InfoGuides: Core Sources in Latin American History: Use Periodical Publications

Effective News and Media Searching

What Are You Searching?
Identify whether you are searching the full text of the articles or just the indexing information (title, author, abstract, etc.).

Browse
Because of the limitations of full text searching, it is often better to browse particular issues of publications. This allows you to understand the context in which an event occurred, observe items like advertisements that are often unindexed, and discover vital pieces of information missed through searching.

Alternative Spellings
Over time, the spelling of words, particularly proper nouns, may change. Use reference sources and context to account for any variations in spelling over time.

Transcription vs. OCR
Has the original source been transcribed, or has it passed through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software? OCR software can mistake letters or interprets defects in the source paper as additional letters.

Limit to First/Lead Paragraph
If the number of results is overwhelming, try limiting your keyword search to the first or lead paragraph. This will eliminate results in which your term is mentioned in passing. Keep in mind that this may exclude valuable information.

Major Periodical Collections

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a collection of core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences digitized in most cases back to the first date of issue. Includes selected books, primary sources and other materials for academic work.
Statesman's Yearbook This link opens in a new window
Provides concise geographic, historical, economic, political, social and cultural overviews of each country in the world; and biographical profiles of current and key past leaders. The complete archive, from 1864 to present, is included. Features major international organizations and a tool for easy comparison of a wide range of data fields across all countries of the world.

Major Newspaper Collections

Access World News This link opens in a new window
Access World News is a full-text news resource consisting over 13,000 local, regional, national and international sources. Updated daily, it offers researchers and students valuable primary source information on today’s issues and events from newspapers, newswires, transcripts, video clips, web only, and PDF image editions of many newspapers. Easily find varying perspectives on a wide variety of topics, including economics, business, political science, environmental issues, health and welfare topics, social problems, consumer affairs, education, local government, international affairs and defense, laws, sports and much more. Offering a variety of perspectives from all over the world, the important news sources in this collection are ideal for comparing and contrasting views on both local and global issues.
Caribbean Newspapers 1718-1876 This link opens in a new window
Access more than 150 years of Caribbean and Atlantic history, cultures and daily life. Features more than 140 newspapers from 22 islands, chronicling the region's evolution across two centuries through eyewitness reporting, editorials, legislative information, letters, poetry, advertisements, obituaries and other news items.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) daily reports 1974-1996 This link opens in a new window
Access full text of reports issued 1975-1996 created by the U.S. intelligence community to benefit policy makers and analysts, FBIS Daily Reports offer foreign views and perspectives on historical events from thousands of monitored broadcasts, and publications. See World News Connection for broadcasts from 1996 to 2013. See FBIS Electronic Index, below, for a subject search option.
Gale NewsVault This link opens in a new window
Cross-search Mason's Gale newspaper archives collections using a single interface.

NewspaperCat
The Catalog of Digital Historical Newspapers (NewspaperCat) is a tool that facilitates the discovery of online digitized historical newspaper content from newspapers published in the United States and the Caribbean. NewspaperCat was funded by a grant from the George A. Smathers Libraries.

World Newspaper Archive, Latin American Newspapers, Series 1 This link opens in a new window
Provides more than 35 fully searchable newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and elsewhere. Latin American Newspapers offers coverage of the people, issues, and events that shaped this region between 1805 and 1922.
World Newspaper Archive, Latin American Newspapers, Series 2 This link opens in a new window
Deepens coverage of important countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Mexico (World Newspaper Archive, Latin American Newspapers, Series 1) and extends into countries not represented in Series 1 such as Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Belize. Covers 1822-1922.