Journal and newspaper articles written during the period being studied are considered primary sources.
One can use periodical indexes to locate citations to articles published in journals, magazines and newspapers in earlier time periods. They include:
Publication coverage: Pre-1925
- Provides access to popular and general interest Anglo-American and European periodicals from the 19th century and early 20th century. Includes Poole's Index to Periodical Literature 1802-1906.
Publication coverage: Indexed articles: 1977 - present ; Full-text articles: 1983 - present
Print holdings: 1920 - 1998: Check QCAT
- Provides "access to Canadian and American periodical
literature" including historical journals.
Publication coverage: 1907 - 1984
Access restricted to the Queen's community (8 user limit)
- Index to a wide range of scholarly journals and numerous lesser-known specialized magazines.
An Index to Saturday Night: the first fifty years, 1887-1937
Publication coverage: 1867 - 1978
- Index to articles published in a number of Canadian periodicals of historical significance, including Maclean's Magazine, The Financial Post, The Monetary Times of Canada, Massey's Magazine, The Canadian Bookman, The Canadian Magazine, Saturday Night and The University Magazine. Provides a window into the social and cultural life of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Nineteenth Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature
REF AP3.R496 (1890-1899)
Publication coverage: 1983 - present
Print holdings: REF AI3.R2 from 1900- (Readers' Guide to Periodical
REF AP3.R496 (1890-1922) (Nineteenth Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature)
- Indexes general interest and popular journals, magazines and newspapers published in Canada and the United States.
- Web version of 5 volume set that indexes 43 major 19th century British monthlies and quarterlies.
There are several online databases to which the Library subscribes that provide access to full text articles from journals and newspapers for earlier time periods. They include:
- Documenting 200 years of cultural, political, social and historical events, this 17th and 18th Collection includes newspapers, newsbooks, proclamations and pamphlets in searchable digital format.
Publication coverage: 1800-1900
- Collection of magazines, journals and specialty newspapers provides an in-depth view of life in the Victorian age.
Publication coverage: 1680s - 1930s
- A collection of facsimile page images and searchable full text for hundreds of British periodicals. Topics covered include: literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
- Full-text access to rare journals printed between 1685 and 1813.
Publication coverage: 1830 - 1898
- Magazine intended to entertain, inform and educate the women in America. An important resource of 19th century American life and culture.
Subscription purchased by MacIsaac Memorial Fund in memory of Vera May MacIsaac, BA 1925
Publication coverage: Varies with publication.
- Electronic journal archive includes such titles as:
Eighteenth-Century Studies, Journal of Modern
Publication coverage: 1914 - present
- Current and past issues of The New Republic - a
journal of opinion on politics, foreign policy, culture, current
events, the arts, and much more.
Gale NewsVault enables cross-searching of Gale’s historical newspapers from a single interface, providing access to more than 400 years of content and 10 million digitized pages. The following are among the titles and collections indexed:
- 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers
- 19th Century UK Periodicals: Empire
- 19th Century UK Periodicals: New Readerships,
- Illustrated London News Historical Archive
- Times Digital Archive
The MacIsaac Memorial Fund and the K. Phyllis Wilson Library Endowment Fund
- This global digitization program focuses on primary sources and includes a variety of material types--monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics.
Publication coverage: 1802-1995
- Facsimile page images and searchable full-text for approximately 500 international and scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.
Publication coverage: Varies by title
- Includes the New York Times (1851-2007), Chicago Defender (1849-1986), Chicago Tribune (1849-1986) and more.
- Full-text of The Times (of London).
K Phyllis Wilson Library Endowment Fund
Publication coverage: 1892-current
- A complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images.
More information about newspapers available at QUL can be found in the Newspapers guide.