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Newspapers

Introduction

This guide suggests ways to find current, recent, and historical newspapers available in digital, print, or microform format. 

Many individual newspaper titles are available in more than one format, depending on the time period.

Important sources for newspapers of all time periods (current, recent, and historical) are aggregator databases. These are databases in which many papers or periodicals are gathered together (aggregated) and made searchable. Searches can be done by publication title, keyword, location, date, and other criteria.

One significant difference among aggregators is how they render the text. For current newspaper coverage, most aggregators provide html text only (no photos, illustrations, or original formatting, and no full-page or issue viewing). Most aggregators of historical papers include original formatting as well as full-page viewing.

Hesburgh Library web site

The Library Homepage provides several access points:

  • To search by newspaper title, go to OneSearch and type in the title you are looking for. (Note that this will not bring up all newspaper titles we have access to through subscription databases. To find titles in subscription databases, search through the Databases search tool (above).) 
  • To search collections of online newspapers, click on the Research tab at the top of the library's homepage, then choose Databases. The search term "newspapers"  will bring up digital newspaper files. Note: no newspapers in print or microform will be included.
  • To search for all formats (print, microform, and digital), use the ND Catalog Advanced Search. For Material Type choose Newspapers, and any other limiters you wish (language, place of publication, etc.). You may also use descriptive phrases like "early American newspapers," or "eighteenth century English provincial newspapers" to shape your search. 
  • You can also search using Catalog Classic (access Catalog Classic by choosing the "ND Catalog" option on the homepage). Click on  the yellow tab More; select link Newspapers.  You can search by title, place, or subject to locate newspapers available in a variety of formats through the Hesburgh Libraries.

The Center for Research Libraries

The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) supplies newspapers in paper, microform, and digital formats and they circulate their physical collections through Inter Library Loan (ILL). At CRL's site, choose Browse Catalog then Newspapers to search CRL's catalog. CRL also offers the  International Coalition on Newspapers (ICON) database on newspapers published outside of the United States. 

WorldCat and Google

WorldCat can be searched for newspaper holdings in libraries worldwide, but full-text of newspapers is not available. 

​If you don't know the title of the newspaper, search Google. Current day or week is usually available for free; older articles often have to be paid for. For example in the Google search box key in: 

newspapers south bend indiana

or

newspapers morocco

for links that will take you to newspapers for a particular location.

Finding American Newspapers