Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF), open to the general public around the world since 1997. It serves as a digital encyclopedia and consists of: printed materials (books, journals, newspapers, printed music, and other documents), graphic materials (engravings, maps, photographs, and others), and sound recordings. Gallica makes it possible to find sources that are rare, unusual, out-of-print, or difficult, if not impossible, to access. These materials are royalty-free when used strictly for private purposes.
Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal
"The National Library of Portugal is Portugal's largest library and a reference institution in the cultural scene, ensuring the collection of the national bibliographic heritage, its processing and preservation, making it available to the intellectual and scientific community, through new technologies, ensuring literature online, from anywhere in the world. Encompassing diversified funds covering documentation of all ages, types and subjects, the collection of the National Library of Portugal is evolving through legal deposit, acquisitions and donations, with of course, a focus on Portuguese literature. The collections of BNP are locally accessible to all national or foreign researchers of 18 years and older and those with Card Reader, as detailed in the Access General Regulations. Access can, in many cases, take place in other libraries through the interlibrary loan service or directly online, in the case of works already digitized by National Digital Library."
The European Library is an independent not-for-profit library services organisation. Its mission is to be THE open data hub for library data in Europe.
Becoming a member of The European Library
Should you wish to learn more about the membership benefits, please visit our Membership page and fill out the Membership Form.
What is The European Library?
The European Library is an online portal that offers easy access to the collections of Europe's national libraries and an expanding range of research libraries. It aims to meet the needs of researchers worldwide by providing the ability to:
What is the relationship between The European Library and Europeana?
The European Library is the aggregator of digital content from national libraries for Europeana. We deliver digital content from our member libraries on a monthly basis to Europeana. Some human and technical resources are also shared between the two organisations.
What kind of material can I find?
You can access bibliographic records, digital and multimedia content. These items are sometimes hosted directly on The European Library website. In other cases, there is an "access online" link that will take you to the object on the website of the contributing institution. In addition to individual records, we highlight content that is grouped around various themes and subject headings. This can be in the form of an online exhibition, such as Reading Europe, or as a special collection.
Does the full-text search allow me to search the entire text of books?
Our full-text search allows you to find documents, books and other material for which the complete text is available online. In some cases, the full text of these objects can be searched via The European Library website. In other cases, the full text of an object that appears in the search results may only be available on the provider's website.
Is there a cost to access items?
The majority of items are free to access.
Do you hold physical copies of books?
The European Library is a virtual library. We give access to metadata and content from libraries across Europe via our search box but we do not hold physical material. All original objects are held by our contributing partners.
How can I download objects?
The European Library is a portal that locates material held by Europe's national, university and research libraries. When material is available to download, this is best done via the website of the providing library. Clicking the "available at" or "access online" links on the individual record pages will take you to the library's website.
What copyright is associated with objects?
Many items are in the public domain but where copyright exists, it is held by the contributing national and research libraries. Copyright questions about individual objects should be directed towards the library that holds the original object.
Deutsche National Bibliothek "The German National Library (DNB) is entrusted with the task of collecting, permanently archiving, bibliographically classifying and making available to the general public all German and German-language publications from 1913, foreign publications about Germany, translations of German works, and the works of German-speaking emigrants published abroad between 1933 and 1945. The DNB maintains co-operative relations on the national and international level."
"The DNB provides access to Germany's cultural and scientific heritage in the form of publications issued since 1913. It is an institution which provides a wide variety of services: not only as a public reference library in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main, but also as a producer and provider of a broad spectrum of services for libraries, scientific institutions, publishers, book retailers and, not least, for individual users.
Many of the DNB's services can also be used directly via the Internet. Users looking for information have direct, centralised, digital access to the holdings 24 hours a day. The DNB offers a further range of specially adapted services via the Internet for libraries and publishers".
Biblioteca Nacional de Espana The National Library is the leading information and documentation center on the Spanish and Latin American written, graphic and audiovisual culture. Its collections include various formats, such as bookplates, books, engravings, manuscripts, maps, posters, videos, etc. Go to http://www.bne.es/es/Colecciones/