Looking for additional tools to locate historical newspapers for your primary source research? Consider trying out Google News Archive Search. Though the engine does not provide quite the functionality of the library’s archival news databases (New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Times of London), it provides access to a substantial number of articles from an incredible variety of national and international newspapers (strongest in US and Canada), with some titles ranging back to the 18th century. Google makes this access possible through its News Archive Partner Program and by crawling the web for other digital newspaper collections.
Here are a couple of tips for using this search tool.
- Looking for a specific paper? You can consult this list to see what is included in the collection and the dates included (coverage varies widely)
- Keep in mind that this search will by default include some databases that charge a fee for article access. To restrict your search to primarily free texts, select the Advanced Search link and then choose “no price” from the drop-down box under Price.
- If your topic is focused on a particular event, the search results include a helpful clickable time line that will allow you to easily narrow down to a specific period of time, as specific as a month.
- This search tool operates slightly differently than Google’s general “news” search. To use this, follow the links in this post or “Google” “Google News Archive Search.”
- For more searching information, consult Google’s general and advanced search tip pages.
— Jessica Hronchek, Reference Librarian