For those of you unfamiliar with online historical texts, there are a
number of excellent Web sites that now have entire publications either
as scanned or electronic text.  One of the best sites for scanned
historical publications is the Making of American (MOA) site maintained
by the University of Michigan at:
        http://www.umdl.umich.edu/moa/
There are approximately 5000 nineteenth-century books and journal
articles presently online, with more added periodically.  Each page of
every works has been scanned for viewing (including blank pages); and
there is an online OCR database that can be used for keyword searches.
If you are new to this site, try conducting a keyword search for
something that interests you, then examine the results.  You will be
pleasantly surprised.
 
Another good Web site for online texts is The On-Line Books Page at:
        http://www.cs.cmu.edu/books.html
This is a search site listing thousands of works at many different Web
sites.  Once you have satisfied yourself with its current listings,
periodically revisit the Latest Book Listings page at:
        http://www.cs.cmu.edu/booknew.html
If you keep track of the last date you visited this page, you can easily
examine new titles quickly.
 
There are many more online historical text sites, including:
        Library of Congress (LOC) - American Memory Project (AMP) at:
                http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html
        LOC-AMP - WPA American Life Histories at:
                http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html
        Hypertext on American History at:
                http://grid.let.rug.nl/~welling/usa/revolution.html
	
The Smithsonian Institution Libraries has undertaken a project to
convert the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) Bulletins into online
texts.  Presently, only two Bulletins are online at:
        http://www.sil.si.edu/baehome.htm
	
Also, the University of Chicago has undertaken a project to place
Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des
sciences, des métiers et des arts online at:
        http://tuna.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/ENC.query.html
Presently, Volume 1 (of the 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of plates)
is online, together with respective illustrations.  There is a plan to
place the remaining volumes online, once a fee can be established for
access (inevitably, fee-based access for many Web sites is on the
horizon; someone has to pay for the annual maintenance costs).
 
For those of you using online historical texts already, it would be
appreciated if you would periodically share URLs for good Web sites with
other HISTARCH subscribers.  For those of you interested in online
historical texts for the Pacific Northwest in America, the Association
of Historical Archaeologists of the Pacific Northwest (AHAPN) maintains
a list of online search sites and regional texts at:
        http://www.spiretech.com/~lester/ahapn/links.htm
Perhaps other regional organizations, or special interest research
groups, might think of maintaining similar link sites.  LAR