The Index which began in 1951 was maintained in card catalog form, the cards arranged by broad subject. Some entries in this card catalog index include items dated as late as 1990, the year all indexing efforts for this project ceased at the University of Arizona Library. In earlier years, a small number of libraries in the state subscribed to copies of the typed cards; these libraries then maintained their own “catalog” of the Index. Then in 1978 the Arizona Index was printed in a two-volume publication issued through G.K. Hall. That publication is long out-of-print. The online edition presents exactly what was compiled for the published volumes and adds the citations that were completed to 1990 which were not included in the printed edition.

Most of the material indexed here is not indexed anywhere else. The photo-reproduction technique of laying out an array of the catalog cards alphabetically by “subject” was used to create the pages of the print index volumes. It is sometimes hard to read these, and the broad subject organization does not offer the advantages of title, author, publication or key-word searching or sorting of the data. Also, people wishing to find information were limited to going to a library that had copies of the printed index. Various agencies in Arizona have asked if the University of Arizona Library would digitize the index and with the 2012 celebration of Arizona’s statehood (and a renewed interest in historical data about Arizona) digitization seems timely. In 2008-09 the entire printed Index and its supplemental entries were re-keyed into electronic files. The online search engine offers the option of searching these entries anytime and from anyplace via the internet. Most importantly, almost 26,500 entries cite information from 130 journals and cover topics on many phases of Arizona life and history from as early as the 1850s through the 1980s.

To request a full-text copy of any document cited in the index, submit the citation to https://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/duplications.