Newspapers & journals

Newspaper and journal articles are really useful resources, particularly when you need information about a specialised topic.

The most important thing to know when you're looking for newspaper articles is a date. If you have a specific date, like your birthday or the day the Titanic sank, you're more likely to find useful articles quickly.

Articles from a wide variety of journals and newspapers are often organised in databases which are available online. These databases are compiled by publishers who make it their business to ensure the sources of information are reliable and authoritative.

One of the best places to start looking for resources is the National Library of Australia's Trove that lets you search over 400 million items held by institutions all over the country.

The Trove newpaper archive lets you limit your search to historical newpapers from all over regional and metropolitan Australia.

If you're a Victorian resident, you can access newspaper databases from home by becoming a member of the State Library Victoria - it's free. These include:

  • Proquest - full-text newspapers from Australia and the Pacific region, including The Age and the Herald Sun, along with transcripts from some ABC television news shows.
  • PressDisplay - searchable database of many world newspapers for the last two months, with artcle view and full page view options
  • AusLit - information about Australian writers and writing from the 1780s to the present, including biographies and full-text articles.

Finding articles

All state, public and national library services subscribe to databases you can use for free if you're a library member.

For example, State Library Victoria subscribes to over 50 newspaper and journal databases. To find out more, visit the State Library of Victoria's website - Free journals, databases and ebooks.

If you find a really useful article, look at the resources in the author's bibliography.