London Met has thousands of E-books available online, but if you are missing our wonderful art books in the library, where else can you find beautiful ones online to browse? Some places such as the British Library and Oxford University have scanned many out of copyright books from their collections that can be viewed online, and feature some real beauties, here are some examples:
The British Library Turning The Pages website features software that allows you to read some of the books from their collection which have been scanned in high quality. For example try Audobon’s The Birds of America, a stunning 19th century giant book of bird illustrations by John James Audobon.
Princeton University’s Playing Soviet collection features sections of rarely seen Soviet children’s books from the Cotsen Collection at Princeton’s Firestone Library.
University of California libraries on the internet archive, including Infants Cabinet of Birds and Beasts from 1820, The Baby’s Own Aesop, or The Nine Lives of a Cat.
The Library of Congress, including Atlas céleste de Flamstéed, and Red Riding Hood.
The University of Florida Digital Collections, including The Three Little Kittens.
Digital Bodleian, where you can get lost for hours exploring the Bodleian Library collections, including The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake.
And lastly how about a few sketch books? Try Donald Rodney on the Tate Archive or The New York Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook Project.
This is just a small selection, happy browsing!
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