ONLINE LIBRARIES

 

  • Europeana is a search platform to a collection of European digital libraries with digitised paintings, books, films and archives. The project was initiated by the European Commission. The project aims to have 10 million works (3.4 mil books) by 2010, when Europeana becomes fully operational. http://europeana.eu

 

 

 

 

 

  • Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." Founded in 1971, it is the oldest digital library. www.gutenberg.org

 

 

 

  • Internet Archive: The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission: "universal access to all knowledge." It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and books. The Internet Archive was founded in 1996 in San Francisco, 2.5 million texts. www.archive.org

 

  • Literary Kicks is a digital library of poetry and prose, biography and cultural criticism chiefly focused on Beat Generation writers. Founded in 1994, the site has since expanded to cover a wider range of literary genres, from ancient literature to contemporary fiction and poetry, and hosts literary discussions, poetry boards, workshops and a digital library of articles, resources and texts.www.litkicks.com

 

 

  • The World Digital Library (WDL) is an international digital library operated by UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress. The WDL has stated that its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet, provide resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences, and to build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and among countries. It aims to expand non-English and non-western content on the Internet, and contribute to scholarly research. The library intends to make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish: www.wdl.org

 

 

  • MICHAEL: Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe: This web portal offers simple and quick access to the rich variety of digital collections from museums, libraries and archives in different European countries. All sorts of cultural heritage material are described including physical material that has been digitized (such as photographs, archive documents, maps, objects, archaeological monuments) as well as material that was created using digital equipment (such as sound recordings, video, scientific data). www.michael-culture.org

 

  • International Children’s Digital Library. The ICDL Foundation's goal is to build a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world. The Foundation aims to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children's literature from the world community. http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

 

 

 

  • Ibiblio is one of the largest "collections of collections" on the Internet providing freely available information, including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies. ibiblio.org is a collaboration of the School of Information and Library Science and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.: http://www.ibiblio.org/index.php

 

  • The Internet Public Library (IPL, ipl2) is a non-profit, largely student-run website at Drexel University. Visitors can ask a reference question. Volunteer librarians and graduate students in library and information science form collections and answer questions. The IPL opened on March 17, 1995. www.ipl.org