Using the topic of Twitter, we explore several newspaper databases for articles on the topic.

1. RESEARCHING TRENDS IN
NEWSPAPER DATABASES
A Guide
By Emily Z. Brown

2. WHAT IS A NEWSPAPER, EXACTLY?
A newspaper is a periodical that is
published daily and sometimes
weekly.
Newspapers cover current events,
social commentary, reviews,
advertisements, and public
notifications.
Most newspapers also have a
corresponding online presence.
BCC Students have access to the
historical archives of several
prominent newspapers.

3. FINDING NEWSPAPER DATABASES
Under the Library Services
section on the Library Home
page choose “Find Articles.”
Choosing “Locate Journals &
Newspapers” would lead you to
a search of newspapers by title.
So, for instance, if you wanted
to know if BCC had access to the
Fall River Herald.
For this exercise, we will go in
through Find Articles.

4. FINDING NEWSPAPER DATABASES
On the next screen you will see a
listing of BCC Databases by subject.
Choose Newspaper Databases to find
a listing of all the newspaper
databases you have access to
through BCC.

5. FINDING NEWSPAPER DATABASES
As a BCC student you have access too
4 newspaper databases. These four
databases index different
newspapers.
In this tutorial we will examine three
databases:
• Newspaper Source
• Proquest Newspapers (includes
both the Historical Boston Globe
and New York Times)
• Lexis Nexis News

6. NEWSPAPER SOURCE
How to search Newspaper Source

7. SEARCHING NEWSPAPER SOURCE
Choose the database Newspaper
Source.
This will open the database and allow
you to search several newspapers.
Among them:
• The Christian Science Monitor
• USA Today
• The Washington Post
• The Wall Street Journal
• Among many others….

8. SEARCHING NEWSPAPER SOURCE
The Newspaper Source databases is
an EBSCO Database. As such, we will
not be talking about the fine points of
searching (for a refresher, please refer
back to my tutorial on Searching
EBSCO Databases).
I have entered my search terms in the
basic search box.

9. SEARCHING NEWSPAPER SOURCE
My initial search was
unsuccessful. Two of
the three articles are
not owned full text by
BCC.
I can still access these
articles by clicking on
the link “Request this
item through
interlibrary loan.”

10. SEARCHING NEWSPAPER SOURCE
After changing my search terms to
twitter and protests, I have a lot
more options.
I also used the date range tool to
narrow my results to articles written
in 2014.
These three results discuss the
protests happening in Ferguson,
Missouri.

11. FINDING AN ARTICLE IN NEWSPAPER SOURCE
Once I have identified an article
I would like to use as a source, I
click on the title and find the
full text beneath the article
record.
As in other EBSCO databases
there are tools to email and cite
this source.

12. PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS
How to search Proquest Newspapers

13. SEARCHING PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS
Choose the database Proquest
Newspapers
This will open the database and
allow you to search several
newspapers. Among them:
• Historical Boston Globe
• Historical New York Times
• Boston Globe
• Among many others….

14. SEARCHING PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS
Enter your search
terms into the search
box.
I chose to enter the
terms
Twitter protest
to begin my search.

15. SEARCHING PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS
I like to make sure that
my search is sorted by
relevance.
Immediately I see
results relevant to my
search.
The yellow newspaper
icon indicates that the
article is in a historical
newspaper, but it was
published in 2009.

16. SEARCHING PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS
If the article is in a
historical newspaper, as
indicated by the yellow
newspaper icon, you
will see the article as a
PDF scan of the actual
newspaper.
Search terms are
highlighted so you can
easily find them.

17. SEARCHING PROQUEST NEWSPAPERS
An article in a newspaper
that is not historical will
be available in HTML
once you click on the
title.
I’ve highlighted the email
and citation options in
this database and
indicated where the text
of the article begins.

18. LEXIS NEXIS NEWS
How to search Lexis Nexis News

19. SEARCHING LEXIS NEXIS NEWS
Choose the database Lexis Nexis
News
This will open the database and
allow you to search hundreds of
regional, national, and world
newspaper.

20. SEARCHING LEXIS NEXIS NEWS
When you open the database
the default search is the basic
search. I entered the search
terms
twitter protest
Also of note, there are links to
hot topics that are in
newspaper headlines this week.

21. SEARCHING LEXIS NEXIS NEWS
The advanced search in Lexis Nexis News
is very useful. You can narrow by source
type (newspaper, magazine, university
news, etc), region, or location.
This is a powerful way to search if you’re
looking for a trend in a specific
geographical area.

22. SEARCHING LEXIS NEXIS NEWS
On the left side of the
screen you will be able to
narrow to different types of
sources (newspapers, news
transcripts, magazines,
etc).
On the right you’ll see your
article results. I’ve called
out several that make
sense to my research.

23. SEARCHING LEXIS NEXIS NEWS
When you click on the
title of the article you
will see the full text in
HTML.
One the upper right
hand side of the
screen you will see
email and citation
functions within Lexis
Nexis.

24. Thus concludes our exploration of Newspaper Databases.