Queen's University Library subscribes to a number of newspapers. To locate specific newspapers, check QCAT using a title search for the name of the newspaper, e.g. Whig Standard. Be sure to check the holdings to see which issues the Library holds and in what format. In general, older issues of the newspaper will be only available on microfilm.

Current issues of newspapers are in the Current Periodicals area on the ground floor of Stauffer Library. Microfilm newspapers are located in the Microforms area on the lower level of Stauffer Library.

If you do not know the titles of the newspapers you need and want to identify newspapers from a particular city, do a subject heading search in QCAT. For example:

Paris (France)-- Newspapers
Toronto (Ont.)-- Newspapers

You can also check the print listing of our newspaper holdings (located at Stauffer Library Help Desk). The list is organized by province and then by city for Canada. For the rest of the world, the listing is organized by country.

Ask yourself the following questions in order to determine where to find the right kind of news resource:

Do I want local, national or international news?
Do I need current information or something published in the past?
Do I know the exact item I want, or am I trying to find out what has been written on a particular topic?

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Some of the most well-known newspaper and magazine news sources are held by Queen's in a variety of locations.

For example, the Canadian edition of Time is available, fulltext, via CBCA and Factiva, current editions are held in Current Periodicals at Stauffer, and there is a collection of older editions in Stauffer Bound Journals. The New York edition of Time is available, fulltext, via ABI/INFORM and in Stauffer Library- Microfilms, from 1923 onward.

To get this information, do a title search in QCAT. For instructions on how to do this, please see the FAQ entry 'Can I use QCAT to find newspapers?'

Some sources available to Queen's library users via online fulltext databases, such as Factiva, are not listed in QCAT. Check the appropriate section of this guide for information about databases that may contain a news source you are looking for, and then check the title or sources list for that database to see if it includes your desired newspaper. Alternatively, do a sample search in the database for a given publication title.

How you find the exact date of an event depends on the event in question.

Major events and topics, such as wars, significant cultural, legal or scientific milestones (ie: first person on the moon; women's suffrage), or deaths of notable people, can be looked up in an encyclopedia (for example: Oxford Reference Online, or Encyclopedia Britannica).

Other events, especially those that were well covered in the news, can be looked up using a news service (several are listed in the 'News Services' section of this guide). News services tend to be organized chronologically, but there are subject and name indexes that will tell you which volume to look in for more information. News services are issued weekly or monthly, and therefore can be used to look up the dates of current events as well as historical ones.

See the 'News Services' section of this guide for a list of publications that offer summaries of significant historical events that made the news.

Recent events (after about 1980) can be searched through the online fulltext databases, using a keyword search and date limits. Recent events can also be searched through paper indexes. Check the 'Recent News' section of this guide for information about which indexes are appropriate for a given topic and time period.

Historical events are more likely to require the use of paper indexes, bibliographies and news services. Some online indexes, such as Palmer's Index to the Times, may be helpful. Check the 'Historical News' section of this guide for information about what is available. Ask yourself: Do I want national, regional or local coverage?

Canadian Newsstand provides fulltext access to all the major national and regional newspapers in Canada. It is current, minus the last two days, and although coverage varies by publication, most are indexed from the early 1990s to the present.

To search within a specific newspaper, simply add the paper's name in 'publication title'. For example:

Landsdowne Park [citation…] and Ottawa Citizen [publication title]
hockey [in citation…] and Gazette [publication title]

Eureka.com provides access to several major Quebec french news sources from 1985 to today as well as CBC radio and television transcripts.

Factiva provides fulltext for news articles from the major Canadian papers, as well as some smaller papers (for example the Kitchener-Waterloo Record). To choose a specific newspaper in Factiva, click on the 'Source' tab, and select the source category 'Publications by Type.' From there, you will be able to browse the available newspapers.

LexisNexis is a news, law and business information service. It includes up-to-date full text articles from newspapers in the United States, Canada and around the world.

The "Websites" section of this guide provides a list of "Links Pages (Portals)" that contain links to the websites of many local papers.

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In most cases, news articles that are available on microfilm from another university can be obtained via interlibrary loan. In the case of an online fulltext article, it may depend on the specific publisher and the copyright. Interlibrary loan requests can be made through RACER (see the "Request an Interlibrary Loan" link in the "Quick Links" menu on the main library webpage).

Canadian Press Newswire can be searched through Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA). Full text stories are available from 1994 onwards.

There are many different sources for fulltext news at Queen's, and whether you can browse easily depends on the source you choose. Some steps for browsing in the more popular databases are outlined below:

Canadian Newsstand:
Enter the name of a newspaper in 'publication date' and set a date limit to the period of time you are interested in. For example:

Calgary Herald [publication title]
date range: [last 7 days]

In many cases, information that is available through subscriptions to news websites is already present through our online packages (for example ProQuest), or through our daily subscriptions and microfilm collection. These sites are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and rather than duplicate information, the choice is often made to allocate resources to new materials that are not presently available. For information about where to access some of the more well-known news sources, please see the 'How do I find out where I can get a copy of a newspaper or popular news source such as Time?' section of this FAQ, or consult the appropriate chronological/geographical section of this guide.

News from many local, regional, national and international newspapers is available on the internet. In the 'Websites' section of this guide, under 'Portals' there is a list of websites that link to thousands of news sources all over the world. In general, they are organized geographically and alphabetically. Please note: in some cases, a subscription may be necessary to see all content.