Do Research Online

While most of the materials in YIVO’s Archive & Library have not yet been digitized and put online, there are a number of online resources already available to assist you in your research.

Online Catalogs of What’s Available in the Archives & Library

Most of the holdings of the YIVO Library are cataloged in the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) of the Center for Jewish History. 

Descriptions of most of the over 1,900 record groups of the YIVO Archives are available in the Guide to the YIVO Archives. There are also more detailed finding aids (guides to the collections) for a growing number of the collections.

The Guide to the YIVO Archives also has catalogs (but no digital images yet) for 5 collections in the Photo Archive:

A list of landsmanshaftn collections in the YIVO Archives is available on the website of the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York.

Digitized Books & Periodicals

Thousands of books and periodicals from the YIVO Library can be accessed in their entirety at:

Digital Images

Digital images of photographs, books, posters, artwork, and documents from the YIVO Archives and Library can be found on the following websites:

See also featured items from our collections in the exhibitions in Digital YIVO and selected images from YIVO’s collections in the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) of the Center for Jewish History. 

Coming soon: Digital images from YIVO’s collections will soon appear in the databases of Judaica Europeana and Digital Public Library of America. In addition, in 2015, YIVO began the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project, an international initiative to digitize over 11,000 books and over 1.5 million pages of documents from its original, prewar Vilna collections.

Online Film Footage & Sound Recordings

Many of YIVO’s amateur films of prewar Jewish communities in Poland and Lithuania can be seen on the following websites:

Other Online Research Resources

See other resources in the Research Resources section.