Virtual Library
Links to full text books, pamphlets, newspapers and historical documents on the World Wide Web
Contents:
Methodology:
The Costs of Digital Imaging
This article, by NARA staff member Steve Puglia, appeared in the October 15, 1999 issue of RLG DigiNews. Links to several recent reports on the costs of digitization are provided by the author.
Digital Preservation
The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, or Digital Preservation Program for short, addresses questions being raised about the preservation and accessibility of electronic media.
Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress
Commissioned by the National Research Council and made available by the National Academy Press.
Getting the Picture: Observations from the Library of Congress on Providing Online Access to Pictorial Images
This article, by Caroline R. Arms, was originally published in Library Trends, vol. 48, no. 2, Fall 1999, pp. 379-409.
Guidelines for Digital Imaging
A paper presented by Paul Ayris, Director of Library Services at University College London, at the Joint Research Libraries Group (US) and National Preservation Office (UK) Conference.
Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial
From the Cornell University Library Department of Preservation and Conservation, a comprehensive tutorial on digitizing and preserving documents.
Preservation Management of Digital Materials
Preservation Management of Digital Materials, published by the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), provides in-depth coverage of the procedures and issues encountered in the course of creating and storing digital documents.
Selecting Research Collections for Digitization
By Dan Hazen, Jeffrey Horrell, and Jan Merrill-Oldham for the Council on Library and Information Resources
Selection Criteria for Preservation Digital Reformatting
From the Preservation Reformatting Division at the Library of Congress, this site provides guidelines for selection criteria for digital reformatting.
Selection Guidelines for Preservation
A paper by Janet Gertz, Director of Preservation at Columbia University, for the Joint RLG and NPO Preservation Conference.
The State of Digital Preservation: An international perspective
This collection of conference proceedings was published by the Council on Library and Information Resources, July 2002.
University of California Selection Criteria for Digitization
A list of criteria recommended to guide collection development librarians and preservation librarians in selecting collections of analog materials for conversion to digital format.
What is an RMA?
This NHPRC grant project is developing records management application (RMA) software to help users file and manage electronic records.
Why the Archives introduced digitisation on demand
This article in the RLG Diginews, 6:4 (August 15, 2002), focuses on the National Archives of Australia and its digitisation on demand program.
Digital Collections:
The Avalon Project
(Yale Law School)
Documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government.
A Chronology of US Historical Documents
(University of Oklahoma Law Center)
A small select list including laws, treaties, constitutions and charters, inaugural addresses and other speeches, a collection of early American newspapers and historical U.S. Flags.
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History
(Maintained at the University of Kansas)
Selected documents from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century.
Foreign Relations of the United States: Electronic Facsimile
(University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Search or browse through selected issues of the FRUS volumes. UWM continually adds volumes to the database.
Historical Text Archive
Although it is not a comprehensive database of all important American documents, it is certainly one of the most useful general history sites available. Most materials are original historical texts and online secondary source research materials.
Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States
(Maintained by the Bartleby Library, Columbia University)
Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library
(Library of Congress)
Documents from the Robert Todd Lincoln Family Papers kept in the Manuscript Division, and the Alfred Whital Stern Collection I the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
The Making of America
University of Michigan Site
Cornell University Site
(A collaborative project of the University of Michigan and Cornell University to select and scan approximately 8,500 primary materials with imprints between 1850 - 1877 at the Michigan and Cornell libraries documenting American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.)
Subject-oriented Virtual Collections:
African American History: Digital Library
This site links black history information in libraries across the country. Subjects range from personal papers and manuscripts to sheet music to transcripts of speeches.
African-Americans- Biography, Autobiography, and History
This web site, hosted by the Avalon Project at Yale Law School, makes accessible a number of full-text books by notable Black authors including Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Censored: Wielding the Red Pen
The most recent online exhibit at the Special Collections Digital Center at the University of Virginia Library focuses on "books, films, music, and works of art [that] have been suppressed, altered, expurgated, bleeped, blackened, cut, burned, or bowdlerized."
The Cold War: Digital Library
Online documents relating to the Cold War.
Documenting the American South
This collection of sources on Southern history, literature, and culture from the colonial period through the early part of the 20th century is sponsored by the University of North Carolina's Academic Affairs Library.
Documents in the News
(University of Michigan)
Includes a cumulative index of documents in the news from 1995-2003. This site identifies issues about government making news headlines and web sources with additional information.
Indian Affairs: Laws & Treaties
Oklahoma State University Library's Digitization Project was praised by the Scout Report as "an excellent project and a superb example of the utility and potential of free electronic reference information." This seven-volume edition, covering the years 1778-1970, is edited by Charles Kappler, and makes the legal text of all treaties between the U.S. Government and the Indian nations easily accessible.
Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library
(Library of Congress)
Recent Reports Arranged by Title
(The United States General Accounting Office)
Social Science Virtual Library
(Gene R. Thursby, University of Florida)
Thomas Jefferson Digital Archives
From the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia, this site features over 1700 items, including some color manuscript images. It also covers online resources for Jefferson's life, writings, and legacy.
Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869
This Library of Congress site incorporates 49 diaries of pioneers trekking westward across America. The source materials are drawn from the collections of Brigham Young University, members of the Utah Academic Libraries Consortium, and other archival institutions in Utah, Nevada, and Idaho.
Up from Slavery: An Autobiography of Booker T. Washington
The founder of Tuskegee Institute's autobiography is available online.
Virtual Law Library
(Indiana University School of Law Library and the World Wide Web Virtual Library)
Virtual Library: Russian Battlefield, 1920-1945
World War I: Digital Library
WWW Virtual Library on Knowledge Management
The World Wide Web Virtual Library: Naval and Maritime
(U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Online Community)
E-Book Collections (Full-text):
Alex Catalog of E-Texts
(University of California, Berkeley)
A full-text collection of digital documents collected in the subject areas of English literature, American literature, and Western philosophy.
BookWire Index to Online Publishers
Annotated index of publishers of electronic books.
Electronic Text Collection
(University of Virginia)
Choose "Collections" link on left-hand side, and then browse through books in 15 languages.
The Internet's Coming of Age
This timely new book from the National Academy Press explains basic design choices that underlie the Internet's success, identifies key trends in the evolution of the Internet, evaluates current and prospective technical, operational, and management challenges, and explores the resulting implications for decision makers.
Online Texts Collection
(Internet Public Library)
This site contains over 13,000 titles that can be browsed by author, by title, or by Dewey Decimal Classification.
Open Directory E-Books
Online Books Page
(University of Pennsylvania)
Over 11,000 listings for online books.