Selected Sources for Electronic Texts
Issued 2003
This factsheet presents a selected list of sources for electronic texts. The
online files are in a variety of formats ranging from plain text to digital
audio and digital braille. Most can be downloaded and read offline.
Electronic
braille materials can also be embossed. Sites vary with regards to
accessibility and questions should be directed to the sites' webmasters. The
web site address is given for each entry and telephone numbers and e-mail
addresses are provided, when known, for further information.
Provides high-interest low-reading level digital text in HTML to individuals with a documented disability that prevents reading standard print. Also serves government and nonprofit schools and rehabilitation centers. Has $49.95 annual subscription fee.
Has a collection of free public domain documents from American literature, English literature, and Western philosophy. Books are in PDF and text formats.
Includes forty-five hundred audiobooks and fourteen thousand other audio programs in a broad range of subjects that can be downloaded to a computer. Readers can listen immediately, transfer files to an audio player, or burn them onto a CD. Items are spoken-word audio in a proprietary audible.com format. Cost: $14.95-$19.95 per month.
Publishes the classics of literature, nonfiction, and reference books free of charge. Includes books of quotations, the 1914 Oxford edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, the Columbia Gazetteer, Gray's Anatomy, and Strunk's Elements of Style. Books are offered in various proprietary e-book formats.
Offers free online literature of classic fiction, drama, poetry, and short stories and contemporary articles and interviews. Most books are in HTML format.
Provides digital books in a broad range of subjects to United States residents who have a visual or other print disability. Requires completion of an online form, proof of disability, and payment of $25 sign-up fee and $50 annual subscription. Books are in text format and contracted braille. Most text files are presented with XML markup and the site includes tools for reading these files.
Has books at all grade levels that are submitted by teachers and transcribers; the site is maintained by the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Access is password-protected and limited to individuals who have a visual or other print disability and to members of a nonprofit organization or governmental agency that provides specialized services to such individuals. Books are in MegaDots, Duxbury, and ASCII format.
Contains free literature for which copyright protection has expired. Presents these works in eight categories: fiction, nonfiction, drama, children, poetry, Shakespeare, short stories, and classical. All books are in HTML; includes a plain-text format that eliminates most graphics.
Combines a free online archive of tens of thousands of SGML- and XML-encoded electronic texts and images in the humanities with a service at the University of Virginia Library that offers hardware and software suitable for the creation and analysis of text. Most material is in SGML or XML; site includes tools for reading these file types.
Publishes (i.e., owns the electronic rights to certain eBooks) and distributes (sells eBooks from other ePublishers) fiction and nonfiction in various eBook formats. Costs range from 49 cents for short stories to $4.99 and up for lengthy works. Books are in a variety of proprietary e-book formats.
Has more than two thousand books, stories, poems, plays, and religious and historical documents in HTML format. Readers can read online at no charge or can purchase the entire collection on CD-ROM for $19.99.
Contains over one thousand titles of electronic braille books, including classics and publications of the National Federation of the Blind. Files, which are in contracted braille ASCII format, may be read online or downloaded for viewing offline or embossing.
Includes over twenty thousand online books, stories, essays, poems, articles, dramas, letters, and speeches that are freely available online. Material is in text and HTML format.
Offers more than thirty-seven thousand eBook titles in subjects such as arts, business, history, literature, religion, science, and technology to academic, public, and corporate libraries that purchase a collection of titles. Patrons must create an account with an affiliated library in order to access the collection. Books are in a proprietary e-book format.
Includes more than nineteen thousand English works that are available online
at no charge. Has a listing of foreign language and literature resources and
an archive of serials. Books are in HTML.
Has hundreds of free classic books that are in the public domain, including United States historical documents and presidential inaugural addresses. Books can be read online one page at a time.
Has three types of free texts: light literature such as Peter Pan, serious
literature such as the Bible and works of Shakespeare, and reference works
such as Roget's Thesaurus and almanacs. Most books are in text or HTML
format; a few require proprietary e-book reading software.
Has a collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social
sciences selected by professional collection development librarians. Uses
dynamic HTML and Javascript. Offers monthly ($24.95), quarterly ($49.95),
and annual ($129.95) subscription plans.
Has more than five thousand digital books in Spanish that registered members can download using their personal password. Includes a small but growing number of books in English, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese.
Provides braille magazines produced by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), press-braille books produced by NLS since 1992, and braille music scores. Access is password-protected and limited to NLS patrons (residents of the United States or American citizens living abroad who have a visual or other print disability) and eligible institutions. Files, which are in contracted braille ASCII format, may be read online or downloaded for viewing offline or embossing.
Maintained by Margaret Vail Anderson, a librarian in Cortland, New York.
Has links to electronic text centers in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Provides a clearinghouse for writers to place their electronic literature online. Readers can download a book to a computer hard drive or obtain on CD-ROM; price varies by size of the file.
Has links to historical and literary sources from different time periods in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.
Lists Internet sources for literary texts in western European languages other than English.
Has links to general collections; classics and history; constitutions, laws, and treaties; economics; literature, drama, and poetry; mythology and folklore; philosophy; and religion.
Has links to a variety of topics, such as country studies, the Irish famine,
Mark Twain, the Vatican files, and World War I.
Includes the American Verse Project, different versions of the Bible, and The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (hosted for the Abraham Lincoln Association).
Provides humanities-related electronic texts via the Internet and in the LETRS
Includes American Memory: Historical Collections that consists of primary source materials relating to American culture and history; Country Studies with the full text of handbooks on ninety-one countries; and Meeting of Frontiers, presented in both English and Russian, that tells the story of the exploration and settlement of the American West and of the Russian Far East and Siberia.
Includes links to electronic texts, virtual encyclopedias, virtual newspapers, and fast facts such as almanacs, quotations, and thesauri.
Selected BibliographyWashington: Library of Congress, National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped, 2003. 2p. Free.
www.loc.gov/nls/reference/factsheets/webbraille.html
http://www.loc.gov/nls/reference/factsheets/webbraille.html
Compiled by
Carol Strauss
Reference Section
Judy Dixon
Consumer Relations Officer
NLS Home Library of Congress Home
Updated on ... November 27, 2006