google Books
Mass digitization project features full access to material that is out of copyright.

JSTOR
A "scholarly journal archive" with selected scholarly journals back to the first date of publication up to recent years.

Europeana
A vast project digitizing and archiving online the contents of European museums and archives.

European Library
Tying in with Europeana, with quick access to 48 national libraries.

Manuscripts Online
Written culture 1000 to 1500

Trove -- National Library of Australia
More than 300 million Australian and online resources, including books, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, diaries and letters, and more.

Fulton History
You don't have to run a big library to have an impressive website -- you just need to be passionate.

Site-specific Google Search
Enter your search term, plus "site:" followed by the URL of the site you want to search.

Sample sites accessible at institutions

Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
Early European Books (EEB)
Early American Imprints
America's Historical Newspapers
The American West
American State Papers, 1789-1838
American Broadsides and Ephemera
Discovering American Women's History Online
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
Defining Gender, 1450-1910
Vogue Archive
First World War Personal Experiences
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers 19th and 20th Centuries
London Low Life
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive
State Papers Online: Government of Britian 1509-1714

Newspapers
(Accessible through institutions or on an individual basis)

New York Times 1851-1922
Washington Post
Canadian Newsstand
Illustrated London News
Times (London)
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers
19th Century British Library Newspapers
America's Historical Newspapers
19th Century U.S. Newspapers
Chronicling America (Library of Congress)
California Digital Newspaper Collection
Historical Newspapers in Washington State
African-American Newspapers


Updates? Corrections? Better examples? Send an e-mail to Dave

Updated March 17, 2018


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