Rare Book Room

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Rare Book Room is an educational website for the repository of digitally scanned rare books made freely available to the public.

Starting around 1996 the California based company Octavo began scanning rare and important books from libraries around the world. These scans were done at extremely high resolution using high-quality equipment, with some pages at over 200MB each. They were sold by Octavo as commercial products on CD-ROM. In 2006 the "Rare Book Room" website was created which contains the complete collection in medium to medium-high resolution freely available to the public through a web browser or as a PDF file. Some high resolution versions are still being sold by Octavo through a separate website. As of 2007 over 400 books have been scanned.

The repository includes books by Galileo, Newton

Newton

The newton is the International System of Units SI derived unit of force, named after Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on classical mechanics....
, Copernicus, Kepler, Einstein, and Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin Royal Society was an English people natural history who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolution over time from common descent, through the process he called natural selection....
. It includes most of the Shakespeare Quartos

Folios and Quartos (Shakespeare)

The earliest texts of William Shakespeare's works were published during the sixteenth century and seventeenth century in quarto or folio format....
from the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is based in London and is one of the world's largest List of Research libraries, holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats; books, journals, newspapers, magazines, Sound recording, patents, databases, maps, stamps, Printmaking, drawings and much mor...
, the Bodleian Library

Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest library in Europe, and in England is second in size only to the British Library....
, the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh founded in 1582, is an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom....
Library, and the National Library of Scotland

National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland is the legal deposit library of Scotland. It is based in a collection of buildings in Edinburgh city centre. The headquarters is on George IV Bridge, between the Edinburgh#Old Town and the University of Edinburgh quarter....
, as well as the First Folio

First Folio

Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
from the Folger Library. It includes Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books....
copies of Poor Richard's Almanack by Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and Printer , Satire, list of political philosophers, politician, scientist, inventor, activism, statesman, and diplomacy....
, and other rare editions: a Gutenberg Bible

Gutenberg Bible

The Gutenberg Bible is a printed version of the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible that was printed by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, Germany in the fifteenth century....
of 1455, Thomas Harvey

Thomas Harvey

Arnold Harvey was an Irish cricketer and Rugby Union player. He was captain of Dublin University Cricket Club in 1902, and while still at Trinity College, Dublin toured with an Ireland cricket team....
's book on the circulation of blood

Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus

Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus, is the best-known work of the physician William Harvey. The book was first published in 1628 and established the circulation of the blood....
, Galileo ’s Sidereus Nuncius
Sidereus Nuncius

Sidereus Nuncius is a short treatise published in Italian by Galileo Galilei in March 1610. It was the first scientific treatise based on observations made through a telescope....
, the first printing of the United States Bill of Rights

United States Bill of Rights

In the United States, the Bill of Rights is the name by which the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution are known. They were introduced by James Madison to the First United States Congress in 1789 as a series of constitutional amendments, and came into effect on December 15, 1791, when they had been United_States_Constitution...
, and the Magna Carta

Magna Carta

Magna Carta , also called Magna Carta Libertatum , is an Kingdom of England legal charter, originally issued in the year 1215. It was written in Latin....
.

External links

, website.