The Bentley Historical Library will be closed for winter break December 23, 2024 – January 1, 2025.

Online Content

If you’re looking for Bentley material you can access online, use these resources. They include digital or digitized material from across our collections, and most focus on a particular format of material – for example, photos and other still images.


  • Deep Blue is the University’s institutional repository. It is digital storage for material such as articles, conference posters, theses, video, and audio recordings. U-M faculty, staff, students, departments, or units can deposit materials here, and anyone can search the database, which includes some Bentley digital collections.

    Go to Deep Blue


  • The Bentley has digitized some full collections or large segments of collections and made them available here. Examples include early records of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies and a survey of early female graduates of the University. Check the “online content” tag for digital material dealing with more specific subjects – like our Civil War collections.

    Go to Digitized Collections

  • Many Bentley collections include photographs, maps, drawings, or other items with a strong visual element. We’ve scanned a selection of these items and shared the digital images here for online searching and download.

    Go to Image Bank

  • The Bentley has been archiving websites from the University of Michigan, as well as from individuals and organizations from around the state, since 2010. Here you can search for certain words or URLs, or browse a list of sites.

    Go to Web Archives