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Guide to free eresources

Access a list of free eresources selected by our experts, including websites, full text databases, abstracting and indexing databases and other reference sources

Rare books

Bodleian Library Catalogue 

Library catalogue covering the majority of the library collections of the University of Oxford, including the Bodleian Libraries, most College and other libraries affiliated to the University. 

Bodleian Library Pre-1920 Catalogue 

A catalogue of books printed before 1920 which were part of the Bodleian Library's collections before 1988 in all Western languages, including Russian, Hebrew and Greek. 

British Book Trade Index 

Brief biographical and trade details of all those who worked in the English and Welsh book trades up to 1851. 

British Library Bookbindings on Wikimedia commons  

Images and data from the British Library Bookbindings database (presently inaccessible online) can be found on Wikimedia Commons. Click here to download a quick guide to find these. 

British Library Theatrical Playbills 

Gives access to 80,000 theatre posters. It includes high resolution images with searchable text of English, Scottish, and Irish playbills made between 1600 and 1902 (mostly 19th century). 

EEBO-TCP 

Full-text access to more than 125,000 titles. Includes significant English-, Welsh- and Gaelic-language titles printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and elsewhere between 1475 and 1700. 

EECO-TCP 

Full-text access to around 150,000 eighteenth-century titles. Includes significant English-language and non-English-language titles printed in the United Kingdom and former British territories, plus thousands of important works from the Americas.  

English Broadside Ballads Archive   

Digitised broadside ballads from Libraries across the world, including prominent ballad collections from the British Library: Roxburghe, Huth, Bagford, and more.  

English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) - Print and Probability 

Search interface of the records on the English Short Title Catalogue. The ESTC describes printed items published before 1800 in the British Isles, in British colonies, or in the English Language elsewhere. 

e-rara 

 

Digitised printed works from the 15th to 20th centuries from Swiss libraries. Works covered range from books and maps to illustrated materials. 

Heritage of the Printed Book Database (HPB)  

Steadily growing collection of files of catalogue records from major European and North American research libraries covering items of European printing of the hand-press period (c.1455-c.1830) integrated into one file. This makes it possible for information to be retrieved in one single search across all files. As the digitisation of collections in contributing libraries progresses, more and more catalogue records point to digital presentations of the early printed book 

Incunable Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) 

The international database of 15th-century European printing. This records nearly every item printed from movable type before 1501, but not material printed entirely from woodblocks or engraved plates. 

Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog (KVK) 

Book search interface for more than hundreds of million books and serials in library and book trade catalogues worldwide. It is useful for searching for digital surrogates that are freely available online.  

Medical Heritage Library 

A collaborative digitisation and discovery organisation committed to providing open access resources in the history of healthcare and the health sciences. 

Scottish Book Trade Index 

Lists the names, trades and addresses of people involved in printing in Scotland up to 1850, including printers, publishers, booksellers, bookbinders, printmakers, stationers, and papermakers. 

Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC)   

Collective database of books published in Europe between the invention of printing and the end of the 16th century.