There are extensive online resources which are free to access. The following is only a selection of potentially useful sites.
- Arts-humanities.net: community hub for research and teaching in the digital arts and humanities, with information on projects containing and using digital content
- ARTstor: database of over 1 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and science
- Connected histories: A collection of digital resources in early modern and 19th century British history.
- Gutenberg-e: collaboration between Columbia University Press and the American Historical Association, offering free access to selected e-book titles
- History & Policy: collaboration between the History Faculty of the University of Cambridge, the Centre for History in Public Health and the Centre for Contemporary British History; website includes papers and opinion articles written by historians
- History Data Service: brings together data collections spanning the late 10th to the 20th century. Particularly strong in 19th and 20th century economic and social history. Includes statistics, census records, demographic data and electoral history.
- History Online: Created by the Institute of Historical Research, this initiative indexes books and journal articles, details history lecturers in the U.K., digital history projects, and current and past historical research
- Internet History Sourcebooks Project: collections of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented for educational use
- Internet Text Archive: free online library of over 3 million titles
- Voice of the Shuttle (History): database listing online resources for history, both general and subject-specific
Library catalogues:
- British Library: search nearly 57 million items from the British Library's catalogue
- Copac: merged online catalogues of many major university, specialist, and national libraries in the UK and Ireland, comprising c. 36 million records
University special collections:
- Bodleian Libraries Special Collections: digital images from the Bodleian Libraries Special Collections
- Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship: projects to digitize various of Brown University's special collections; some are completed, some are ongoing
- Cambridge Digital Library: Cambridge University's new digital library; older special collection images can be found at Cambridge University Library Digital Collections
- Harvard University Library Open Collections Program: digital library of six subject-specific, web-accessible collections that can support teaching and learning around the world, comprising over 2.3 million digitized pages, including more than 225,000 manuscript pages; there are also other Harvard collections online
- Princeton University Digital Library: collection of high-resolution digital images of selected materials from Princeton University Library
- University of Exeter Digital Collections Online: University of Exeter's open access repository for images and multimedia; includes images of images of 3D objects, old periodicals, rare books and photos, original artwork, cartoons, manuscripts, postcards, playbills
National libraries, museums and galleries:
- British Library Online Gallery: online access to 30,000 items from the British Library's collections; includes collection highlights and online exhibitions
- British Museum: online highlights from the British Museum; you can also search the collection database, which covers almost 2 million items, of which over 610,000 have one or more images attached
- European Library Exhibitions: online exhibitions of items from European national libraries
- Europeana: paintings, music, films and books from Europe's galleries, libraries, archives and museums
- Gallica Digital Library: digital library of over 1 million books and documents, provided by the Bibliothèque nationale de France
- Library of Congress: website of the Library of Congress, which includes extensive online catalogues and collections
- National Gallery: online collections from the National Gallery
- Victoria and Albert Museum Collections: online collections from the Victoria and Albert Museum
Archives:
- Access to Archives: combined catalogue describing archives held in 418 record offices and other repositories in England and Wales, dating from the eighth century to the present day
- Archive Grid: a major catalogue of historical documents, personal papers and family history material held in repositories around the world
- Archives Hub: national gateway to descriptions of archives of over 180 UK repositories (including Oxford and Cambridge)
- DANGO (Database of Archives of Non-Governmental Organisations): database of archives of U.K. NGOs since 1945
- Janus: combined database of more than 1800 catalogues of archives held throughout Cambridge
- National Archives: website of the UK National Archives, which includes extensive online catalogues and collections; there are in-depth research guides for locating material on particular topics
- National Register of Archives: register of over 44,000 unpublished lists and catalogues, detailing the nature and location of manuscripts and historical records relating to British history; includes research guides for locating material on particular topics
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration: website of the U.S. National Archives; includes online exhibits