Newspapers

Newspapers are another type of periodical. Many newspapers are published daily and are intended for a local or regional audience. The purpose of most newspapers is to provide current event awareness and general interest information geared towards their local readership.

Strengths

• Newspapers have extremely current information and are useful for time-sensitive information
• Newspapers provide effective current event awareness and are particularly interested in reporting on political events and developments
• Newspapers provide local information for the geographic areas with which they are associated
• Newspapers can provide a context when examining historic or social events (for example, if you were studying School Desegregation and the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court case, newspapers from that time would give you a perspective about the opinions that were current and other events going on at the same time)
• Newspapers often contain opinion articles and editorials, providing a window into the way people perceive and interpret events

Weaknesses

• Newspapers do not provide scholarly analysis
• Newspapers are not created to be permanent. Therefore old newspapers tend to be preserved on microfilm or microfiche rather than in their original format
• Newspapers with small circulations can be difficult to locate
• Newspapers do not always report the source of their information

Finding articles in newspapers

• Newspapers tend to have their own indexes for each paper
• Online indexes, such as LexisNexis, provide searchable access to a large number of newspapers
• Print indexes may also be available for some newspapers
• Public libraries often both create an index for and provide access to the local newspapers in their geographic areas