Birmingham City Directories are located in the Southern History Department. The directories date from 1883-present. Due to the hardship of the Great Depression and, later, the Second World War, directories were not published in the following years: 1933, 1936, 1943, and 1945. Because of their fragility, some of our original directories have been replaced with microfilm editions.
BPL's Digital Collections were created to preserve and make available the local history of Birmingham and the surrounding area. These resources may help students, teachers, genealogists, historians and interested citizens learn more about the history of Birmingham.
The Southern History Department maintains a large collection of family files. The content of each file varies greatly and some are much larger than others.
The Library has a large collection of published family histories. All of these are listed in the catalog. To search for a book on a particular family, simply choose the subject option and type in the surname followed by the word "family".
The Southern History Department houses an extensive collection of newspaper clipping files. These files are arranged by subject and cover a variety of topics. Patrons may use the files for researching local neighborhoods, churches, civic organizations, and persons of note in Birmingham and Alabama history. The clippings date from the 1930's to the early 1980's.