America’s Story from America’s Library a young person’s information site; easy to navigate, lots of pictures and many fun facts about America; a pleasant way to become adquainted with The Library of Congress
Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE University of California at Berkeley offers many helpful databases and sub-sites including The American Heritage Project, Incunabula Database, Historic Topographic Maps of California, Emma Goldman’s papers and a digital literature library in full text to name just a few
Bibliotheque nationale de France national library of France; has catalogue search feature for English-speakers
The British Library (London) national library of the British Empire: holdings include all printed materials relating to the English language from Beowulf to yesterday’s London Times
Cambridge University (England)
although Cambridge libraries have long been known for specializing in the sciences, they have vast holdings in the humanities as well
Trinity College Library (Cambridge University)
Magdalene College Library (Cambridge University) houses Samuel Pepys’s papers and his famous “Diary”
Carnegie Mellon University Libraries (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) features such diverse Special Collections as a Pittsburgh Architecture archive, The Posner Collection of history books and documents, robotics and artificial intelligence papers, glass objects, Swiss posters, calligraphy and 300 editions of The Night before Christmas
Clifton Waller Barrett Library (University of Virginia) nearly-comprehensive collection of American literary works published from 1775 to 1875 as well as letters and other papers of Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whitman, Dreiser, Alcott, Hemingway and Steinbeck
Digital Public Library of America - new link – 2 million+ books, articles and photographs from large and small libraries across America
Folger Library All Things Shakespeare – The Elizabethan Era in general – History of the Stage
Harvard University Libraries (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
Widener Library specialties include: folklore, recordings of poets reading their own works and stage theater history
Houghton Library specialties include: 17th century English books, Keats’s papers, Tennyson’s papers as well as hand-written manuscripts of Conrad, Hardy, Trollope, Lawrence, the papers of DeQuincy, Beerbohm, Kipling, Ruskin and Thackeray. American holdings include the papers of Emerson, Melville, Longfellow, Holmes, Dickenson, Lowell and Thomas Wolfe.
HTI Alphabetic List of Resources The Humanities Text Initiative; in partnership with The University of Michigan and others; provides links to full text library resources
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (University of Texas at Austin) acquires, preserves and makes available original cultural material for the purposes of scholarship, education, and delight
The Huntington Library (San Marino, California): Library and museum specializing in the history of the book: manuscripts, icunabula and printed books from the medieval illuminated manuscript to the “Ellesmere edition” of The Canterbury Tales to the papers of Wallace Stevens
Internet Christian Library helpful guide to Christian organizations, schools, libraries, periodicals and recordings of sermons and lectures
The Internet Public Library deceptively simple looking hub; actually contains thousands of helpful resources including free eBooks, reference works, maps, online periodicals, blogs, study aids for kids, how-to videos, literary criticism guides and much more
Library of Congress (Washington D.C.) America’s national library and the largest library in the country – houses two copies of every work of intellectual property copyrighted here since 1870 and most of what was published before that; millions of artifacts and unpublished papers relating to the history of our nation; searchable online catalogue of holdings is a great place to start in building a List of Works Cited for research papers
libdex: Guide to Online Library Catalogues search thousands of library catalogues in 150 countries for their holdings
The Lilly Library (Indiana University at Bloomington) 16th and 17th century literature
Making of America “a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the Antebellum period through Reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. [...] 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.”
The New York Public Library
5th & 42nd ( Stephan A. Schwarzman Building ): Second largest library in America: specializes in writers associated with New York
Berg Collection strengths: 19th century British and American authors
Pierpont Morgan Library specializes in rareties: ancient and medieval (including illuminated) MSS, first editions, finely bound books as well as letters, journals, handwritten manuscripts, illustrations and music scores of Milton, Pope, Blake, Keats, Byron, Dickens, Ruskin, E. B. Browning, Stevenson, Twain and Gilbert & Sullivan.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture focus on African American literature and history
The Newberry Library (Chicago) features large collection of periodicals and the papers of Sherwood Anderson
The Ayer Collection specializes in Native American studies
The Wing Collection word and image archives, the history of printing and type
Oxford University (England)
Oxford College Libraries 46 Oxford colleges, 46 libraries
The Bodleian Library: Oxford University Chief library of Oxford University; actually a network of 30 libraries; not quite as large as the British Library, but 150 years older and one of the top libraries in the world for English language studies
Other Oxford Libraries 35 more libraries associated with Oxford University, each with its own specialty
Polk County Library Cooperative local public library network available to Cambridge students; searchable catalogue to all county libraries, including The Lakeland Public Library, Auburndale, Bartow, Bookmobile, Dundee, Eagle Lake, eLibrary, Genealogy, Ft. Meade, Frostproof, Haines City, Lake Alfred, Lakeland Branch, Lake Wales, Mulberry, Polk City and Winter Haven libraries; inter-library loan service available
Princeton Seminary Library major objective is to acquire a comprehensive collection of the basic works of world theology; contains he Karl Barth research collection and the Abraham Kuyper collection of Dutch Reformed Protestantism
Raynor Memorial Libraries (Marquette University) holdings include most of J. R. R. Tolkien’s manuscripts, typescripts and illustrations for his own published works
Redeemer University College Library features online assistance for writing research papers; home to The Charlotte Mason Digital Collection
Roux Library – Florida Southern College (Lakeland, Florida): fine, local scholarly library; added bonus of being housed in a lovely building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s students
University of Florida Libraries (Gainesville, Florida) One of the best research libraries within a day’s driving distance of Cambridge Study Center
University of South Florida Libraries (Tampa, Florida) largest scholarly library in central Florida
Yale University
Sterling Library (Yale University):
strengths: Late 18th century British literature, especially Walpole, Johnson and Boswell.
19th century holdings include first editions and manuscripts of Carlyle, Ruskin, Mill, Arnold, George Eliot, Meredith and Stevenson.
20th century archives feature vast collections of papers of Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O’Neill and Ezra Pound.
Worldcat very helpful searchable database for locating what specific works are held by specific libraries
[ We are grateful to Richard D. Altick (1915-2008) for the annotations of these links. ]