Are you looking to check if the University of Iowa libraries has unlimited access to your favorite newspaper? Do you have a specific news article that you're trying to track down and see if it's available through the library? These are things that you can do with the online access to many newspapers provided by the University of Iowa libraries. There are several ways that you can do this:

• One is by searching through the Electronic Journals A-Z to see if a specific newspaper is available. If you have an article in mind and know the newspaper that it's from, you might start this way. This might also be a good method if you know the title of the newspaper that you want access to.
• Another way is to use the infohawk+ search bar located on the front page of the library website. You can use this to either search for the title of a newspaper or the title of a specific article. If you find the newspaper or article using this method and click on the resource, you'll see a list of all of the different databases that you can access it through. Seeing these different options is helpful because some databases might have different dates covered. This method could be helpful if you know the title of an article that you're look for, but don't know which paper it is located in.
• A third method is to browse through the hand-picked list of newspaper and magazine sources located on our page for The Perch. This page is put together by a team of our librarians who focus on helping undergraduate students. This method might be preferable if you know that you want to use a newspaper or magazine source, but aren't sure which one and would like to browse through what we have to offer like you might do walking through a store.

Accessing Articles with Heavily Visual Content

You might have noticed that news sites have increasingly begun to add rich and creative visuals to the text content of their articles. In some cases, the graphics are a core part of the story. An example is this article from the New York Times titled, The Class of 2000 'Could Have Been Anything' that simulates flipping through a year book as the user scrolls through the article:

As you're going through the databases that contain newspapers, you might find that many of the article are only accessible in a text-only format. While this might be perfectly fine for some articles, other you might miss out on crucial information with the context of the graphics or visuals you would see on the newspaper site's interface.

The database ProQuest Recent Newspapers is a useful work around to this problem. This database offers full pdf's of many articles from a variety of newspapers. The images of articles are high quality and in color. Something to keep a note of is that this database has a three month embargo on new articles.

Many newspapers are not available in full text; therefore you will need to use an index or another reference source and then refer to the microfilm. Indexes are available in electronic and print formats. Ask a librarian for help in selecting an appropriate index.

Print Indexes - Print indexes are located in the Main Reference Area, Index shelves, first floor, west.

The leading indexes include:

         The New York Times Index (1851 to date)

         The Times Index (London) (1785 to date)

         The Christian Science Monitor Index (1960 to date)

         The Wall Street Journal Index (1955 to date)

The New York Times Index

The most comprehensive newspaper index is that of The New York Times. This newspaper has broad coverage of national affairs, world politics, commerce and finance, education, book reviews, sports, science, art, theater, music, agriculture, military affairs, religion, etc. It often prints full text of national and international documents, communiques, bills, laws and speeches. The New York Times is compiled from the Late City Edition of The New York Times - the same edition that is microfilmed. Full text access is available in a number of databases.

The print version of The New York Times  Index (for issues from 1851-) summarizes and classifies news alphabetically and chronologically under subjects and under names of persons and organizations. It is shelved in the Newspaper Index section, Main Reference.