Are you a newspaper junkie?
Do you still read the newspaper and then struggle to find that article, image or editorial you read last week again?
For example, maybe you are teaching advertising and you saw a great ad in The Globe and Mail, ran by the Canadian Museum of Nature, that was eye-catching and memorable. You want to show it to your students, but you threw away the paper and you can’t find it online on the Globe and Mail web site.
But have you tried the database called PressDisplay, which the Library (LRC) subscribes to? This super database displays not just the articles but what the newspaper actually looks like the day it came out in print! It is like having the very paper in front of you, without the extra ink on your hands!
To find it – go to the library web site https://www.algonquincollege.com/lrc/library/index.htm and click on “Find articles”. At the next screen, click on the right hand side of the screen to search databases ‘alphabetically’. Click on P and choose PressDisplay. (You can access this from home, too, the easiest way is to go through the Secure Portal and go the LRC from there, avoiding extra log-ins and so on.)
Once you are in, you will see a screen like this:
Enter your search terms (choose a date for this week and the actual newspaper you want, such as The Globe and Mail, under Librarian’s picks – always trust a librarian!)
And voilà, there is that great ad you saw!
But there’s more! You can manipulate what you see, by zooming in and out and you can browse to the next page with just a click of a button.
There are some limitations. The back issues are limited to the past 60 days, and can vary for each publication. For older issues, you would need to search another database, such as the Canadian Newsstand, also available at the LRC. (This has more back issues but only for articles and doesn’t have the same look.)
Want to give this to your students? Be careful to link to the articles or ads you find, rather than copy and paste them right into Blackboard, which would be breaking copyright law.
Happy searching!
The Librarian in green is otherwise known as Helena Merriam, Coordinator of the Library and Information Technician program, and promoter of Algonquin Reads. She reads the Globe and Mail daily, usually in paper form, and clips out funny cartoons to put on her office door for her students.