What's the best way to know if a newspaper is available online through the library?

The most reliable way to find out how Harvard provides access to a specific newspaper is through HOLLIS. Search for the newspaper by title.

Start with Best Bet Links

You may find a "we suggest" recommendation above your results list: this usually takes you to our most popular online access point. Similarly, the "ONLINE ACCESS" links in your results list is a best bet that will usually takes you to our access point for the most recent issues.

Find All Your Access Options

If you need a different access point or more details about your access options, check your results list for a record cluster with an option, in orange text, to "Check for ONLINE access and other options. List of versions," and click through to the list of versions.

Each record in the list of versions will describe a different set of access points: you may need to look through them all to find the one that best fits your needs. Records with an "ONLINE ACCESS" link will include online access points; records that do not have an "ONLINE ACCESS" link will show print and microfilm holdings. Either way, select the title (not "ONLINE ACCESS") to get a full list of options, including details about date ranges and license restrictions.

For recent news, aggregator databases such as Nexis Uni and Factiva usually give you access to the text of the articles, but not page images. By contrast, databases for historical newspapers, such as ProQuest Historical Newspapers or Readex, often include page images as well as searchable text.

It can sometimes be tricky to determine which HOLLIS record or record cluster is the "main" one, with the most complete list of versions. The best clues are place of publication and the dates: if the newspaper is still being published, look for a record that has a start date but not an end date.

If Harvard Doesn't Have Online Access

If we don’t have online access for the dates you’re interested in, we may have copies in print or microfilm, and if we don't have the newspaper at all, you can still request a scan of a specific article via Scan & Deliver and/or Interlibrary Loan. And if you don't yet know the citation information for the article(s) you're interested in, there are search tools you can use to identify relevant articles. Some newspapers will be included in free online search tools; for some, you're better off with a Harvard-licensed abstracting and indexing database such as Periodicals Index Online. The trick is to find the right search tool: please ask us for suggestions!

For more in-depth guidance on doing newspaper research, see our Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes. For magazine research, you’ll find additional guidance under Finding Articles in General and Popular Periodicals.

See also: Does Harvard subscribe to the digital editions of popular newspapers?