Medieval source material on the internet: Some internet libraries

Paul Halsall's Internet Medieval Sourcebook (Fordham University) provides an unparalleled list of online medieval documents at different websites, from which many of those below are taken. The list is worldwide in scope, and in addition to complete works there are hundreds of individual extracts. The whole collection is searchable.

A large number of books available online are listed at the On-Line Books Page (University of Pennsylvania)

Other major online publishing projects are:

• Google Books
  An ambitious project to digitise more than 8 million volumes over the next few years. The text of the books is searchable, and out-of-copyright works are fully accessible. There is more limited access to works still in copyright.
• Internet Archive: Text Archive
  Offers access to around half a million electronic texts from different collections, including books scanned under the auspices of the Open Content Alliance, Project Gutenberg and part of the Universal Digital Library. The Internet Archive is also collaborating in the development of the Open Library, which aims to be to the library catalogue what Wikipedia is to the encyclopaedia.
• Gallica and Gallica 2 (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
  The original site offers more than 90,000 scanned books in PDF format (including many relating to medieval England). The new site includes works whose text is searchable, as well as newer books still in copyright, for which there is limited access.
• Project Gutenberg
  More than 25,000 electronic texts, searchable by keywords.
• The Universal Digital Library (Carnegie Mellon University)
  Originally known as the Million Book Collection. Includes more than 1.5 million electronic texts, though most of these are in Chinese, and many others are still in copyright, and available only for limited access.
• Digital General Collection (University of Michigan)
  Collection of more than 20,000 out-of-copyright books. Page images and electronic texts, with powerful search options.

And the following smaller projects include material relevant to medieval England.

• British History Online (Institute of Historical Research/History of Parliament Trust)
• Digital Collections (Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University)
  Large collection of digital texts in PDF format. Searches for keywords can be performed for individual texts, for particular collections, or for the whole library. The most relevant collections for medieval genealogy are "Family Histories - Medieval" and "Family Histories - Medieval 2".
• Richard III Society Online Library
• Online Medieval and Classical Library, Berkeley University
• The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies, Georgetown University
• Digital Collections: Text Collections (University of Virginia Library)
• Oxford Text Archive (contains additional relevant texts which are available 'offline')
• Early Manuscripts at Oxford University (images of manuscripts, including early Welsh and Irish texts with genealogical content)
• Medieval and Modern Thought Text Digitization Project (Stanford University)
  Includes some very useful material, but only as PDF files containing whole volumes, so most will be accessible only to those with fast Internet connections.
• The Original Record
  An extensive database of hand-indexed records, including many published medieval sources. There is a free search facility for occurrences of a surname within a specified range of dates, and wildcards can be used to allow for spelling variations. The lists of results identify the sources, so that the database can be used as a finding aid by those with access to good reference libraries (real or virtual). For others, scans of the published records can be viewed online for a fee (typically between 2 and 6 pounds per volume).

Another important resource is the AHDS History Collections, which provides digital resources relating to historical research or teaching. The collections include several sets of data relating to medieval England. Some are available for free download, and others are supplied on CD or floppy disc. As the collections are intended primarily for academic use, a charge may be made to non-academics.