收录了大英图书馆等世界各大图书馆与档案馆大约70,000幅原始手稿与印刷品的图像，如：期刊，小说，传教团文件，探险日记与记录，信件誊录簿与信件，日记，政府官方文件，旅行札记，奴隶文件，回忆录，儿童冒险故事，传统民俗，民间传说，展览目录与指南，地图，海报，照片，插图等。时间跨越1492－2007年，是供探索英帝国历史、政治、文化与社会的新型电子资源。
分为五个主题部分：
I: Cultural Contact, 1492-1969；
II: Literature and Empire；
III: The Visible Empire；
IV: Religion and Empire；
V: Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c.1607-2007。
Period Covered
- Late 15th to early 21st century
Highlights
- Tens of thousands of pages of unique primary source material including maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, paintings, drawings and rare books
- Material spans five centuries with content selected by an editorial board of leading academics from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA
- To enhance teaching and research a range of learning tools, including interactive maps, historiography, searching aids and biographies of individuals who shaped the course of Empire are featured to contextualise the source material
Source Archives
- Anti-Slavery International
- Bank of England
- Birmingham Central Library
- Bodleian Library, Oxford
- Cambridge University Library
- Harvard College Library
- National Art Library, The Victorian & Albert Museum
- The British Library
- The Glenbow Museum, Canada
- The National Archives, UK
- The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
- University of Birmingham
- University of Edinburgh
- Plus an additional 14 supporting libraries and organisations
Material Types
- Exploration journals and logs
- Letter books and correspondence
- Periodicals
- Diaries
- Official Government Papers
- Missionary papers
- Travel writing
- Slave papers
- Memoirs
- Fiction
- Children's Adventure Stories
- Traditional folk tales
- Exhibition Catalogues and guides
- Maps
- Marketing Posters
- Photographs and Illustrations, with many in colour.
Subjects
- Colonisation and Decolonisation
- The East India Company
- The Military
- Missionaries
- Slavery
- Travel and Travel Writing
- Cultural Contacts
- Empire Writing/ Literature of Empire
- The Visible Empire
- Religion
- Race, Class and Imperialism