Online Resources

Know what you are looking for? Use the search bar to find resources by name or descriptions, scan the listings in alphabetical order, or use filters to explore different subjects, formats, age groups and more.


African American Experience

A collection of scholarly articles and primary source documents on African American history and culture. Includes books, speeches, letters, photographs, illustrations and audio clips.

Library card required

Ancestry.com

A searchable collection of billions of historical records from the USA and other countries. Get access to census and military records, birth, marriage and death records, and immigration records. Available at public computers at all Brooklyn Public Library locations.

For remote access to U.S. Federal Census records, genealogical and historical sources for more than 60 countries, Census data, slave schedules, maps, local history books and articles, and more, please visit our HeritageQuest resource.

Only in library branches

Black Short Fiction and Folklore

Collects African and African-American short stories and folktales published in more than 15 countries from the mid-1900s to the present. Includes full digitized runs of select literary magazines and black-owned journals and newspapers.

Library card required

Black Thought and Culture

Collects published works by leading African American writers, spanning the 1700s to the present. Includes books, interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamplets and letters.

Library card required

Black Women Writers

Collects fiction, poetry and essays by black women published in Africa and the Americas from the 1700s to the present.

Library card required

Brooklyn Newsstand

Brooklyn Newsstand is a collection of digitized Brooklyn newspapers made possible through a partnership between Brooklyn Public Library and Newspapers.com.  

Brooklyn Newsstand (2,402,000 digitized pages) contains 44 newspaper titles-including the full run of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper (1841-1963) and Brooklyn Life (1890-1931), a Brooklyn Society Magazine. Learn more about the history of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

View the full list of newspapers and their date ranges.

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Free & accessible anywhere

Brooklyn Public Library Digital Collections

Discover Brooklyn history: Explore our collection of digitized Brooklyn content.

Free & accessible anywhere

Caribbean Literature

Searchable collection of Caribbean poems, plays, novels, short stories, and other materials from 1700 to the present. Works are in English, French, Haitian Creole, Spanish and Dutch.

Library card required

EPOCH - Electronically Preserving Obituaries as Cultural Heritage

A website that allows anyone to create and publish a free obituary online and in the process involve the community in building their own collection of local history.

Free & accessible anywhere

Fire Insurance Maps Online (FIMO)

New York State high-definition, full-color fire insurance maps from Sanborn and other publishers, real estate atlases, plat books, and other historical maps showing building structures, building construction details, property ownership, property uses, and other useful information. The site has an Interactive map search, and Geo-referenced or search by place name and drop-down menus.

Library card required

HeritageQuest

Genealogical tool that includes U.S. Federal Census records, genealogical and historical sources for more than 60 countries, Census data, slave schedules, maps, local history books and articles, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant application files, and the Freedman's Bank Records 1865-1874.

Library card required

JSTOR

JSTOR offers researchers the ability to retrieve high-resolution, scanned images of journals, books, and primary sources as they were originally designed, printed, and illustrated. The material available spans many disciplines in the arts, sciences, and humanities.

When browsing or searching, you may find locked content. We apologize that some content is not available via Brooklyn Public Library's subscription. 

Only in library branches

MasterFILE Premier

Full text articles covering a broad range of subjects including general reference, business, education, health, general science and multicultural issues.

Library card required

New York Heritage Digital Collections

Search and browse digital collections about New York State's extensive history. Includes letters, diaries, photographs, newspapers, and maps from over 160 museums, libraries and archives.

Free & accessible anywhere

New York State Newspapers

Current and archived articles from newspapers across New York State.  Includes the New York Observer, the New York Post and Newsday.

Free & accessible anywhere in NY state

New York Times (1851-2007) with Index (1851-1993)

PDFs of articles include original layout, images, and advertisements. Limit searches by topic, article title, date, and more.   

Library card required

New York Times Digital Microfilm

Browse 2008 - present issues of the New York Times by date and page number or search for articles by keyword. Includes high-quality replications of photos, graphs, and tables. (Please note that present coverage will be one month behind due to a publisher embargo period.)

Library card required

Urban Archive

View our collection of city stories and check out the platform of digital collections of New York City's museums, archives, and libraries.

Free & accessible anywhere