University of Toronto Libraries Books Online

[D.H. Mattison]

December 22, 2004

I found out yesterday that the University of Toronto Libraries has a
collection called Books Online with 461 public domain titles they've
digitized from their own holdings and freely available. The texts can be
keyword-searched or you can browse the holdings by author or title. They
welcome user suggestions with the caveat that they must own the book and it
must have been published before 1920. The titles are an eclectic blend of
works dating from at least the late 1500s to the 1920s. The site brings to
mind the excellent work by the Göttingen State and University Library's
Center for Retrospective Digitization
(http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/en/index.html).

How many other large research libraries in North American are engaged in
digitizing public domain books from their own holdings and making them
available online for free?

David Mattison
Victoria, BC, Canada
dmattison at shaw.ca
Tiki Wiki Hut: http://www.davidmattison.ca/tiki
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British Columbia Digital Library: http://www.bcdlib.tc.ca