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More Database Handouts: Step by Step with Proquest Historical Newspapers

Sometimes popular and general databases are not enough. Learn to search more social science, local, statistical, and education, and dictionary databases step-by-step.

Step by Step with Proquest Historical Newspapers

Step by Step with the Historical New York Times or Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The ProQuest Historical Newspapers Databases gives access to scanned images of entire newspapers as they appeared when originally published. You can read them using page-by-page browsing, just like reading a paper in its original print form, or search them for specific information

  1. Open the database from alphabetical list on the library's homepage.


  2. You can find Proquest Historical Newspapers under either N for New York Times or A for Atlanta Journal and Constitution.


The library’s A-Z list


3. Type in your search terms, and click the turquoise square with the magnifying glass.

Historical Newspapers Basic Search Box

4. From the list of results you may view articles as PDF reproductions, by clicking the small PDF icon beneath each one.

Search Results page with arrows to an article’s PDF

5. A historical PDF articlePDF articles can look a bit scratchy, but some of them come from text that is more than a hundred years old.

Page View with ProQuest Historical Newspaper Databases

Article in full text format If you would like to browse the historical New York Times page by page, Proquest Historical Newspapers offers Page View. Once you have a PDF article on your screen, click Page View in the row of tabs on top of it.

Page View can feel a bit awkward and cramped. Clicking the Open with PDF Reader can give a better view.

Article in Article Image format Page View also lets you see the parts of the New York Times, such as advertisements, that are difficult to find using a search.