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Stony Brook University

The History and Future of the American Press

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Searching the Clip File

Library Databases index and in many cases provide the full text of newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, and other resources. When your Journalism professors tell you to "Search the Clip File" you want to search the library databases....

 

Start Your Clip File Searches Here

These are the biggest, most frequently used newspaper and magazine databases (i.e., indexes). Start your research here.

Specialized Clip Resources

Use these resources to search for clips in a variety of specialized areas such as women's and gender issues, alternative presses, and ethnic news.

Looking for Articles

When looking for old articles on a topic you must search the resources from that time period. If you are looking for contemporary (i.e., from that time) accounts of Hearst's objections to Orson Welles' film, then make sure you are in an index that covers that time period.

Searching the New York Times Historical File (which covers 1851-three years ago) for example, yields many articles on the topic from that time period (1940s). By comparison, searching Lexis Nexis' Academic Universe (1985-present) will only find articles as far back as 1985.

Use the Databases page to find out what databases (indexes and abstracts, encyclopedias, etc.) the library provides. From the Databases page you can locate a resource by broad subject area using the drop down box, or by its title by using the alphabetical list. These online indexing and full-text resources will help you find more information in magazine and journal articles, in books the library does not list in its catalog, and in a variety of other materials.

Use the Find Early American Papers tab above for more tips.

Historic Newspaper Collections Online