Libraries

At Indiana University, we believe that learning can happen anywhere and everywhere. We believe that our community needs us—and that every city, town, and village on the planet is part of our community. 

Welcome home to IU Libraries. We are people, places, and collections dedicated to your journey. We believe knowledge should be preserved and shared in all its forms, because we know great ideas can change the world. 

Many of the IU Libraries’ resources are available to anyone, anywhere in the world. Access to many other IU Bloomington Libraries' electronic resources is governed by license agreements which restrict use to very 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.  In-person visitors to the Libraries who are not part of the Bloomington campus community may request a Library Guest Account to allow them full access from inside the IU Bloomington Libraries.

For IU Alumni Association Members

• IU Alumni Association (IUAA) members at the IU Loyal and IU Life level  have access to JSTOR and to Project Muse journals among their membership benefits - see the IUAA site for more details. NOTE: IUAA membership at the IU Loyal or IU Life level are required to connection to JSTOR and Project Muse from the IUAA website.
• IUAA members also benefit from an Indiana University email account. Learn more about how all alumni can use these email accounts.
• 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.
• Residents of the state of Indiana are eligible for an Indiana University Libraries' Borrowers Card. Walk-in visitors are elibible for a guest computer account, known as a Guest Account.

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.
• Indiana University Finding Aids - Finding aids (i.e., guides and inventories) to collections held in archives and libraries.
• 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.
• Population Index on the Web - Web access to Population Index, reference source offering citations and links to demographic and population literature. 
• 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.