Search the Collections

Locating Books, Periodicals, Music Scores, and Audio/Visual Materials

All books, music scores, audio/visual material and many of the periodicals located in the Armstrong Browning Library are listed in BearCat, the Baylor University Libraries' online catalog. BearCat terminals are located on the Library's main (second) floor, in the third-floor Library Services center, and in the Belew Scholars' Room.

A Periodical Catalog located at the back of the main floor's John Leddy-Jones Research Hall indexes periodical articles and newspaper clippings regarding Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Armstrong Browning Library. The periodical articles file is located on the right side of the catalog. These items are now listed in BearCat. The newspaper clippings file has blue-banded cards and is located on the left side of the catalog. These items do not appear in BearCat. Each file is indexed by author, title, and subject in one alphabetical listing.

Locating Original Manuscripts and Letters

Original manuscripts and letters do not currently appear in BearCat but can be searched through the use of the online The Brownings: A Research Guide, card catalogs, printed finding aids, or an in-house database.

The Brownings: A Research Guide

The Brownings: A Research Guide is a freely available, comprehensive online research tool that facilitates the study of the works and lives of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and their circle.

The online Guide lists, bibliographically, all known Browning-related material--some 70,000 items--and draws on the Browning collection in the Armstrong Browning Library as well as other collections from around the world. It includes checklists of the Brownings' correspondence; a catalogue of their possessions: the poets' library, first works, presentation volumes, manuscripts, likenesses, works of art, household and personal effects, and other association items; contemporary reviews of their works; secondary source material relating to the Brownings (which are called supporting documents); and an unannotated bibliography of printed works that includes the poets' own writings as well as reference works, biographies, and criticism about the Brownings.

The Guide includes two components that focus on members of the Brownings' circle.

Lady Layard's Journal is an archive of notes and observations by Enid, Lady Layard (1843 - 1912). She was a good friend to Browning in his later years, and her journal contains significant amounts of recollections and reminiscences relating to the poet and other leading figures of the day.

The Joseph Milsand Archive provides a checklist of Milsand's correspondence and a catalogue of his collections. Joseph Antoine Milsand (1817 - 1886) was introduced to the Brownings in 1851 and came to be Browning's closest friend.

ABL Research Tools, an in-house database

ABL Research Tools is a Browning-related database available only in the Armstrong Browning Library. Students, scholars, and library staff use the database to access transcripts and printed materials by way of various search and report routines. The database is also useful to scholars with a wider literary or historical interest in the 19th century, given that the Brownings associated and corresponded with many other prominent figures of their day.

The database contains the following information:

A checklist of the Brownings' correspondence searchable by date, author, recipient, publication, or manuscript location.
The full text of extant Browning letters, searchable by keyword(s).
A checklist of supporting documents, consisting primarily of letters addressed to Barrett and Browning family members or letters in which the poets are mentioned.
Full text of supporting documents, the originals of which are in ABL's holdings, searchable by keyword(s).
A checklist of contemporary reviews of the Brownings' works, searchable by date, publication, work, or reviewer.
Full text of all known contemporary reviews, searchable by keyword(s).

The database was installed at the Armstrong Browning Library in January 1998 and is updated frequently. It was developed, and is maintained, by Wedgestone Press as a research tool to support The Brownings' Correspondence, a projected 40-volume edition of the poets' letters.

Locating Archival Material, Photographs, and Realia

A printed guide to the Library's archives, photograph collection, and realia items is available in the Director’s office. These materials do not appear in BearCat.

To discuss their use or for an appointment to use the in-house database, contact Jennifer Borderud, Director, at 254.710.3825.