Digitized Books

The Preservation Department of the Kelvin Smith Library offers digital versions of select library materials as an option for access. The original works are either too fragile to permit normal circulation or are in Special Collections. All digital materials can be accessed through the library catalog and from Digital Case. Many of the general collection titles have paper facsimiles available for circulation as well.

Most books digitized by the Preservation Department are in public domain, and were published prior to 1923. The Preservation Department received permission from the publisher to digitize any books still protected by copyright.

If there is a brittle or non-circulating title you feel is important to your research, please contact the Preservation Department. We will make every effort to replace it with a serviceable reformat and will consider its inclusion in the Digital Library.

Digitized Books from KSL's Collections

• The KSL Digital Book Collection provides electronic versions of books from the Library's collections which are rare, brittle, and/or otherwise difficult to circulate. This collection covers a full range of subjects. All of the digital books are available in PDF format. Also included are a growing number of full-text versions encoded in XML, using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI-Lite) Guidelines, and image-based versions will be available soon through an interactive book viewer. In addition to the general subject collection, the KSL Digital Book Collection currently includes two sub-collections, the Books on Cleveland Collection and the ETANA Core Texts. (see below)
• The Books on Cleveland Collection includes electronic versions of books from the Library's collections which focus on the history, government, culture, and people of Cleveland, Ohio.
• ETANA Core Texts offers electronic versions of editions relating to Ancient Near Eastern studies that were selected as being valuable for teaching and research. The books are in PDF format. Many of the books in this collection are from the libraries of other member institutions and were never held by KSL. ETANA (Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives) is a cooperative electronic publishing project of the American Oriental Society, American Schools of Oriental Research, Case Western Reserve University, Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Society of Biblical Literature Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archeaology of Tel Aviv University, State University of New York at Stoney Brook, Vanderbilt University, and Virginia Polytechnic and State University for the Study of the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East.

Links to Other Sources for Digitized Books

• Digital Book Index (A Union Catalog of electronic books, texts, and documents. Over 100,000 free titles.)
• University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center (over 5,000 titles available to the public)
• The Internet Public Library On-line Texts Collection (over 19,000 titles)
• On-line Books Page
• Bartelby.com Great Books On-line
• Project Guttenberg (one of the largest searchable on-line full text sites)
• Google Book Search (a fast-growing collection of searchable full text books from many major college and university libraries)
• Bibliomania (thousands of free on-line texts)