The Briscoe Center offers a host of online reference tools developed to help researchers discover and access materials in our collections.
TARO
TARO (Texas Archival Resources Online) makes descriptions of the rich archival, manuscript, and museum collections in repositories across the state available to the public. The site consists of the collection descriptions or “finding aids” that archives, libraries, and museums create to assist users in locating information in their collections.
Archives and Manuscripts Index
An alphabetical index provides lists of collections related to subjects, places, and people. The index is a helpful place to start if you’re looking to research a broader topic.
Bexar Archives
The Bexar Archives are the official Spanish documents that preserve the political, military, economic, and social life of the Spanish province of Texas and the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas prior to 1836.
Digital Collections
Access to the Briscoe Center’s digital media repository and additional digital resources containing thousands of documents, photographs, illustrations, book excerpts, moving images, sound recordings, and artifacts.
Genealogy Resources
A collection of subject guides, census records, and ship passenger lists tailored for genealogy research.
Maps
Collections of printed and manuscript maps from 1513 to the present depicting international geographic areas with special strengths including Texas, the U.S. South, the U.S. Southwest, and Mexico.
Subject Guides
Key resources within the Briscoe Center’s collections arranged by topic. The subject guides are useful for identifying promising resources to explore.
Books, Journals, Broadsides and Ephemera
Books, periodicals, sheet music, and pamphlets; nineteenth and twentieth century printed documents and public notices; and collections of invitations, advertisements, business cards, campaign posters, admission tickets, printed programs, greeting cards, and other ephemeral paper materials
New York News Media Morgues
Clippings for three major New York City news sources: The New York Times, The New York Herald Tribune, and The New York Journal American.
Newspapers
Collection containing more than 4,500 Texas, Southern, U.S., and non-U.S. newspapers. It is the largest collection of its kind in Texas.
Texas Directories Collections
Collection of telephone and city directories for most Texas cities and towns from roughly the late 19th century through the present day.
Vertical Files Collection
A ready reference of printed resources on an extensive variety of local and regional topics which span decades. The Vertical Files can include but are not limited to newspaper articles, magazine articles, promotional materials, pamphlets, maps, and ephemera.
Digitized and Born Digital Collection Materials
Online access to a searchable database of digitized documents, photographs, illustrations, book excerpts, and artifacts.
Moving Images
Moving image collection consists of a variety of film, videotape, and digital formats dating from the 1930s to the present, many of which are available to search in our Digital Media Repository.
Photographs
Over five million photographic images spanning the period from the late 1840s to the present are available to search by keyword here in our Visual Materials Index.
Sound archive
100,000 recordings of both music and the spoken word in a variety of sound formats ranging from wax cylinders to compact discs, of which many are available to listen to in our Digital Media Repository.
