HIST 712: US Civil War Era Research (Spring 2025)

• Do not use too many search terms at once. I suggest two or three maximum. Use the build in filters to limit search results.
• Be thoughtful of about quick newspaper databases you use for your search. This selection will shape the keywords used, as well as the over all results.
• Use the filters like Publication date and subject filters to limit results.
• Use boolean, especially proximity search commands. As a reminder:
  • Readex
    • Near Operator NEAR#  will return results where words are close together, regardless of order
      • woman NEAR7 colleges = woman and colleges within seven words apart in any order
    • Adjacency Operator ADJ# will return results where words are close together, in that order
      • Women ADJ5 colleges = colleges within the last 5 words after women.
  • History Commons 
    • Near Operator NEAR/# will return results where words are close together, regardless of order
      • Women NEAR/5 colleges = women and colleges within 5 words of each other
  • Ebsco
    • Near Operator (N) will return results where words are close together, regardless of order
      • Women N5 colleges = women and colleges within 5 words of each other
    • Within Operator (W) will return results where words are close together, in that order
      • Women W5 colleges = colleges within the last 5 words after women.
  • ProQuest
    • Near Search, NEAR/# finds terms within # words apart in any order
      • woman NEAR/7 colleges = woman and colleges within seven words apart in any order
    • Within Search, PRE/# or P/#, finds terms within # words apart in that order
      • woman PRE/7 colleges = searches were colleges is listed within 7 searches after woman
  • GALE
    • Near search N# finds terms within # words apart in any order
      • woman N4 colleges = women and colleges 4 words apart
    • Within search W# finds terms within # words apart in that order
      • woman W4 colleges = results where college is within 4 words after woman.
  • Chronicling America
    • Build in "search within X words" option in advanced search dashboard

The William & Mary Libraries have nearly 250 databases of newspapers with over 9,500 individual digitized newspaper titles, as well as over 1,207 newspaper titles in print or microform.  In addition to these materials, the library ILL office can order newspapers in microfilm from partner libraries at no cost to members of the W&M community. With so much material to access, knowing where to start can be vexing. 

Newspaper Databases of Note for this Course

NOTE:

You can also find historic newspapers in ProQuest, EBSCO, and PRIMO by conducting a search, limiting the publication dates to the period of interest, and finally limiting to "newspaper articles." This will search many historic newspapers at once, but will also return a staggering number of results. Unless you are searching for something very specific, I suggest not using their option until you've tried other databases first.

• Use Newspapers as a subject, and use the location of interest as a subject to find local newspapers. Limit publication dates to limit results.

• This also works using Newspapers as a subject and a topic/theme as a subject or keyword. Again, limit to publication date to narrow time period focus

This works especially well in WorldCat, which will includes materials in other libraries.

For local and small-town newspapers, WorldCat is extremely useful.

NOTE: we typically CAN interlibrary loan newspaper from other libraries if it is in microfilm. The process is much faster if you use worldcat to identify which library holds the material; the process moves even faster if you include the OCLC number in the record. Please order it as a "book" in the ILL dropdown menu.

Use Newspaper Indexes and Directories to identify newspapers of interest. Check if we have these titles at W&M. If we do not, check WorldCat.