Tag: searching historic newspapers

New Search Strategies and Genealogy Webinar

Posted on by srabun@uoregon.edu

Our colleagues at the National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohio have just released two new resources with tips on searching historic newspapers online via the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website:

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1) Search Strategies – “Proximity Searching in Chronicling America” : This video shows how to use proximity searching (searching for keywords within a certain number of words from each other) to find cooking tips and recipes in historic newspapers, as well as why it’s useful to use proximity searching in the Advanced Search feature.

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2) Chronicling America for Genealogists Webinar (recording): This webinar was recorded on Jan. 9, 2014, 7pm-9pm and addresses the kinds of family information that can be found in historic newspapers, as well as how to search for family history information in Chronicling America. View just the powerpoint slides here.

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The Historic Oregon Newspapers website uses the same search and viewer software as Chronicling America, so the tips and tricks covered in these resources can also be applied to searching just Oregon newspapers at http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu. Happy Searching!

Newspaper Search Tutorials and Informational Videos

Posted on by srabun@uoregon.edu

We’ve all been there before – so excited to search and browse through historic newspapers online, but not quite sure how to use the search function, zoom in and out, or print an article. Well, we’ve got some good news! The National Digital Newspaper Program in Ohio at the Ohio Historical Society has created a series of podcasts explaining the basic functions of the Library of Congress’ and National Endowment for the Humanities’ Chronicling America historic newspaper site, as well as two new videos that focus on how to perform an efficient keyword search in Chronicling America. For those specifically interested in Oregon history, the Historic Oregon Newspapers website newspaper viewer and search page are modeled after Chronicling America, so the podcasts and video tutorials will help users of both websites.

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“Using Chronicling America” podcast series:

Keyword search tutorial videos:

Searching and browsing through historic newspaper archives such as Historic Oregon Newspapers and Chronicling America can be fun, interesting, and educational, but have you ever wondered about the history of American newspapers? Although Oregon was the first state on the West Coast to produce a newspaper (Oregon City’s Oregon Spectator, first published on February 5, 1846), states on the East Coast, such as New York and Pennsylvania, had already been printing the news for decades!

Masthead from Volume 1 Issue 1 of the Oregon Spectator newspaper published in Oregon City on February 5, 1846. Slogan beneath title reads: "Westward the Star of Empire takes its way."
Oregon spectator. (Oregon City, O.T. [i.e. Or.]) 1846-1855, February 05, 1846, Image 1. http://tinyurl.com/mjb2bx7
The University of Illinois’ History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library has created several short videos focusing on the history of newspapers in the United States before the Civil War. The newest videos, each roughly 20 minutes long, are entitled:  “Introduction to American Newspapers, 1800-1860,” “American Newspapers, 1800-1860: City Papers,” and “American Newspapers, 1800-1860: Country Papers.” These and other informational videos are available online through the library’s guide on Antebellum American Newspapers (http://uiuc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=240860) or via YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/HPNLuiuc).