News Sources: Finding News Sources
Center for Research Libraries
The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) is an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries with vast holdings of newspapers from all regions of the world. The CRL maintains the International Coalition on Newspapers (ICON) Database, the most comprehensive source of information about significant newspaper collections in print, digital and micro formats (learn more about the ICON Database).
As a CRL member, primary and rarely-held research materials are available to Columbia affiliates via Interlibrary Loan and digital document delivery. Search the CRL Library Catalog for Newspapers to see CRL’s collection (click “Online Resources” on the right to limit to digital materials).
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world and the de facto national library of the United States. The Library of Congress maintains a Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index of newspapers published in the United States since 1690. This directory can help identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
The Library of Congress also makes some digitized newspapers freely available through its Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers site.
WorldCat
WorldCat, a unified catalog of library holdings from around the world, can be used to search for newspaper and magazine holdings. Select the format as either “Journal, Magazine” or “Newspaper.” Note that specific holdings (such as years) can be difficult to determine from WorldCat, and name changes can pose issues identifying specific titles as well.
The library catalog, CLIO, is the access point for all news publications held by the Columbia University Libraries. To find a particular publication, search for it by title in the CLIO search bar. This will search across all of our resources, print and digital. For guidance on searching in languages that use non-Roman scripts, see the CLIO Search Tips for Non-Roman Languages page.
Direct links to many popular titles can be found in the Newspapers and Magazines sections of this guide. To search across many publications at one time, see the the News Collections section.
Online & Digitized News
To find online access to a specific newspaper or magazine, follow these steps:
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Search for the publication name in the E-Journal Titles filter in CLIO to limit your search to only online journals (an “e-journal” here refers to any title published serially—newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, etc.). Some titles, most often backfiles of digitized newspapers, may instead be cataloged as databases. Check the Databases filter in CLIO if needed.
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After locating the CLIO record for the title, check the date ranges listed next to each access point and choose one that has the date that you need.
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If there are multiple database links for your date range, try out the various links—different databases will have different user interfaces and sometimes different formatting (for instance, PDF rather than HTML full-text).
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Note that some titles will have multiple CLIO records.
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After opening the database, either browse by date or search by keyword.
Print & Microfilm News
Sometimes you will need or want to use a hard copy source. Not all print news sources, particularly older ones, will have a digital access option (or perhaps the Columbia Libraries does not have it). In addition, online databases may not have the original print layout/formatting, or include all published content (for instance, digital newspaper archives may not include all articles, certain photographs or art, classified sections, etc.). When not online, newspapers and magazines will most often be available on microfilm or in bound print volumes.
To search for titles in print or microfilm:
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Search for the publication name in the Catalog filter in CLIO. Then under the Format filter, choose “Journal/Periodical.” If a publication has a common name, you may wish to select a Language or Country of Publication as well. Note that this search method will show both physical and electronic formats.
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After finding the relevant CLIO record, the location as well as the format and date ranges available should be listed.
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For any items listed as “Offsite,” use the “Pick-up” link in the CLIO record to have them delivered to campus. If requesting microfilm or microfiche, choose Butler Library as the campus pick-up location. Microfilm and microfiche readers are available in the Periodicals & Microforms Reading Room (PMRR) in Butler Library.
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The “Scan” link in the CLIO record can be used to request a scan of individual articles from both print and microform formats. The issue date and page number(s) must be included in scan requests.
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If you are having difficulty locating a publication, please contact journalism@library.columbia.edu.
Don't Know the Title?
If looking for newspapers from a particular place or region, rather than a specific title, do a Subject search in CLIO:
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From the Catalog section of CLIO, select “Subject” from the search dropdown menu
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Enter a keyword search search, such as: newspapers AND argentina
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From the search results page, click “Journal/Periodical” from the Format menu on the left
Not Available at Columbia?
News sources not available at Columbia are requestable through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Through ILL, Columbia affiliates can:
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Request a PDF of a news article using the “Article” option. For any scans of a print source, the page number(s) should be included on the form in order to complete the request.
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Request microfilm using the “Newspaper (Microfilm)” option. All microfilm requests should choose Butler Library as the campus pick-up location as microfilm will be delivered to the Periodicals & Microforms Reading Room (PMRR).