In NYPL's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, we have an extensive historical collection of regional, local, and international newspapers from Colonial America to Imperial Japan. This blog post will explore how one can find NYPL’s (print and non-print) historical newspapers. 

The quickest way to find a complete list of the Library's newspapers is to visit the Microform Reading Room’s homepage, where you will find several pdf guides at the bottom of the page. These titles are available as microfilms in the Microform Reading Room (Room 100, First Floor) in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Please note that most regional, international, and non-NYC papers are stored off-site and will take approximately two to three business days for delivery. Learn more about requesting off-site titles in advance. 

We also recommend that you verify the titles in our classic catalog system. To confirm the holdings of a specific title, make sure you change “Keyword” to “Journal title” and change “Collection” to “Stephen A. Schwarzman.”  If you do not have any specific titles, you can search for newspapers by "Subject."  In the search box, type the "country" of your interest and the word "newspaper" or "periodical." For example: "Iran Newspaper" will generate a few titles available in NYPL. 

For specific title catalog searches, such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, you will encounter several catalog entries under that name. For this title, it is the first entry that is the most relevant of all.

Once you click the first entry, you will notice that the Brooklyn Daily Eagle is available in two formats: electronic and microfilm. If you click on the first entry, you will notice that this title comes in a bound format as well. If you look closely, you will also see that the Brooklyn Daily Eagle is available as a “microfilm” — the trick is to look at the “Location,” “Call No.,” and “Holdings.” These fields indicate where the item can be requested and what dates are available. You can see the full record of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle here.

For digital resources, it is important to note that a majority of our online newspapers can only be viewed onsite. This means that you will need to use one of the computer stations in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building or bring your own to access these newspaper databases, and some are accessible from home with a NYPL library card.

To see what we have electronically, view the Articles and Database page. On this page, you can switch the “Subjects” to “Historical Newspapers” or “International Newspapers,” depending on your research interest. This will generate a list of newspapers available electronically. 

Here are three popular newspaper databases provided by NYPL:

1. Proquest National Newspapers: Searchable full text from the 1980s to the present — the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Christian Science Monitor.
2. Press Display: Provides access to current newspapers from around the world in full-color, full-page format. Includes over 1,000 U.S. and international titles. Read this NYPL blog entry for details about this resourceful database. (Also available from home).
3. 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Provides researchers with the most comprehensive collection of national and regional newspapers of Victorian Britain. For those conducting research on the British Empire or Victorian culture, they will find this database to be useful.  

Click here for a complete list of newspaper databases.

If you are having difficulty locating digital newspapers, you can visit the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building: Microform Reading Room or attend one of our monthly public classes, Researching with E-Resources: Periodicals and Newspapers, held in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, in order to learn how to research and read online (current and historical) newspapers. For more information regarding the schedule of these free workshops, please check the class calendar.