Arts & Letters Daily [aldaily.com]
A daily curated digest of articles, book reviews, and essays from across the intellectual press — running since 1998. Philosophy, literature, science, politics, and culture, six days a week.
The Library
Knowledge, wikis, archives, reference, how-tos
Knowledge, wikis, archives, reference, how-tos
A
ASCII Art Archive [asciiart.eu]
A comprehensive archive of over 11,000 ASCII artworks, with interactive tools, animations, and games all built around text-based art.
B
Bibliotheques specialisees de la Ville de Paris [bibliotheques-specialisees.paris.fr]
The specialised libraries of the City of Paris — digital access to rare collections covering history, art, literature, and the humanities.
Bicyclopedia [bicyclopedia.lemoing.ca]
Everything learned working in a bike shop in Australia, drawn and made into an illustrated interactive website.
Biodiversity Heritage Library [biodiversitylibrary.org]
Free access to millions of pages of biodiversity literature — stunning historical natural history illustrations alongside centuries of scientific texts.
British Museum Online Catalogues [britishmuseum.org]
In-depth digital research catalogues from the British Museum covering major areas of their collection.
Bulbapedia [bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net]
The definitive community-written encyclopedia for all things Pokémon — games, anime, manga, cards, lore, and more. One of the most comprehensive fan wikis on the internet.
C
Cambridge Digital Library [cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk]
Digitised collections from Cambridge University Library — rare manuscripts, scientific papers, and historical documents including Newton notebooks.
Capstasher [capstasher.neocities.org]
Personal site of an archival enthusiast who scans old books, documents obscure websites, and deals in antiques.
Club Nintendo Archives [clubnintendoarchives.neocities.org]
A fansite listing and noting UK issues of Club Nintendo magazine from the late 80s and early 90s.
Cultural Japan [cultural.jp]
Discover digital resources on Japanese culture from institutions around the world. Over a million items collected in one platform.
D
David Rumsey Map Collection [davidrumsey.com]
One of the largest online collections of historical maps — over 150,000 maps spanning 500 years of cartographic history in high resolution.
Digital Public Library of America [dp.la]
A single search across millions of images, texts, videos, and sounds from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States.
DigitalNZ [digitalnz.org]
Search over 30 million New Zealand items across 300+ collections in one place — photos, books, newspapers, art, and archival documents.
Dimensions Guide [dimensions.com]
A comprehensive reference of dimensioned drawings documenting standard measurements of everyday objects and spaces.
DreamBank [dreambank.net]
A searchable archive of over 20,000 dream reports from UC Santa Cruz psychology research, spanning dreamers ages 7–74 across multiple studies.
E
Ebooks Gratuits [ebooksgratuits.com]
A large collection of free French-language ebooks in the public domain, carefully formatted and freely downloadable.
Embassy of the Free Mind [embassyofthefreemind.com]
Online catalogue of the Ritman Library in Amsterdam — a remarkable collection of occult, alchemical, and Hermetic works from the Renaissance onward.
Europeana [europeana.eu]
Discover inspiring European cultural heritage — millions of artworks, photographs, books, films, and music from thousands of institutions across Europe.
F
Feedbooks Public Domain [feedbooks.com]
Thousands of public domain books available to read and download — classic literature, philosophy, history, and more.
First Sounds [firstsounds.org]
An archive of humanity's earliest known sound recordings — including voices captured in Paris in 1860, predating the phonograph by nearly two decades.
G
Gwern.net [gwern.net]
A deeply researched personal site by Gwern Branwen — long-form essays on psychology, statistics, AI, self-experimentation, and technology, with meticulous citations and annotations.
H
Harry Ransom Center Digital Collections [hrc.contentdm.oclc.org]
Digital collections from the Harry Ransom Center humanities research library at UT Austin, documenting the creative process of writers and artists.
Heidelberg University Library [ub.uni-heidelberg.de]
Direct access to electronic full-text resources and digital collections from one of Germany oldest university libraries.
K
Killed by Google [killedbygoogle.com]
The Google Graveyard — a community-maintained archive of every product, app, and service Google has discontinued over the years.
L
Library of Babel [libraryofbabel.info]
A digital realization of Borges' infinite Library of Babel. Contains every possible page of text — browse, search, or find any string of characters somewhere in its virtual shelves.
Library of Congress Digital Collections [loc.gov]
Millions of digitised photographs, manuscripts, maps, films, and recordings from the Library of Congress.
LibriVox [librivox.org]
Free public domain audiobooks read by volunteers from around the world. Thousands of titles across every genre.
Littler Books [littlerbooks.com]
Free human-written summaries of 198+ popular nonfiction and self-help books. Concise bullet-point format, no ads, with downloadable PDFs and ebooks for subscribers.
M
Medical Heritage Library [medicalheritage.org]
Free access to seven centuries of medical history — books, journals, and primary sources from the history of medicine.
N
National Diet Library Digital Collection [dl.ndl.go.jp]
The National Diet Library of Japan digital archive — millions of digitised books, periodicals, maps, and historical documents.
NINJAL Historical Textual Resources [dglb01.ninjal.ac.jp]
Historical Japanese textual resources from the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics — primary sources for the study of the Japanese language across centuries.
Nippon.com [nippon.com]
An English-language publication on Japanese culture, society, food, politics, and daily life — with deep archives of well-researched articles.
NYPL Digital Collections [digitalcollections.nypl.org]
Over a million freely available items from the New York Public Library — photographs, maps, manuscripts, prints, and ephemera.
O
Old Games Download [oldgamesdownload.com]
A library of abandonware and retro games available to download for free — classic DOS, Windows, and early console titles preserved for posterity.
P
Playing Soviet [commons.princeton.edu]
An interactive database of rare early Soviet children's book illustrations exploring Russia's political and cultural evolution through graphic arts.
PokémonDB [pokemondb.net]
A clean, fast Pokémon database covering every species, move, ability, item, and mechanic across all generations — the go-to reference for competitive players and fans alike.
Polona [polona.pl]
The Polish National Library digital platform — millions of digitised books, maps, photographs, and manuscripts from Polish collections.
Q
QuickRef.ME [quickref.me]
A community-contributed collection of cheat sheets and quick references for developers. Covers programming languages, tools, databases, keyboard shortcuts, and more — all in a clean, searchable format.
S
Smithsonian Open Access [si.edu]
Download and reuse millions of images from across the Smithsonian 19 museums, research centres, libraries, and archives — all free, no permission required.
Standard Ebooks [standardebooks.org]
Free and liberated ebooks carefully produced with modern typography and rich metadata for the true book lover.
StartMyCar [startmycar.com]
A community-driven car troubleshooting knowledge base. Owners share problems, solutions, fusebox diagrams, warning light guides, and manuals — building a collective reference for every vehicle make and model.
T
The Garbage Collection Handbook [gchandbook.org]
The authoritative handbook on automatic memory management, covering state-of-the-art garbage collection algorithms.
The Geocities Gallery [geocities.restorativland.org]
A restored visual gallery of archived Geocities sites, browsable by neighborhood. A lovingly preserved time capsule of the early web — complete with MIDIs, animated GIFs, and all.
U
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections [search.library.wisc.edu]
Rare and unique photos, books, maps, recordings, and archival documents digitised from across the University of Wisconsin and beyond.
W
Web Design Museum [webdesignmuseum.org]
Thousands of screenshots and videos of websites, apps, software, and Flash games from the 1990s to the 2000s.
Winamp Skin Museum [skins.webamp.org]
A browsable museum of over 65,000 classic Winamp skins — every wild, creative, and bizarre design from the golden age of MP3 players, playable in-browser via Webamp.
Y
YC Safe Financing Documents [ycombinator.com]
Information about startup financing documents, including the SAFE (simple agreement for future equity).
Yushu Stamp Museum – New Issues of Japan [yushu.or.jp]
A comprehensive archive of new stamp issues in Japan.