The aim of the project was to improve access to local and trade directories for the period 1750-1919 by making a substantial collection of English and Welsh directories available online as a Digital Library of Historical Directories. This digital resource comprises in total some 600 directories, covering every English county together with Wales, and ranging widely over the period 1750-1919 (the latter cut-off point chosen for copyright reasons). There is a particular focus on the 1850s, 1890s and 1910s, with at least one directory provided for each county in each of these decades. The digitisation of the volumes involved a two-stage process, in which (1) the hard-copy source was scanned to produce a graphic image of each page, and then (2) those images were processed using OCR software to generate a machine-readable text file.An online version of this resource can be found on the Website of the University of Leicester. This data collection includes the following directories:- Pigot's Directory of Buckinghamshire (1830-31)- Berkshire Commercial Directory (1833)- Kelly's Berkshire Directory (1848)- History, Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Oxford;  comprising  a  general  survey  of  the  County  ...  to  which  is  subjoined a list of the seats of the nobility and gentry (1852)- Slater's  Directory  of  Berkshire (1852)- Musson  and  Craven's  Commercial  Directory  of  the  County  of  Buckingham  and  the  Town  of  Windsor;  containing  an  alphabetical  list  of  the  nobility,  gentry,  merchants,  professions,  trades, etc., and separate historical and topographical descriptions of all the towns, parishes (1853)- The Post Office Directory of Buckinghamshire / ed. By E. R. Kelly (1864)- Webster's  Reading  Directory;  including  Henley,  Pangbourne  and  Goring:  also  73  villages  contained  in  a  radius  of  ten  miles (1874)- Rusher's  Banbury  List  and  Directory,  1882  to  1896. Part 1 (1882-89)- Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire (1883)- Kelly's Directory of Berkshire (1887)- Rusher's  Banbury  List  and  Directory,  1882  to  1896. Part 2 (1890-96)- Kelly's Directory of Oxfordshire (1895)- Kelly's Directory of Berkshire (1899)- Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire (1899)- Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire (1903)- Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire (1907)- Kelly's Directory of Oxfordshire (1907)- Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire (1911)- Kelly's Directory of Oxfordshire (1911)- Kelly's  Directory  of  Reading,  Caversham  &  Neighbourhood (1914)- Kelly's Directory of Berkshire (1915)- Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire (1915)