University of Melbourne Library Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library

 

 

 

Celebrating 100 years of library services 1908- 2008

Finding news and newspapers

Newspapers Online | Indexes & Search Tools | Newspaper locators | Newspaper Literature

News and newspapers are an important source of material for music research in a number of areas, especially for the critical reviews of composers, works in performance, music reception, etc. Indexes are the best way of identifying relevant newspaper articles and other useful materials.

Newspapers and news Online

information ABC News Online : Index with full text
Current and retrospective stories from Australia and around the world. Includes a search function for historical materials.
information The Age, 1991- (FairfaxDigital) : full text
Current and retrospective stories from Australia and around the world. Includes a search function for historical materials.
information APA-FT : Australian Public Affairs Fulltext, 1995- Index with full text
Based on the index APAIS : Australian Public Affairs Information Service (above), approximately 30 percent is available in fulltext. Includes only major or feature stories in non-leading Australian newspaper titles.
Australian Newspapers Online
Compiled by the National Library of Australia, arranged by state and town, information is given on what is covered by each newspaper, plus online links where available.
information Australian Periodical Publications 1840-1845
A digital library of Australian journals that began publication between 1840-1845. The digitised titles have been made available on the Web as multipage PDF files.
information Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (BETA)
"This site allows you to search and view newspaper pages from 1897-1910 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present."
information Factiva - Australian and Overseas Newspapers - Index with full text.
A comprehensive newspaper index with full text access to Australian and International newspaper articles. Ostensibly a business database, but includes fulltext of "nearly 9,000 sources from 118 countries in 22 languages, including more than 120 continuously updated newswires". It indexes 365 active sources from Australia including all the major national daily newspapers, state capital daily newspapers and metropolitan newspapers, such as The Australian 1996-), The Age (1991-), The Sydney Morning Herald (1986-), etc. UK national newspapers, including The Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, Independent, The Express, Daily Mail, The Scotsman, The Star, The Sun. UK regional newspapers including the Aberdeen Press & Journal, Birmingham Post, Manchester Evening News, Northern Echo, Evening Standard, Western Mail, Northcliffe & MGN regional newspapers - and Sunday newspapers - Sunday Times, The Observer, Independent on Sunday, Mail on Sunday, Scotland on Sunday, The News of the World, Sunday Telegraph. Also includes selective television and radio transcripts - BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, NPR, and more. Business and industry magazines, and pictures from Reuters and Knight-Ridder.
information Google News Archive Search - Index with Full Text
"News archive search provides an easy way to search and explore historical archives. Users can search for events, people or ideas and see how they have been described over time. In addition to searching for the most relevant articles for their query, users can also see a historical overview of the results by browsing an automatically generated timeline." Google News Archive Search Help
Historic Australian Newspapers, 1803 to 1954 (Australian Newspapers beta)
"The Australian Newspapers Beta service allows access to historic Australian newspapers digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program. This is a beta service in the sense that it only contains a relatively small volume of data. More data will be added as it is processed, however there may be a delay before additional content is added."
information LexisNexis Academic - Index with Full Text
Online full-text access to nearly 6,000 titles in news, business and legal information. It includes foreign and U.S. newspapers, more than 300 magazines and journals, including Variety, wire services including the Associated Press, broadcast transcripts from the major television and radio networks including ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC and NPR, international news, and non-English language news sources available in Spanish, French, German, Italian and Dutch, including both newspapers and magazines, nearly 300 individual college/university papers including the Chronicle of Higher Education, federal and state case law, accounting information, medical news and abstracts, law reviews, state and country profiles. Guide
information New York Times (LexisNexis)- June 1980-present Full Text; 1969-May, 1980 Abstracts.
Access to certain freelance articles and other features within this publication (i.e. photographs, classifieds, etc...) may not be available.
New York Times Article Archive articles and indexes from 1851-
Use the Advanced Search option to allow further limits, including author/title and date ranges.
The New York Times Obituary Index (1858-1978) UniM Baill MIC 071.471 NEW
information Newspaper Source (EBSCO)
Selected full text coverage for 245 regional and International newspapers, newswires and other sources.
information 17th & 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers (Gale)
The newspapers and news pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757 - 1817) represent the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media. The 700 or so bound volumes of newspapers and news pamphlets were published mostly in London, however there are also some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and a few examples from the American colonies, Europe and India.
information 19th Century British Library Newspapers (Gale)
19th Century British Library Newspapers contains full runs of 48 influential national and regional newspapers representing different political and cultural segments of the 19th century British society.
information 19th Century US Newspapers (Gale)
Contains digital facsimile images of both full pages and clipped articles for hundreds of 19th century U.S. newspapers and advanced searching capabilities. For each issue, the newspaper is captured from cover-to-cover, providing access to every article, advertisement and illustration.
information Past Papers (National Library of New Zealand, Wellington) - Index with Full Text
Showcases selected 19th century New Zealand newspapers and periodicals. The site currently contains digital images of over 600,000 pages from 30 publications.
information Times Digital Archive (London) 1785-1985 - Index with Full Text.
information Times Literary Supplement Centenary Archive Inclusive coverage: 1902-1990.
Fully indexed with most of the original contributors now revealed for the first time. Users can access any page via the online version of the published index when executing a title, author/contributor or subject search.
World Newspapers - Internet Public Library at: http://www.ipl.org/div/news/
Arranged by region and country, search, or browse by subject or type.
WorldPress.org: World Newspapers at: http://www.worldpress.org/gateway.htm
Arranged by region and country, or search. Includes Features and RSS News Feeds lists.
Worldwide Online Newspapers at: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/
Arranged by region and country. Note that most online sites only publish their feature articles or selected stories.
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Indexes to Newspapers

information APAIS : Australian Public Affairs Information Service, 1978-
APAIS can be used as an index to Australian newspaper articles but is selective in its coverage. Includes only major or feature stories in non-leading Australian newspaper titles.
The Argus Index (1870-1879) online index provided by the National Library.
The Argus Index (1846-1858, 1860, 1910-1919, 1921-Jun. 1949) UniM Baill MIC 079.9451 ARGU
The Age (Melbourne, Victoria) Oct.17, 1854 - UniM Baill MIC/o A265
The Argus Indexes can be used to find articles in The Age by providing dates, etc.
UniM Baill MIC/f 5052d NOT FOR LOAN
Agesearch newspaper index, 1982-1992 [microform]/ compiled by Agesearch staff.
[Melbourne : State Library of Victoria, 1993]
Phys desc 58 microfiches : negative.
Notes: Donated to the State Library of Victoria by David Syme and Co. Ltd., August 1992.
Other auth State Library of Victoria.
Subject Age (Melbourne, Vic.) -- Indexes.
Australian newspapers -- Victoria -- Indexes.
Other titl Age (Melbourne, Vic.)
The Australasian (Melbourne, Victoria) (Oct. 1864 - Apr. 6, 1946) UniM Baill MIC/o A938
The Australasian index, 1866-1891 UniM Baill MIC/o 4897
Herald Newspaper Index (Newcastle, N.S.w.) 1866-1944(?)- Newcastle Region Local Studies Library.
information Media Scan (Informit) 1991-present.
New York Times Article Archive articles and indexes from 1851-
Use the Advanced Search option to allow further limits, including author/title and date ranges.
The New York Times Obituary Index (1858-1978) UniM Baill MIC 071.471 NEW
News Store 1990-present - Fairfaxarchives
News Store allows you to search Fairfax publications. It's free to search, however a small charge applies if you want to view the full text of an article.
The Sydney Morning Herald 1955-present - Fairfaxarchives.
The Sydney Morning Herald Index (1927-1987)
1927-1961 is in hardcopy at UniM Baill MIC 079.9441 INDE
Oct. 1961-Feb. 1962, Apr. 1963-1987 is on microfiche at UniM Baill MIC/f 4871d
The Washington Post, 1877-present : News Search : Archive Search.
Fulltext available via Lexis Nexis Academic on SuperSearch. The print issues 1877-1954, 1959-1973, 1974-1999 are on microfiche at UniM Baill MIC/o 3963
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Newspaper Locators

Getting access to your newspaper titles - online or in print.

information Libraries Australia - Australian National Bibliographic database.
The National Library of Australia's service which provides access to material held in Australian libraries. Also lists journal holdings and newspapers Australia wide as well as other published sources including books, conference proceedings, theses, reports etc..
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Newspaper Literature - Which titles are useful?

Specialised newspapers titles are not indexed in music or many general databases. If you are looking for titles the following directories many be useful :

information Grove Music Online - introductory article Periodicals
From the Grove Music home page, choose "Explore" -> "Research Resources" and then choose Periodicals from the list.

Or, in print : The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians / 2nd. NewYork: Macmillan, 2001.
UniM Music REF 780.3 NEW v.28. pp.399-"Periodicals"
Look especially at Country lists, v.28 pp.340-479 & Title Index, v.28 pp.480-573

For early Australian titles, see also:

If you have a question about locating the information you need, contact us for expert assistance.

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