This site cannot cover the enormous range of material relevant to the performance of Shakespeare’s plays. What it does is to establish fertile starting points for further investigation. Many of the bibliographical references we offer contain precise indications of other related sources, often readily traced via the internet—which is why we have selected forty links that are rich in such cross-references. There are extraordinary items increasingly available by the digitization of art collections, such as the site of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Theatre Museum, and the RSC Archives at the Shakespeare Centre, Stratford, U.K. The Folger Library site necessarily has much performance material included in its uniquely extensive website.

Furthermore, worldwide there are many newspapers and journals have been digitalized, and made accessible on the internet (e.g. the British Library site). They provide unexpected treasures in the form of theatre reviews and interviews with actors and directors—items now also often found on YouTube. Many interactive sites also have Shakespeare groups such as LinkedIn (with its diversified Shakespeare Group) and Academia.edu. Many further listings can be found in our section on digital sources.

The major problem for researchers is that the organization of the material in many sites is minimal if not non-existent; which means that the researcher has to assume the classic chore of the activity—the reviewing of masses of dull or irrelevant material to find the precious stones which can be polished to glittering illumination.