The Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has more than 700 emblem books in its collection. With collaboration with the Open Content Alliance (OCA) and support from NEH/DFG, the Library digitized 356 emblem books between 2009 and 2011, all now included in the Emblematica Online virtual collection. Among these digitized books, 56 German language emblem books have been described in depth to the level of each individual emblem (8,729 emblems), including motto transcriptions, links to pictura images, and classification of themes using the Iconclass vocabulary.

Emblematica Online currently includes complete indexing and links for 171 digitized emblem books (containing approximately 10,000 emblems) from the Wolfenbüttel Digital Library. Information about additional digitized emblem books and emblems from the more than 800 rare emblem books contained in the Herzog August Bibliothek collections will be added to the Emblematica Online virtual collection on an ongoing basis.

As Emblematica Online continues to grow, we plan to integrate other prominent digital emblem collections from around the world to provide emblem scholars seamless access to a complete corpus of digitized emblem resources.