Burns Library has digitized selected books, manuscripts and photographs to be freely available online.
Digitized archival content is searchable and linked from Search Burns Archives, a tool that allows you to search a detailed inventory for one collection, or across descriptions of all archival materials and helps researchers to build a relevant request list for research visits or copy requests.
For more tutorials on this tool, see our Search Burns Archives (Archival Collections) documentation.
Objects that have been digitized and described include a link to a viewer.
From the viewer, click the download button and right click to use the Save Image As function.
If you are unable to visit the reading room and are only interested in what is available digitally, you can ”Limit to Digital Materials” as a record type in your search.
To browse all formats of digitized collections and images, click on "BC Digitized Collections" on the catalog advanced search page:
The BC Digitized Collection landing page allows you to browse collections and, after selecting a collection, browse the individual images within each collection.
To search across all digitized images through the library catalog, change the search scope to "BC Digitized Collections" and choose your keywords.
As you find items you wish to view, use the "BC Digitized Collections" link in each catalog record to see the image.
From the viewer, click the download button and right click to use the Save Image As function.
A selection of digitized newspapers are available at Boston College Newspapers. Some highlights include:
The Heights: The Boston College student newspaper began publication in November 1919. Issues from 1919-2018 are available online.
The Stylus: Founded by students in 1883, the paper featured literary contributions, as well as alumni, athletics, and other college news. By 1933, the Stylus was entirely an undergraduate literary magazine; it continues as such today. Issues from 1883-1922 are available online.
The Pilot: The longest running Catholic newspaper in the US. Issues from 1873-1874 are available online. Other issues are also available from previous titles, including Jesuit, or Catholic Sentinel (1829-1831), United States Catholic Intelligencer (1831-1832), Jesuit, or, Catholic sentinel (1833-1834), Literary and Catholic Sentinel (1834-1835), and Boston Pilot (1846-1857)
All the newspapers are full-text searchable as well as browsable by date.
