Since its foundation in 1898, H.W. Wilson has dedicated itself to providing its customers and their patrons with the best possible library experience. In print, and now on the web, H.W. Wilson products have become familiar to generations of library patrons as standard tools in college, public, school, and special libraries around the world.

Products and services

Delivered on the powerful WilsonWeb system, H.W. Wilson offers 78 reference databases to meet today’s research needs. These databases are maintained by editorial staff members who are experts in library science and other subjects, and updated daily by staff in New York and Dublin, Ireland. They are also supported by sales representatives around the country who are committed to ensuring the standards of quality and service that have built and sustained the H.W. Wilson reputation for excellence over 120 years.

Periodicals databases feature professionally-produced abstracts, indexing, and full text of thousands of leading publications, including PDF page images.

Core Collections are acclaimed for their support of collection development in public, school, and children’s libraries.

Biography databases provide information on over 660,000 people from all periods of history.

The Art Suite offers a wealth of art images from distinguished museums across the world, as well as a comprehensive range of written material.

H.W. Wilson’s high-quality print references continue to consistently earn reviewers’ praise, but Wilson content truly comes into its own when combined with the features and functions of WilsonWeb.

H.W. Wilson’s WilsonWeb system is a powerful Internet-based information retrieval and organization system, which also offers a user-friendly interface and a variety of features designed specifically with the search needs of library patrons and staff in mind. Free 30-day trials are available for many of H.W. Wilson databases.

A legacy of excellence

These policies include:

• Seeking the advice of librarians when developing new products, a policy which has resulted in many H. W. Wilson products becoming standards in the reference collections of libraries around the world

• Using high indexing standards based on Library of Congress Subject Headings—the recognized world-wide model for the development of new subject headings systems—as the basis for Wilson indexes’ Subject Authority

• Indexing all articles to the most specific points, reflecting the most current events and topics; Wilson headings are often adopted by the Library of Congress

• Regular revision of records to reflect the addition of new subject headings

• Mapping new subject headings to the beginning of the file, ensuring that all records on a given topic are retrieved

• Controlling corporate and personal names throughout the databases to ensure that searches locate all articles referencing that person or entity

These policies and standards have guided the H.W. Wilson company’s development from its earliest days to its current position as the leading supplier of information resources to libraries and their patrons.

A great American success story

Halsey William Wilson

In 1885, Halsey William Wilson was an enterprising young student working his way through the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In 1889 he started a book-selling business with his roommate, Henry S. Morris, serving educators and students at the university. When it came time for Morris to graduate, he sold his share of the business to Wilson. For Wilson, the joint venture had been just the beginning of a long and fruitful career in business.

As a book-seller seeking available titles, Wilson faced tedious searches through publishers’ catalogs several times a year. To remedy this situation, he chose to publish a catalog of books that would remain current throughout the year. Wilson achieved this by publishing an index of books that combined new entries with old type, merged in a single alphabet, in monthly editions. This Cumulative Book Index was the H. W. Wilson Company’s first original reference. In its first year, 1898, it sold for $1 and attracted a respectable 300 subscribers.

In 1901 Wilson decided to move into the periodicals market and, after carefully analysis of existing resources and consultation with librarians, he developed an index that would group articles by subject, which became the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature so familiar to librarians today. He also set up the service-basis method of charging subscribers, in which customers were charged based on the use they made of the index.

H.W. Wilson's bookstore

By the time H.W. Wilson built his first headquarters on the University of Minnesota campus in 1905, the policies that would secure the company’s position as a leader in library services were firmly in place.

However, by 1911 it became apparent that the company should relocate from Minneapolis to the eastern U.S., where most of its subscribers were located, in order to prevent the timeliness of Wilson’s publications being compromised by delivery delays. Reluctantly, Wilson sold the bookstore where his company had begun to flourish and, together with some of his key employees, moved to White Plains, New York, 25 miles north of New York City.

The company grew as demand for more specialized indexes increased, and by 1917 it had moved again. Wilson purchased a five-story building in the Bronx on the banks of the Harlem River, where the company remains headquartered today.

In 1929 Wilson expanded the building by constructing an eight-story building alongside the original structure. On top of this new building he had constructed a 30-foot lighthouse to symbolize the company’s mission:

“to give guidance to those seeking their way through the maze of books and periodicals, without which they would be lost.”

The lighthouse on top of the H.W. Wilson Company’s headquarters remains a familiar landmark today, and, as the company’s logo, continues to symbolize its mission.

This history includes an account of the early years of the company by Diane Panasci (reprinted in part from The Lighthouse, Winter 1982).