Did you know that your library card gives you digital access to local and major newspapers, if you live in Boone or Callaway counties? I’ve written about this before, but the newspaper databases have been rearranged so I have an opportunity to revisit this. Want to learn more about it? Come with me …
The Collections
On our website, see the green bar towards the top? The third button is “Research and Learn.” Click that and additional menu items are available. On the far left is Topics. Click on Topics and then on “Articles and Newspapers.” Quite the list, isn’t it? Let’s start with the St. Louis Post Dispatch collection. Within the library, you don’t need to log in. From home you have a login process, so have your library card at hand.
You will have two format options: images or text. The image option brings up a digital copy of the newspaper as if you had it spread out in front of you. The text option starts with a list of the day’s articles, and having selected one you can read it, print it, share it and more. After selecting a format, select a date on the calendar. You can have it read to you or increase the font size as well. These are current, up-to-date issues as well as past issues from 1988.
The USA Today, Columbia Daily Tribune and the Kansas City Star also have direct links on this list. However, the New York Times Daily Collection direct link only provides their full digital paper dated a month back; see current articles from the New York Times in the U.S. Major Dailies Collection. Some of these companies also make their web articles, podcasts and other resources available.
U.S. Major Dailies Collection
Let’s go back to the topic of “Articles and Newspapers” and explore U.S. Major Dailies Collection, which provides access to text articles from The New York Times (1980-current), The Wall Street Journal (1984-current), The Washington Post (1987-current), Los Angeles Times (1985-current) and Chicago Tribune (1985-current).
There are two ways you can access articles in this database. One way allows you to find relevant information across five major newspapers. Type in a topic to get started and then use the filters on the left to refine your search. For example, I asked for articles about Gaza and got 115,000+ articles, but the first ones are from January, 2025. So I changed the Sorted By to Most Recent First. (I’ll decide what is relevant, thank you.) I limited it to full text and to newspapers only and then tightened up my search to “Gaza al-Jazeera” and now I’m down to 2,000+ articles. Still a generous number to review.
The second thing you can do is to read the paper. Right above the search field is a publications button, which allows you to select one publication from the 23 available to you. Select a date; it defaults to today’s date. This gives you the text version of articles and there are no images to accompany the article. You don’t get the ads or the filler articles or that full newspaper experience, but you can read the articles themselves. And it’s such a help when I am chasing down something paywalled on a Facebook post!
Plus There’s More!
Returning to the topic of “Articles and Newspapers,” there are other databases that are off-site resources. I’m not covering those in this post but I hope you will come in or call if you are having trouble navigating those. Our online databases are only available to cardholders living in Boone and Callaway Counties, although you can check out books and other physical resources if you live outside of our service area. If you would like one of us to help you learn more about any of these online resources, please visit one of our locations at your convenience.
I want to close by discussing the Local & Historic Newspapers Guide, found about halfway through the list. It provides access to the local papers’ websites, where to find papers on microfilm and a couple of historical newspaper databases. You will have to visit other libraries to read microfilm, of course.
Research and Learn is part of our awesome digital library, which includes Hoopla, Kanopy and similar apps, and our website and online catalog. And most of us are pretty proud of the generosity of resources. If you have any questions or want to learn to use it, please get in touch!
