They say that the biggest and most impressive library of Jewish books in the world is located at the Vatican. But checking out books from the Vatican can get a bit tricky!

So instead, there’s HebrewBooks. Currently with the largest database of Jewish literature, and all in .pdf format to preserve the original layout of each text.

Hebrewbooks.org was founded in order to preserve old American Hebrew books that are out of print and / or circulation. The site has since expanded to include all religious Jewish books ever printed. HebrewBooks is fully searchable (which is why it’s appearing here), currently has over 15,000 .pdf’s on file, and all documents are viewable, text-searchable, and printable for free. Text-searchable meaning the .pdf’s (most of them) have text recognition and users can search for specific words or phrases in each file. Another option offered is to view the text online without downloading the actual .pdf file.

For a quick demonstration about how to use the site, click here. The search engine only recognizes Hebrew, but in case you don’t have Hebrew software installed, there’s a virtual keyboard to enable a search.

The collection began with 2000 works of American Authors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and now reaches back to the 17th and into the 21st, ranging from Bible and Babylonian Talmud commentary, philosophical treatises, and modern responsa literature. The Society has also made the entire collection available on a single high capacity external computer hard disk.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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