FRANCIS indexes multilingual information and provides in-depth coverage of humanities and social sciences.

In the late 1800's, Dutch physician and feminist Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the revolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. By the time their successors finished their work in 1945, the Gerritsen Collection was the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and 15 languages. The Gerritsen curators gathered more than 4,700 publications from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, dating from 1543-1945. The anti-feminist case is presented as well as the pro-feminist; many other titles present a purely objective record of the condition of women at a given time.

The Journal de Physique was created in 1872 by Charles d'Almeida. It counts more than 300,000 pages in over 48,500 articles and represents a true scientific monument, produced since 1872, within which the great names of physics may be found.