About basictexts.org
What this is
basictexts.org is a free, open-source concordance for Alcoholics Anonymous literature. It lets you search across multiple AA texts by keyword or phrase, see every occurrence with surrounding context, and navigate to official or free online sources.
It's designed to work offline as an installable Progressive Web App — useful at meetings, during step work, or anywhere you want to find a passage quickly.
What this isn't
- Not affiliated with or endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (AAWS) or AA Grapevine
- Not a replacement for the books themselves — please buy and read them
- Not a treatment resource or professional service
- Not associated with any AA group, intergroup, or service body
Legal disclaimer
This is an independent, non-commercial project built by an AA member in service of the fellowship. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by AAWS, AA Grapevine, or any AA service entity. Links are provided to official and free sources so readers can access the full texts.
Public domain texts (the 1st-edition Big Book) are displayed in full. Protected texts are shown only as short concordance excerpts or snippets. If AAWS or any rights holder requests a change, we will adjust promptly.
Copyright
The 1st-edition Big Book (1939) entered the public domain in the United States because AAWS did not renew its copyright — a matter of settled public record, confirmed by the U.S. Copyright Office renewal records. The 2nd-edition Big Book (1955) is similarly public domain for the same reason.
The 3rd and 4th editions, the 12&12, and Daily Reflections are copyright-protected works owned by AAWS. Protected sources are shown only as concordance-style short excerpts, consistent with fair use and the precedent established by sites like 164andMore.
Privacy
Anonymous search terms are recorded to help improve the app — specifically, to identify passages people search for that aren't yet in the corpus. No personal data, IP addresses, cookies, or identifiers are collected or stored. The log records only the search query, result count, and a server-side timestamp.
Open source
basictexts.org is open source (MIT License). Contributions are welcome — especially new corpus sources and data corrections.
View on GitHub →How to contribute a corpus
Adding a new source requires: (1) a corpus data file in corpus/sources/<id>.json,
(2) a registry entry in corpus/sources.json,
and (3) running npm run build:index.
No application code changes needed. See the Corpus Guide for full instructions, copyright evaluation criteria, and ingestion procedures.
Support this project
basictexts.org is free and always will be. If it's been useful to you, consider supporting it — it helps cover hosting costs and motivates continued development.