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Citing the database

Please acknowledge the Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online database in any publications which use our data, giving the URL for the page you are referring to.

The date of access should also be given, as in the following example:

Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online <https://heurist.huma-num.fr/heurist/?db=Libraries_Readers_Culture_18C_Atlantic&website=39 >, accessed on 1 December 2025.

The location of original materials consulted for the project is given in each ‘Library’ record page. 

Open access, copyright and licensing

In line with AHRC’s principles regarding Open Access Data, you can download the data as CSV, Excel or PDR files using the download buttons wherever they appear on relevant pages of the website. You can also access a full digital deposit of the database, which is both human and machine-readable, at the University of Liverpool’s Research Data Catalogue. Our datasets are made available through a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA), which allows users to share and adapt material freely with the appropriate attribution but not for commercial purposes.

Where not already in the public domain, permission to use images used on the website (including the galleries) has been provided by our project partners as contributions-in-kind.

Latest updates

The database will continue to evolve as further materials are added. Further updates will appear below as and when they are published:

Version 1.0 (December 2025)

  • Complete extant borrowing records (to 1800) for: Bristol Library Society; Lewes Library Society; New York Society Library; Union Library of Hatborough; Wigtown Subscription Library.
  • Extant borrowing records for Burlington for the years 1758-60; 1770; 1782-87; and 1792-96 (further batches to follow in Version 2.0)
  • Full catalogue holdings for libraries and catalogues listed on the Library Ranking page, except for the following, which are currently incomplete: Ayr, Bolton, Bridgetown, Huntingdonshire, Montreal, Quebec, Richmond.