Did you know that Libraries have collections of truly interesting and rare materials? That these libraries often digitize and create online collections accessible to anyone? That because of library websites/catalogs and their interaction with search engines most of this material is impossible to simply stumble upon? Allow me to help you trip, with a selection of awesome digitized archives.
- Cornell University Library Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections’: The Fantastic in Art and Fiction–images and book illustrations of Death, Magic, and the fantastical.
- The Media History Project – non profit dedicated to digitizing public domain news and media on media industries.
- Cigarette Cards at NYPL Digital Gallery – most definitely not the only thing the NYPL Digital Gallery ‘s got going for it, but a fabulous collection just the same.
- Chronicling America at the Library of Congress – American newspapers from 1836 to 1922, digitized and text searchable. Do you understand how fabulous this is? – especially for the genealogical researcher. If you want to add narrative to your family tree all you need is some names, a location, and some time and I bet you’ll find a birth announcement, party coverage in the social columns, news of a legal dispute over property limits, or something. I did.
- The Petrucci Music Library – scores and recordings of public domain music worldwide.
- University of Florida Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature – remember that picture book that you loved as a child, maybe it was the one that your Mom said had been hers when she was growing up. I imagine there is, at least an alternate edition, digital copy of it here. This one’s mine.
- Daguerreotypes at Harvard – I have always been fascinated with Daguerreotypes – one of the first photography methods available for public consumption and still the details it captures have never been equaled. It’s not unusual that the weave of cloth is even visible in these.
Not everyone can be a library however, the Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps Inc. has some fabulous antiquities and curious illustrations to peruse. Some of them may even be affordable to some people. And we can never forget the, ever more fabulous, Internet Archive.