You’ll sometimes find it necessary and worthwhile to pay for documents required in your research. The following information isn’t meant to discourage that practice. Rather, it’s offered to help you locate free online resources to bolster your writing and to fascinate and inspire you.
The Directory of Open Access Journals links to free, full-text articles in more than 3,000 scientific and scholarly journals, approximately one-third of which are searchable.
The Library of Congress furnishes reference tools for researchers and makes certain digital collections, such as its exhibitions, available on the Web. Its American Memory collections include, for example, scanned images of the Walt Whitman Notebooks, which were recovered in 1995, more than half a century after vanishing from the library.
Another service provided by the Library of Congress is the Virtual Reference Shelf, a directory of external links for researchers, writers, and students.
The Internet Public Library (IPL) is currently hosted by Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology and maintained by a consortium of colleges and universities. The information in this blogpost was requested by a writer who will appreciate the IPL’s history collections.
You can obtain a free trial membership to Footnote, an appealing social networking site for those who want to make original documents available on the Web. Footnote has partnered with the National Archives, which provides free access to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration’s digitized government and historical records.
Noesis is a “limited area search engine for open access, academic philosophy.”
Intute: Social Sciences, which links to online resources evaluated for quality and reliability, is a service provided by a group of UK universities and partners.
Moving Image Collections offers a catalog of titles and a directory of collections of moving images and supports preservation, education, and research.
[Updated on April 5, 2009] The World Digital Library is a free, multilingual resource for significant primary sources, including manuscripts, rare books, music, maps, recordings, films, and photographs.
[Updated on November 22, 2009] Hathi Trust is a repository for the U.S. academic research libraries listed here. Approximately 15 percent of its content is in the public domain.
[Updated on November 25, 2009] Central and Eastern European Library Online (CEEOL) is an archive of full-text articles from 340 journals in humanities and social sciences, including literary and cultural journals, from Central and Eastern Europe.
Examples don’t adequately describe the variety of records and documents you can obtain, mostly without charge, through these sources. If the list looks intimidating, don’t forget that you pay taxes so you’ll have a talented librarian available to answer questions at your local public library. I hope you don’t have any overdue library books or unpaid fines.
Inevitably, some journal articles will be found only in databases that require a subscription or charge a fee for individual downloads. Your local public library probably has a subscription to the database service and may offer library cardholders free access through the library’s website as well as in person.
Wikipedia links to a number of directories that can help you find the library best suited to your research. You need not apply for membership to the library near your home. The New York Public Library, for example, currently charges a $100 annual fee to issue nonresident library cards to adults who do not live in New York State.
Tags: libraries, library, online research, professional journals, scholarly journals, scientific journals
Wed, 9 Jan 2008, at 2:15 am |
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ve always wanted to have a New York Public Library card—no really, I meant to get one when I lived there, but never did. As I proceed with my historical novel, I’m discovering that, surprise, I have to have my history facts! Who’da guessed? The trick now, of course, is to step gently away from the reference books and articles, which I adore, and actually get writing! If not, my editor will “out” me as a recalcitrant slacker. Boy, do I have some surprises in store for her!
Wed, 9 Jan 2008, at 11:12 am |
I really enjoyed this article and found it so helpful. I bookmarked over half of the links you’ve listed.
Wed, 9 Jan 2008, at 2:36 pm |
Glad to be of help, Mel.
T.T., you’ll want to make the acquaintance of David Smith of the New York Public Library after you read Sam Roberts’ recent article about Smith in the New York Times.
Thu, 7 Feb 2008, at 3:33 am |
Thanks for these great research links. I looked up something to do with my book group and found what I wanted straightaway.
Marsha http://writingcompanion.wordpress.com
Fri, 12 Sep 2008, at 1:09 pm |
Bob Robertson-Boyd at OCLC pointed out the blogpost “25 Awesome Beta Research Tools from Libraries Around the World.”
The History Cooperative is another site well worth visiting for online history scholarship. I learned of it via the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities RSS feed.