32 websites to read & get lost in archives

Libraries, aggregators and the long tail. Every read & archive site in the directory, each one checked by a person.

Filter these in the app

Automobilisto

Over 30,000 original car brochures scanned from European dealer archives, free as PDFs with no sign-up, each linked to the model's specs. Home-market editions you won't find elsewhere.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- automobilisto.de
FUNES

Monuments and cultural heritage scanned into detailed 3D models you can orbit in the browser, from the Trevi Fountain to small-town churches.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- funes.world
ManualsLib

Millions of user manuals for appliances, cars, cameras and gadgets, searchable by model and readable online.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- manualslib.com
MapGenie

Interactive maps for hundreds of video games, with every collectible, chest and secret pinned so you can tick them off.
- Read & Archive
- Freemium
- mapgenie.io
Auto Catalog Archive

Scans of thousands of original car brochures and catalogues, from pre-war roadsters to 90s hatchbacks.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- autocatalogarchive.com
Capitol Trades

Every stock trade disclosed by US members of Congress, searchable by politician, company and date.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- capitoltrades.com
Loyal Books

Thousands of public domain audiobooks and ebooks, free to stream or download, from Austen to Zane Grey.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- loyalbooks.com
Recommend Me a Book

Read the opening page of a random novel with title and author hidden, and only reveal them if it hooks you.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- recommendmeabook.com
TasteDive

Name a band, film, book or game you love and get a list of similar things across all of them.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- tastedive.com
Fragrantica

An encyclopedia of perfume, with notes, accords and longevity for tens of thousands of fragrances, voted on by people who wear them.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- fragrantica.com
Papermau

A blog gathering thousands of free paper models from designers around the world: aircraft, buildings, robots, dioramas and odd little machines.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- papermau.blogspot.com
Sakugabooru

An archive of standout cuts of hand-drawn animation, tagged by animator, studio and show. Where animation fans go to study a single scene.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- sakugabooru.com
Settei Dreams

An archive of the model sheets animators work from, with character turnarounds, props and expression charts from decades of anime.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- setteidreams.net
Damn Interesting

Meticulously researched long-form stories about obscure corners of science and history, published slowly since 2005 and worth every month of the wait.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- damninteresting.com
The Marginalian

Maria Popova's decades-long reading diary: long, careful essays threading poets, scientists and letter-writers together, with no ads and no sponsors of any kind.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- themarginalian.org
Low-tech Magazine

A magazine about old and stubbornly durable technology, served from a solar-powered box in Barcelona. When the battery runs low the images dither and the site goes offline.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- solar.lowtechmagazine.com
Atlas Obscura

A gazetteer of the world’s overlooked places — a stairwell to nowhere, a museum of soil, a town built inside a rock. Browsable as a map or as very good writing.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- atlasobscura.com
Standard Ebooks

Public domain books rebuilt properly: proofread text, modern typography, real covers, no scan artefacts. What Project Gutenberg files look like after a copy editor.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- standardebooks.org
The Pudding

Visual essays answering questions nobody thought to ask — how pockets differ by gender, what makes a rap lyric rhyme. Journalism you scroll through rather than read.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- pudding.cool
Google Arts & Culture

Gigapixel scans from the world museums, plus tours, stories and some genuinely fun experiments.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- artsandculture.google.com
Marginalia Search

A search engine that deliberately favours small, non-commercial, text-heavy sites. Finds the old web.
- Read & Archive
- Open source
- search.marginalia.nu
Are.na

Collect and connect images, links and text into channels. A calm, ad-free alternative to moodboards.
- Read & Archive
- Freemium
- are.na
The Public Domain Review

Essays curating the strangest and loveliest things that have fallen out of copyright.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- publicdomainreview.org
MetaFilter

A community weblog running since 1999 where the best of the web gets posted and discussed.
- Read & Archive
- Freemium
- metafilter.com
Open Library

One web page for every book ever published, with borrowing built on the Internet Archive.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- openlibrary.org
Lobsters

A smaller, invite-only, tag-driven link aggregator with a notably high signal to noise ratio.
- Read & Archive
- Open source
- lobste.rs
Project Gutenberg

Seventy thousand public domain books, carefully proofread, in every format you would want.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- gutenberg.org
Hacker News

Link aggregator for programming and startups. Read the comments; that is where the value is.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- news.ycombinator.com
Wayback Machine

Nine hundred billion saved web pages. The reason the internet has a memory at all.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- web.archive.org
Rijksstudio

Download seven hundred thousand works from the Rijksmuseum in extraordinary resolution, free to reuse.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- rijksmuseum.nl
Wiby

A search engine for pages built like it is still 1999. Surprise Me is the main feature.
- Read & Archive
- Free
- wiby.me
Internet Archive

Books, films, software, music and the web itself, preserved and free to access forever.
- Read & Archive
- Donation
- archive.org

Lists with read & archive sites