COLLECTIONS:

Special Collections

University Archives

Collection Preservation

Research Collections:
Newspaper Collection

Collection Overview
Newspapers are acquired to meet the research and teaching needs of Boston College based on ongoing research and the curriculum. They relate to a broad range of programs in the humanities, social sciences, business, education, nursing and the sciences. Newspapers are primary source materials reflecting current events, information, and editorial opinion having both immediate interest and lasting value. Since newspapers may vary in quality and usefulness to scholars, it is of most importance to collect major newspapers of record. Because of cost and space limitations and the need for microfilm backup, the printed newspaper collection must be limited, selective and representative rather than exhaustive. Electronic access has had an impact because of the more exhaustive collections online. Online access has made available numerous new resources for newspaper research including newspapers not normally selected because the readership is more specialized or geographically localized. It is important to note that at present, online newspapers generally cover recent issues only, and libraries rely on microfilm for retrospective coverage and research.

Robert Bruns
1-617-552-4832
E-Mail: bruns@bc.edu

Selected Resources

In the O'Neill Library:

• The O'Neill Library Current Periodicals section on Level Three hold over 100 current subscriptions to newspapers from around the United States and the world. Individual titles are contained in the online catalog, BCAT. In addition, there are microform backfiles of  newspapers important for research in the microforms area on Level One. They include the Boston area newspapers The Boston Evening Transcript (1848-1915), The Boston Globe (1872-), The Boston Herald (1848-1977), The Christian Science Monitor (1949-), and The Pilot (1829-). National news and regional news are also covered in The New York Times (1851-), The Washington Post (1929-), The Washington Star (1941-), The Washington Times (1982-), The Chicago Tribune (1970-), The Los Angeles Times (1970-), among others. Also in microfilm are many other United States newspapers of historical importance. Some are in the 24 newspaper set Black Newspaper Collection, others are individual titles. There is a large collection of Irish newspapers on microfilm, several Russian newspapers, and other papers from around the world in the microfilm area. Also included there is the Boston College student newspaper, The Heights (1919-1997).

• Important sets: Various national union lists of periodicals contain newspapers, as do the various sets containing the holdings of specific research libraries, but for retrospective lists of newspapers, Newspapers in Microform: United States, and Newspapers in Microform: Foreign Countries are the most valuable. However, the way researchers find individual newspapers has changed. For instance, the United States Newspaper Program National Union List (1993), a microfiche set of paper and microfilm newspaper holdings of libraries throughout the United States, has been superseded by electronic access to newspapers holdings information through WorldCat. These sources contain the titles of newspapers that the National Newspaper Program located, identified, inventoried, and preserved in the United States and its Trust Territories, plus many other titles, and they are available for borrowing through O'Neill Library's Interlibrary Loan Department. Some of them, particularly for the New England region, but nationally as well, are available locally through the Boston Public Library, and the titles are contained in the reference source U.S. Newspapers in the Boston Public Library. The Boston Library Consortium Union List of Serials, available on the "BLC" icon on computers located in the library, also contains newspaper holdings of the consortium libraries, which Boston College students have access to. Other important printed sets dealing with newspapers include the British Library Catalogue of the Newspaper Library (8 vols.), the Europa Yearbook (1959-), which contains information about the press for countries around the world, and  Editorials on File (1979-) which is a convenient compendium of editorials from newspapers around the United States.

• Reference works: The general guides and directories include Editor and Publisher International Yearbook, Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media (1990-), International Media Guide. Edition Newspapers Worldwide, and World's News Media: A Comprehensive Reference Guide (1991). The Gale directory is also located on the O'Neill Library's Online Databases page in Gale's Ready Reference Shelf. Some more specific guides to newspapers are: African-American Newspapers and Periodicals, African Newspapers on Microfilm, American Newspapers, 1821-1936, Center for Research Libraries Catalogue: Newspapers, Check List of American 18th Century Newspapers in the Library of Congress, Directory of Newspaper Libraries in the U.S. and Canada, Directory of Roman Catholic Newspapers on Microfilm, Encyclopedic Directory of Ethnic Newspapers and Periodicals in the United States, Foreign Newspapers Held by the Center for Research Libraries, History and Annotated Bibliography of American Religious Periodicals and Newspapers, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1600-1820, Latin American Newspapers in United States Libraries, Newspapers and Periodicals by and about Black People, Native American Periodicals and Newspapers, 1828-1982, Northern Ireland Newspapers, 1737-1987, and Waterloo Directory of Irish Newspapers and Periodicals. Other reference works include: American Newspaper Journalists 1690-1950 (4 vols.), Biographical Dictionary of American Newspaper Columnists, Encyclopedia of American Journalism, Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422-1992, and World Press Encyclopedia.

• Important Indexes: The printed indexes essential for retrospective research in newspapers are located in the O'Neill Library microforms area on Level One on the right wall at the bottom of the stairs. They include most importantly the indexes to the long retrospective runs of the New York Times and Times of London that the O'Neill Library holds, The New York Times Index (1851-) and Times of London Index (1785-). Also included are The Boston Globe Index (1974- but not comprehensive for the first few years of the index), The Chicago Tribune Index (1972-), The Christian Science Monitor Index (1949-), Index to Black Newspapers (1977-), The Los Angeles Times Index (1972-), The Wall Street Journal Index (1958-), The Washington Post Index (1972-), and The Washington Times Index (1986-).

• Translation services: The most important of these is the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), which has translations of overseas newspaper articles in it and ran in print from 1977 to the early 1990's, when it was continued by microfilm and the online World News Connection (see below).  An important printed source is the Current Digest of the Soviet Press (1949-1991) and its successor, Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press (1992-). O'Neill Library also has the Survey of China Mainland Press and Survey of the People's Republic of China Press (1970-1977). Very up to date summaries of the Japanese press in English are provided by the Weekly Japan Digest (1995-).

On the Web (Restricted to the BC Community):

• General indexes: Poole's Plus is a general index of nineteenth and early twentieth century periodicals which also indexes The New York Times (1851-1912), the Times of London (1790-1900), the New York Herald Tribune (1835-1918), the Daily Tribune (1875-1906), and the Maryland Gazette (1727-1839). Expanded Academic Index ASAP (1980-) indexes academic and popular journals with some full text, and indexes some major newspapers as well. In addition, Archives USA provides access to holdings and contact information, plus links to home pages of thousands of archives having newspaper holdings.

• Full text databases: Boston Globe Online (1980-), which enables the researcher to search for words located in the headline, the first paragraph, or in the full text of the article; Electric Library which covers magazines, books, newspapers, pictures, maps, TV and radio transcripts, and has a number of newspapers from around the U.S. and the world full text; Ethnic Newswatch which has full text from some 200 publications of the ethnic, minority and native press and includes about a half a million full text articles from 1990 with archival material back to the mid 1980's with both Spanish and English searching, Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, which has several sections, including news, business, legal, medical and reference, but the full text news covers both U.S. and international papers and television and radio news transcripts, and World News Connection, which has translations of foreign news reports from several regions of the world.

• Subject Indexes: ComAbstracts-CIOS (Communication Institute for Online Scholarship), an index to articles in communication and speech journals plus access to other sources of information dealing with communications.

Research Guides
More information about available resources can be found in the following resource guide: Newspapers in the O'Neill Library on the Web.

Interdisciplinary Elements of Subject Area
Newspapers range from interdisciplinary coverage to specialized subject area coverage in support of specific educational programs at Boston College (such as nursing or business).

Formats and Types of Materials
For newspapers with a strong historical and research value, microform backfiles are kept when it is possible to do so. Newspapers are a primary source material with both a short shelf life and unwieldy format, and so their retention in microform or online backfile is an especially important element in research. The availability of many newspapers in electronic format has reduced the tendency to retain large numbers of current newspapers on shelves. For research, key word searching of full text electronic files allows the researcher full access to information from recent years in a broad variety of newspapers (more extensive historical research awaits fuller retrospective work on electronic formatting, and continues reliance on microfilm). The library's task in the near future is to deliver as much full text access to researchers as possible. At the same time, there is a reduced tendency for students and staff to request their own hometown newspapers for library purchase, since a broad variety of them are available through the web.

Languages
An attempt is made to cover foreign language newspapers from countries well represented in the curriculum, and translations of foreign languages into English are kept where possible. Major papers in English are kept in the geographical areas indicated below.

Geographic Areas (Subject Approach)
There are three general areas of representation:
    1) Foreign newspapers: major papers from countries well represented in the curriculum.
    2) United States newspapers: major papers representing regional and national news and opinion.
    3) Local newspapers: major dailies covered.

Time Periods (Subject Approach)
Microform backfiles are retained for titles of research interest. Extensive backfiles are retained on a selective group of newspapers needed on a frequently recurring basis.

Date of Publication
Newspapers are collected as published. Backfiles are purchased to provide historic coverage.