Research and Reference Resources

Newspaper Articles from the ProQuest Database

Read the newspaper online, or search over 800 newspapers for articles.

What Is ProQuest?
How do I access ProQuest?
What can I use ProQuest for?
How do I save, print, email or export records?

What Is ProQuest?

Our subscription to the ProQuest Database indexes over 850 newspapers, including: Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times, Milwaukee Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and many more. It provides a citation only for some publications, and the full text of newspaper articles in other cases. The default search includes all 850 newspapers, or you can limit to only Wisconsin newspapers.

Not every single article published in the paper appears. The newspapers themselves decide which articles they will give to ProQuest to be archived. That is why you’ll see that some newspapers index obituaries, others don’t. Syndicated columnists may be indexed by a variety of different papers, but perhaps not by the paper you are used to seeing the column in.

Coverage dates vary. To see how far back a particular newspaper is indexed, do a Publication Search.

How do I access ProQuest?

Anyone with a LINK library card and access to the Internet can use ProQuest Access the database here or follow the link to the Online Databases page in LINKcat.

Next, enter your full library card number without the spaces.

ProQuest's "basic search" page will come up.

What can I use ProQuest for?

The database has search features that allow you to search for articles on a particular subject; articles written by a particular person or in a certain paper; or mentions of a certain word or words in the text of articles. You may also limit your search to a certain date or date range.

See some sample questions and how to find the answers:

Example 1: I’d like to see recent articles on cicadas.
Example 2: I saw a column in the New York Times by David Brooks about Reagan—I’d like to read it again.
Example 3: I’d like to find book reviews of Leif Enger’s novel Peace Like a River
Example 4: I’d like to see local news articles about the new Overture Center on State Street in Madison.

How do I save, print, email or export records?

When you have read the full text of a single article you would like to print or email, simply click the "Print" or "Email" buttons at the top of the article and follow the directions on the screen for printing or entering your email address.

To select several articles, click on the box(es) in front of the articles of interest from the search results page

or click on "Mark Document" from the record of a single article

Then click on "My Research" tab to see list of selected items

From here you can print or email several articles at once. You can also create a bibliography for school or work, export citations into EndNote, ProCite, RefWorks or Reference Manager, or create a web page with your search results by clicking on the links above your article titles and following the online directions.

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