Welcome to Cambridge Digital Library

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Ancient India and Iran Trust

Arthur Schnitzler

Astronomical Images

Baskerville Punches

Bateson Archive

Bateson-Punnett Notebooks

Cairo Genizah

Cambridge Bookbindings

Cambridge Broadsides

Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company

Cambridge University Archives

Caricatures

Catalogue of the Pitt Rivers Collection

Cavendish Laboratory

Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology

Chinese Works

Christ’s College

Christian Works

Civilian Internment

Clare College

Codex Zacynthius

Corpus Christi College

Curious Objects

Darwin Manuscripts

David Jones

Department of Engineering

Dorothy Needham

Downing College

Ethiopian Manuscripts

Exhibition Items

Faculty of Classics

Fairbank Papers

Forman and Napier Casebooks

Ghost Words

Giacomo Leopardi

Girton College

Gonville and Caius College

Haddon Library of Archaeology and Anthropology

Hebrew Manuscripts

History of the New Museums

Islamic Manuscripts

Japanese Works

Joseph Needham

Kettle’s Yard

King’s College

Korean Works

La voz del campesino

Landscape Histories from the Air

Landscapes and monuments

Lewis-Gibson

Lines of Thought

Macclesfield Collection

Magdalene College

Maps

Marshall Library

Medieval Medical Recipes

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

Mediterranean Embroideries

Merlin Fragment

Michaelides Fragments: Arabic

Michaelides Fragments: Coptic

Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest

Montaigne’s Library

Music

Mycenae Archive

Newnham College

Newton Papers

Oliver Rackham

Pandaemonium: Humphrey Jennings

Paper Stocks in Western Medieval Manuscripts

Pembroke College

Peterhouse

Queens’ College

Relhan Collection

Royal Asiatic Society

Royal Commonwealth Society

Royal Commonwealth Society 150

Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives

Royal Library

Royal Society of Literature

Sandbach Tinne

Sanskrit Manuscripts

Sassoon Journals

Scott Polar Research Institute

Scriptorium

Shahnama Project

Sidney Sussex College

Skilliter Centre

Southern African Collections

Spanish Chapbooks

Spinning House Committals Books

St Catharine’s College

St John’s College

Sterne and Sterneana

Survey of India Maps

Tennyson

The Rising Tide

The Wordsworths’ Notebooks

Thomas Gray Manuscripts

Thomas Hobson

Treasures of the Library

Trinity Hall

University Library

Walking with Constable

Waterloo

Western Medieval Manuscripts

Westminster College

WongAvery Collection of Chinese Materials

A home for the discovery of digitised material, associated research outputs, and a hub for digital humanities activity at the University of Cambridge.

Our aim is to make cultural heritage collections accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world with an internet connection. We often add or update content, which is not limited to images and data. Wherever possible we seek to enhance and connect our digital collections. We do this through collaborating with a broad network of scholars and researchers, often working closely with the University Library Research Institute and Cambridge Digital Humanities . This can take many forms, including detailed description, specialist imaging, transcription or translation. You can even find outputs from practice-based research that uses the collections.

You can currently explore over 1.5 million images of more than 160,000 items from the collections of no less than 100 institutions and individuals.

Another goal is for the platform and content to enable teaching and research. Images, texts and metadata for download and reuse where copyright and licensing permit. You can also access content through application programming interfaces (APIs) such as the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) .

We aspire to the FAIR and CARE principles.

Please be aware that content may include images or language that are offensive, inaccurate, inappropriate, or that express historical attitudes. They may reflect the context of their creation, or we may have limited information. If you have any specific concerns, please contact us as we would welcome any extra information.

The Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab manages the supply and reproduction of images. They can also arrange new photography of collection items as well as a wide range of specialist imaging services.

Our Mission, Vision & Values

The mission of the University of Cambridge is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

Cambridge Digital Library supports this mission through a vision based on our core values:

• Access – We want our unique and distinctive collections to be openly accessible to as many people as possible.
• Collaboration – By working together with partners across different local, national and international institutions we foster a platform for sharing that benefits all and extends our combined reach and effectiveness.
• Engagement – We don’t just want to make our collections available, we also want to encourage people to use them and help us develop them further.
• Innovation – We want to ensure the long-standing legacy of our content remains relevant as technologies evolve so that researchers will be able to study it long into the future in new and exciting ways.
• Inspiration – Many of our collections focus on inspirational people and themes. We want to inspire a thirst for knowledge, understanding and further research.

Our Story so far

Over the course of six centuries Cambridge University Library’s collections have grown from a few dozen volumes into one of the world’s great libraries, with an extraordinary accumulation of material. The collections cover every conceivable aspect of human endeavour, spanning most of the world’s cultural traditions.

The first phase of work on Cambridge Digital Library, which ran from 2010 to 2014 was made possible through a lead gift of £1.5m from Dr Leonard Polonsky. This generous support has enabled the Library to develop its technical infrastructure and create significant content, particularly in the areas of faith and science – two areas of strength within our unique and distinctive collections. It has also enabled us to attract funding from other sources, including the AHRC, NSF, NEH, JISC and other private donors.

Wherever possible we seek to enhance our digital collections by aligning them with scholarly research. Examples of this include not only collaborations with research projects based here within Cambridge University Library, such as the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit and the Darwin Correspondence Project , but also those from further afield such as the Newton Project and the Darwin Manuscripts Project , which is based at the American Museum of Natural History. Our Sanskrit Collection, Spanish Chapbooks collection and Board of Longitude collection have all been significantly enriched through major AHRC research projects.