The Making of Ann Arbor is a public collection of resources on the history and development of the Ann Arbor community, created in collaboration with the Ann Arbor District Library, the Bentley Historical Library, and the University of Michigan's Digital Library Production Services. This Making of Ann Arbor Text Collection comprises the text portion of the collection and will include digitized versions of local histories, newspapers, and atlases that can be keyword searched as well as read page by page. It is complemented by the Making of Ann Arbor Image Collection which contains a growing accumulation of online visual representations of life in Ann Arbor since its founding.

• Simple Searches: Single word and phrase searches throughout the entire collection.
• Proximity Searches: Find the co-occurrence of two or three words or phrases.
• Boolean Searches: Find combinations of two or three words in a given page or work.
• Citation Searches: Identify works by author and title.
• Browse the Making of Ann Arbor Text Collection.