These resources are freely available online and do not require users to have a New York Public Library card. They are particularly good sources for materials in the public domain, and usually the full-text is available.
The Hathi Trust Digital Library is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering access to a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Some items may require the user to be onsite at a New York Public Library location. Please email generalresearch@nypl.org for assistance in these cases.
WorldCat is a union catalog, or a catalog of library catalogs, which can be used to identify which institution/s might hold an item you want. It can also identify if a digital copy is available. Results from WorldCat should be checked against the owning institution's catalog.
The Internet Archive provides free public access to large collections of digitized materials. Acess to some materials requires users tosign up for a free Internet Archive library card.
A resource of digitized books, with full-text of public domain works and previews or snippets of copyright materials.
A digital service that permits searches over a wide variety of material It can be useful for identifying material of interest and locating citations.