Open Access Databases: Archives & Manuscripts

ArchiveGrid includes over 5 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,000 different archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever. The National Archives Catalog searches all web pages on Archives.gov, and presents those pages in the search results along with any catalog records. Researchers will no longer need to perform separate searches for finding aids or other information related to our records on Archives.gov.

NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 550,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.

The Arabic manuscripts collection of the Wellcome Library (London) comprises around 1000 manuscript books and fragments relating to the history of medicine. These manuscripts are part of the Wellcome Library's Asian Collection, which comprises some 12,000 manuscripts and 4,000 printed books in 43 different languages. The Islamic holdings include Arabic and Persian manuscripts and printed books, and a small collection of Ottoman manuscripts and Turkish books. The core of these collections relates to the great heritage of classical medicine, preserved, enlarged and commentated on throughout the Islamic world, stretching from Southern Spain to South and South-east Asia.

Explore the roots of European written culture through manuscripts from antiquity to the early print era.

This catalogue provides a searchable interface to basic manuscript descriptions from some of the major manuscript collections in the UK. Fihrist aims to become a union catalogue for manuscripts in Arabic script. FIHRIST is not a digital Library.

The George and Marion Blydenburgh Papers includes correspondence, photographs, and lantern slides from the Blydenburghs' missionary work in China as well as topical writings (by the Blydenburghs and others), news clippings, reports from the Nanchang Hospital, and publications from the Nanking Language School. The George and Marion Blydenburgh Papers document the work of American missionaries and doctors in China during the 1920s and early 1930s. The collection provides a first-hand account of life in pre-revolutionary China and its increasingly turbulent relationship with Japan in the run up to World War II.

The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world. These cultural treasures include, but are not limited to, manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings. Developed at the Library of Congress with support from UNESCO and contributions by partner institutions world-wide.

A growing image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. Among the participating institutions to this project are the Bancroft Library, the Robbins Collection, and the Hargrove Music Library at UC Berkeley, Columbia University, and the New York Public Library.