This premier newspaper database represents the first initiative to not only reach back into the past to digitise historical newspaper information but also to provide that information as both full-page-images and as article images.
That means researchers can use the database to find not only news, editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, and birth and marriage announcements but also historical photos, stock photos, and advertisements. By utilising software enhancements, the original microfilm image can frequently be improved for a cleaner, more readable image. And the date range searching tool lets users search on, before, or between two dates.
Digitising just The New York Times involved scanning, digitising, zoning, and editing over 3,400,000 pages from microfilm into digital files. The database covers The New York Times from its first issue in 1851 all the way to 2002 - a span of issues currently not covered by any other electronic resource. Digitisation for The Wall Street Journal involved scanning about 1,400,000 pages. The database covers the years 1889-1988.
Besides these two prominent newspapers, ProQuest has also digitised complete runs of The Altanta Constitution, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. The Chicago Defender , one of the most important African-American newspapers, has recently been added and production will be complete in 2006. The Hartford Courant was also recently added. The title dates back to 1764 and bills itself as "Older Than the Nation". Historical Canadian newspapers digitised by Cold North Wind will also be available through the ProQuest Historical NewspapersTM program. Over the next few years, ProQuest Historical Newspapers will add coverage of national, regional, and local publications.
Accessing ProQuest Historical Newspapers
The database is available on the Web through ProQuest®, a premier information access and retrieval system. It is suitable for all types of researchers whether they are online novices or information professionals. Natural language searching, database segmenting, and conceptual smart searching are just a few of the features that help users find the exact information they need quickly and easily.
Through the ProQuest interface, a searchable ASCII text underlies each article and page image in ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Users can search by keyword and Boolean operators as well as employ more advanced searching techniques. The results list generated by a search includes detailed bibliographic information for the articles retrieved including article title, publication, issue date, author, page, etc.
To see a complete article, a researcher simply clicks on the title in the list, and the system displays the image of the full article - "threaded" to include all graphics and continuations on other pages as a single unit. Researchers also can display the complete image of any page in any issue or even browse the database and scan individual issues page by page.
Click here for the Historical Newspaper Demonstration
