David Rumsey Map Collection
davidrumsey.com
A hundred thousand old maps, zoomable to the street
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Deep Archives
Every natural history book, scanned by the world's museums
biodiversitylibrary.org
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Free, no sign-up · online since 2006
A consortium of natural history libraries has scanned centuries of taxonomic literature, field notebooks and illustrated volumes of flora and fauna into a single searchable archive. Millions of pages sit open, including hand-coloured plates from books far too fragile to be handled.
Their released illustration sets let you page through a Victorian monograph on hummingbirds plate by plate, at a resolution its original owner could never have seen.
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Picked for a shared category and overlapping vibe, not for popularity.
davidrumsey.com
A hundred thousand old maps, zoomable to the street
indianculture.gov.in
India's national collections, digitised into one place
rekhta.org
The largest Urdu poetry archive, readable in three scripts
rijksmuseum.nl
Download a Vermeer at a resolution you can actually print
si.edu
Millions of museum objects, released with no restrictions
themarginalian.org
Two decades of one person reading and taking notes