Free access to 65,000 19th century books

The British Library and JISC Collections have announced the launch of JISC Historic Books, a new website developed by Mimas for researchers and students that includes recently digitised editions of more than 65,000 books from the British Library’s extensive 19th century collections.

Amounting to more than 25 million pages the resource spans subject areas including history, philosophy, poetry and literature, with the original typeface, illustrations and fold-out pages for each book. Many rare or inaccessible books published between 1789 and 1914 are now digital, discoverable and searchable for the first time, enabling their use by many more scholars and researchers than has been possible before now.

Institutions pay a single service fee to access the material, with content then free at the point of access for students, researchers and academics. More than 140 institutions have already joined the service, which is also available via the British Library’s reading rooms.

Visit www.jiscecollections.ac.uk for more information.