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:- White's General and Commercial Directory of Bradford, Halifax, Wakefield, Keighley, Bingley, Shipley, Brighouse, Normanton, and other towns and villages in the West Riding engaged in the worsted manufacture, followed by a general trades directory of the district (1887)- Kelly's Directory of Leeds and its neighbourhood, 1888 (with which is amalgamated the Post Office Directory published by McCorquodale & Co.) (1888)- The Post-Office Bradford Directory 1891 ... comprising the area of the Bradford postal district and the Shipley postal district (1891)- History, Topography, and Directory of East Yorkshire (with Hull) (1892)- Kelly's Directory of the North and East Ridings Yorkshire, with the city of York. [Part 1: Places] (1893)- Kelly's Directory of the North and East Ridings Yorkshire, with the city of York. [Part 2: Court & Trade Directories and Hull] (1893)- White's Directory of the city of Leeds (forming part of the clothing district directory), followed by a trades directory of the whole of the clothing district (1894)- White's Directory of York and Neighbourhood (1895)- The Post-Office Bradford Directory, 1898 ... comprising the City of Bradford and the surrounding district (1898)- Kelly's Directory of Hull and its neighbourhood (1899)- White's General and Commercial Directory of Sheffield, Rotherham, and the parishes, townships, villages, and hamlets within a radius of seven miles from Sheffield, for 1901 (1901)- White's Directory of Sheffield, Rotherham and the parishes, townships, villages and hamlets within a radius of seven miles from Sheffield (1905)- White's Directory of Sheffield and Rotherham, and the parishes, townships, villages and hamlets within a radius of seven miles from Sheffield (1911)- The Post Office Bradford Directory. The standard business reference guide to Bradford and district, comprising the City of Bradford and the townships of Shipley, Baildon, and Clayton (1912)- Kelly's Directory of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire (with the cities of York and Hull) ... 1913. [Part 1: Localities, Court & Trade Directories] (1913)- Kelly's Directory of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire (with the cities of York and Hull) ... 1913. [Part 2: York & Hull] (1913)