Books and Texts Online
Thirty-nine databases of reliable, in-depth, and current information. Always the best place to start for quality resources. You will need to log in with your regular user name and password. Teacher Database Page.
Large General Collections
Digital Public Library of America
"Brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world."Oxford Academic Open Access Titles
"The following titles have been made available as open access publications under a Creative Commons licence. As open access publications, these books are free to read and download on OUP online platforms as well as from OAPEN and Google Books.""An open textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants and SUNY Geneseo.""Complete, full-text versions of scholarly journals from many of the world's leading universities and scholarly societies. Currently, Project MUSE has over 700 journals from 125 publishers and offers over 60,000 books from more than 100 presses. All books are fully integrated with Project MUSE's scholarly journal content, with collection and single title purchasing, subscription, OA books/MUSE Open and evidence-based acquisition models available.""New York [State] residents ages 13 and older can get a digital library card through our online card application and gain access to an array of digital resources.""Free public domain ebooks that are carefully typeset, cleaned of ancient and irrelevant ephemera, take full advantage of modern ereading technology, are formatted according to a detailed style guide, and that are each held to a standard of quality and internal consistency."A site from Australia offering high-quality ebooks in the public domain under Australian law. In rare cases a title may NOT be in the public domain in the U.S. "Please be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading."From a librarian at the University of Pennsylvania."Manuscripts, maps, rare books, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other types of primary sources." From libraries, museums, and archives around the world.Back to Top
Specific Subjects, Authors, or Genres
International Children's Digital Library
Read children's books in 54 languages free and online."The National Academies Press (NAP) was created by the National Academy of Sciences to publish the reports of the National Academy of Sciences,National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council, all operating under a charter granted by the Congress of the United States. The NAP publishes more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering.NYS World Language Standards Initiative: Authentic Resources
This Wakelet provides you access to collections of and information about authentic resources. Highlighted in New York State World Language Standard 1: Interpretive Communication, authentic resources can motivate and support students' target language use and cultural understanding.From the University of Michigan: "assembling an electronic archive of volumes of American poetry prior to 1920." With multiple search options."The classics of literature, nonfiction, and reference free of charge for the home, classroom, and desktop of each and every Internet participant.""Dive into the rich world of Shakespeare with our full-text, interactive editions of his plays. myShakespeare replaces traditional footnotes with multimedia resources for the 21st-century student."16th Century Renaissance English Literature (1485-1603)
"Read our fluid text edition of Walden to understand Thoreau’s process of composition across the seven existing manuscript versions of the work. See the changes he made to any one version and compare changes across versions."Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture
Harriet Beecher Stowe.Primary and secondary sources on Greece and Rome, the English Renaissance, the history of London, and much more. From Tufts University. Another excellent site!Resources for Medieval studies from Georgetown University.Classics in the History of Psychology
The full text of classic books and articles in psychology. From York University in Toronto."Over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States." Part of the American Memory Collection.From the Library of Congress.The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online
From Cambridge University.For Investigative Reporting and Emergency Coverage. "While it primarily targets journalists and aid providers, the handbook can be used by anyone. Its advice and guidance are valuable whether you are a news journalist, citizen reporter, relief responder, volunteer, journalism school student, emergency communication specialist, or an academic researching social media."Shakespeare in Chinese Translation
"The Chinese writer Zhu Shenghao translated many of Shakespeare's plays before his untimely death in 1944. There are no comprehensive online copies, so I [Terence Eden]have assembled these from multiple sources. According to Chinese copyright law the rights expire fifty years after the author's death."Back to Top
Screenplays and Scripts
Internet Movie Script Database
"The biggest collection of movie scripts available anywhere on the web. Our site lets you read or download movie scripts for free."Includes multiple drafts of some films.Back to TopOther Kinds of Texts
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Historical collections for the National Digital Library.ALIC: Archives Library Information Center
Vast collection of resources from the National Archives."100 milestone documents of American history.""Provides electronic copies of thousands of interesting Federal Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Fascinating historical documents, reports on items in the news, oddities and fun stuff and government bloopers, they're all here. ""A research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous." A highly respected research organization."CRS is Congress’ think tank, and its reports are relied upon by academics, businesses, judges, policy advocates, students, librarians, journalists, and policymakers for accurate and timely analysis of important policy issues.""The largest, free collection of scholarly journal Tables of Contents (TOCs): 35,837 journals including 17,691 selected Open Access journals and 12,201 Hybrid journals, from 3726 publishers." From Heriot-Watt University."Founded in 1934, Partisan Review magazine was one of the most significant cultural literary journals in the U.S." From the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. The popular science (hence the name) magazine. Search the archives back through its entire 137-year run."This collection focuses on comics created specifically for the web and supplements the Library of Congress’ extensive holdings in both comic books, graphic novels, and original comic art. Webcomics are an increasingly popular format utilized by contemporary creators in the field and often includes material by artists not available elsewhere. Webcomics selected for this collection include award-winning comics (Eisner Awards, Harvey Awards, Eagle Awards, and Shuster Awards) as well as webcomics that have significance in the field due to longevity, reputation, and subject matter. This collection includes work by artists and subjects not traditionally represented in mainstream comics, including women artists and characters, artists and characters of color, LGBTQ+ artists and characters, as well as subjects such as politics, health and human sexuality, and autobiography. The content of these websites is captured as it was originally produced and may include content that is not suitable for all ages." From the Library of Congress.
The Global Webcomics Web Archive is an initiative developed by librarians at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, in partnership (as the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation) with Brown University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. The collection is curated by Karen Green (Columbia) and André G. Wenzel (Chicago). The Global Webcomics Web Archive aims to preserve selected webcomics and creator websites from all over the world in order to assure the continuing availability of these important, and potentially ephemeral, documents for use by researchers and scholars. This initiative intends to preserve webcomics and websites in a wide variety of styles, subjects and themes, in many different languages, created by a diverse group of artists. From the Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation.
Famous monologues for all actors.Back to Top
Sites for Audio Versions of Texts
Voices from the Days of Slavery
Recordings of 23 former slaves telling their stories. Part of the American Memory Collection.Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature
"Listen to audio-recorded readings of former Consultants in Poetry Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Frost; Nobel Laureates Mario Vargas Llosa and Czeslaw Milosz, and renowned writers such as Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, and Kurt Vonnegut read from their work at the Library of Congress." From the Library of Congress."A collaborative project providing online access to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world as well as essays and metadata by scholars and educators in the field."Back to Top