Access controlled by licenses
Access to most of IU Bloomington Libraries' electronic resources are governed by license agreements which restrict use to defined roles within the Indiana University Bloomington community (students, faculty, and staff) and to walk-in patrons of the libraries. Individual authentication for access is required as part of these license agreements.
However, some of the IU Libraries’ resources are available to anyone, anywhere in the world.
Services for visitors depend on a variety of factors.
For IU Alumni Association members
- When you join the IU Alumni Association (IUAA) at the Core level, you gain access to JSTOR and MUSE.
- More information about IUAA Membership Benefits
For Indiana residents
- INSPIRE (http://inspire.in.gov) is a collection of commercial databases and other information resources that can be accessed by Indiana residents. Using INSPIRE, you can find health information, look up newspaper articles, or search business news using popular databases such as MEDLINE, ERIC, and Academic Search Elite. INSPIRE database funding is provided by the Indiana General Assembly.
Free resources open to all: A selection of digital collections unique to Indiana University
- Hoagy Carmichael Collection - A multimedia web site about the life and career of master songwriter Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael (1899-1981).
- Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection - The photographs in this collection bridge a thirty-two year span from 1938 to 1969, during which time Cushman extensively documented the United States as well as other countries.
- Digital Library of the Commons - A gateway to the international literature on the commons.
- Frank M. Hohenberger Collection - The collection, dating from 1917-1960 and housed in the Lilly Library, consists primarily of photographs by Frank Michael Hohenberger, 1876-1963, Brown County photographer and newspaperman.
- U. S. Steel Gary Works Photograph Collection, 1906-1971 - Collection of photographs of the Gary Works steel mill and the corporate town of Gary, Indiana.
- Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology Online - International index of dissertations about all aspects of classical, popular, and world music.
- IUScholarWorks Repository - An open access repository that organizes and preserves the work of IU scholars.
- Open Folklore - A partnership of the American Folklore Society and the IU Bloomington Libraries, making a variety of useful resources available to folklorists.
- Victorian Women Writers Project - Provides highly accurate transcriptions of literary works by British women writers of the late 19th century.
- Wright American Fiction (1851-1875) - Collection of almost 3,000 digitized nineteenth-century American fiction in an ongoing cooperative project of Big Ten university libraries, led by Indiana University.
Library catalogs and databases
Below, find just a few freely-available library catalogs and databases that can be accessed through our Resources A-Z list (all databases marked with a globe icon can be freely accessed by our alumni and friends).
- Digital Public Library of America - A network of partners and collaborators bringing together library materials across the nation.
- IUCAT - The Indiana University online catalog.
- Monroe County Public Library Catalog - The catalog of the Monroe County Public Library, Bloomington, Indiana.
- WorldCat - The world's largest network of library content and services. Use its excellent search function to find a library near you that has the book you want.
- Library of Congress Catalogs - Access to the Library of Congress holdings
- ERIC - ERIC indexes and abstracts materials in education and related fields, covering over 1085 periodicals and nearly a half a million documents.
- FirstGov - The official U.S. government portal to 47 million pages of information on federal and state government programs, benefits, and services.
- GPO Access - U.S. Federal Government website.
- Index Translationum - Bibliographical information on books (from any period) translated and published in about 100 of UNESCO's member states since 1979.
- LIBDEX - Links to libraries and library related information in the US and worldwide.
- Official Document System of the United Nations (ODS) - A multilingual system that covers all types of official United Nations documentation, beginning in 1993.
- PubMed - more than 27 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books from the U.S. National Library of Medicine.