Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Library Databases - Wonderful Research Tools

Have you read the article by George G. Morgan's on his "Along Those Lines" blog at http://ahaseminars.livejournal.com/10781.html about "Library Databases - The Unused Asset"? If not, please click on the link and read it.

I checked into my local library online databases to see what might be helpful to me and my colleagues in Chula Vista - the list is here. You need a CVPL library card to access the databases.

There are three newspaper databases on the Chula Vista Public Library site:

1) Newsbank - America's Newspapers - 51 US newspapers with full text search capability, many from the 1980's to the present day.

2) EBSCO - Newspaper Source - full text from 25 US and international papers, and selected full text for 260 regional US newspapers. I couldn't find a list of them to determine the time spans for them.

3) ProQuest - Newspaper Source - unfortunately, it looks like the library didn't renew their subscription recently.

In addition, the Chula Vista library provides access to Ancestry Library Edition on the library computer system, but not for home access. Ancestry LE has access to many historical newspapers in their collection.

In the coming days, I will look at the San Diego Public Library and Carlsbad Public Library online databases also, since I, and many of my CV colleagues, have a library card for those systems.

While this specific information will only help my colleagues in Chula Vista, I hope it will spur you to check into the online databases that your local library provides access to. You may be pleasantly surprised!

UPDATE 18 January: The specific newspapers in the Newsbank America's Newspapers collection in the Chula Vista Library database include:

Chicago Tribune - 1985 to current
Detroit Free Press - 1982 to current
New York Post - 11/21/1999 to current
New York Times Book Review - 1/2/2000 to current

New York Times Magazine - 1/2/2000 to current
New York Times - 1/2/2000 to current
Philadelphia Inquirer - 1981 to current
Arizone Republic - 1/1/1999 to current

Denver Post - 6/1989 to current
Las Vegas Review Journal - 9/26/1998 to current
Boston globe - 1980 to current
Washington Post - 1977 to current

Miami Herald - 5/19/1982 to current
Charlotte Observer - 1985 to current
Kansas City Star - 1991 to current
Al Dia (Dallas) - 9/29/2003 to current

Arlington (TX) Morning News - 4/1/1996 to 1/12/2003
Dallas Morning News - 1984 to current
Fort Worth Star-Telegram - 1991 to current
Quick DFW (Dallas) - 11/10/2003 to current

La Opinion (Los Angeles) - 2000 to current
Los Angeles Times - 1/5/2006 to current
Orange County Register (including 23 weeklies) - 1987 to current
San Diego Union-Tribune - 2000 to current

San Francisco Chronicle - 1985 to current
San Jose Mercury-News - 1985 to current
Seattle Times - 1985 to current

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a librarian, I appreciate anyone who spreads the news about library databases. Even the smallest library systems may have information that you can use (if not for genealogy, then for other aspects of your life).

Anonymous said...

As someone moving to Chula Vista, I am happy to see that there is an interesting and lively library there. Thanks.