Welcome to BHS's Online Catalog!

Search the Collections

We offer several different tools to search the various types of materials available in the library.

Books & Periodicals can be searched using BobCat our online library catalog offered in partnership with NYU; clicking this link will redirect you to our catalog hosted on their website. No appointment is required to use any of the materials you find in the library catalog.

Archives, Manuscripts, and Special Collections materials can be searched using Emma. This is not a complete listing of our materials in this category; please start your search here and then contact us if you do not find what you are looking for. Unless otherwise noted, all materials included in this catalog require an appointment for use; contact us if you would like to request an appointment. Visitors may also browse a complete collection of our finding aids, many of which are not currently available online, by visiting the library anytime during library open hours.

The Photography Collection consists of nearly 50,000 photographs from the 1870s to the present. Descriptions of collections of images, rather than individual images, can be browsed and searched in Emma, our online catalog of archives, manuscripts, and special collections. This is not a complete listing of our materials in this category; please start your search here and then contact us if you do not find what you are looking for. Individual photographs of the entire collection may be searched via our Image Database, which is available in the library, and can be used without an appointment anytime the library is open.

The John D. Morrell Photography Collection may be browsed and searched in our online gallery. John D. Morrell, assistant librarian at the Long Island Historical Society (now called the Brooklyn Historical Society), donated more than 2,000 black and white and color negatives and prints to the Photography Collection. The images are indexed and searchable at the item level by address, street names, and/or neighborhood, sometimes including proper names of businesses or institutions.