Library Guides @ VIU: Newspapers & News Searching: Historical News

Historical Newspaper Resources on the Internet

Daily Herald (Nanaimo)
1913-1920. Continued by the Nanaimo Free Press. From Canadiana.ca
Atlantic Canada Newspaper Survey: Goods and services advertised in East Coast newspapers before 1900
Google Newspapers
- including some images for retrospective issues of the Vancouver Sun
Handwritten Newspapers Project: An Annotated Bibliography & Historical Research Guide to Handwritten Newspapers from Around the World
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"...data, images, resource links, and research notes for hundreds of rare manuscript publications produced under extraordinary conditions in remarkable settings. Most of the works contained here are from North America, particularly Canada and the United States. Most were published during the 19th century. However, this collection includes works from around the globe–including Asia, Europe, and Australia–and they date from the ancient world (Rome’s Acta Diurna) to the present (see the Japanese handwritten newspaper published March 2011 after that nation’s devastating earthquake and tsunami and the Urdu language paper in India handwritten since 1927)."

Historical Newspapers Online: BC

The BC Historical Newspapers project at UBC features digitized versions of historical papers from around the province, including these Vancouver Island & region papers:
- Alberni Advocate
- Coast Miner (Van Anda)
- Crofton Gazette and Cowichan News
- Cumberland Islander
- Daily Ledger (Ladysmith)
- Echo (Duncan)
- Westward Ho! (Nanaimo) ...more

Vancouver Island Local News Archive | University of Victoria
2014 June -
"A collection of local newspapers and news sites, especially from smaller publishers, at-risk publishers, and sites where content is not indexed by a specialized news database such as Canadian Newsstand."
British [Times] Colonist | University of Victoria
The University of Victoria offers access to digitized historical issues of the British [Times] Colonist and variants, 1858-1951.
Simon Fraser University Digitized Newspapers
SFU's digitized newspaper collection is comprised of over 50 publications, including BC newspapers such as The B.C. Saturday Sunset, The Peak, the British Columbia Federationist and more.
The Semi-Weekly Colonist | Canadiana
Semi-weekly newspaper from Victoria, BC. Issues available from 1895-1912.

Historical Newspapers Online: Canada

Canadiana Serials Collection
Canadiana's serials collection includes over 300 historical newspaper titles up to 1930.
Connecting Canadians: Canada's Multicultural Newspapers
Maritimes Selected Historical Newspapers | Memorial University Digital Archives
Newspapers | Peel's Prairie Provinces
OurOntario.ca Community Newspapers Collection
Pembina Manitou Archive: Manitoba Newspapers
Requires a free account to view issues.

Globe and Mail (June 1844 - 3 years ago): ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Full-page image digital newspaper archive of The Globe and Mail from June 1844. Includes all the stories, images, advertisements, classifieds, political cartoons, births and deaths covered in this national newspaper, dating back to the pre-Confederation era.

Historical News Online: US & International

Associated Press Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Wire copy, correspondence, memos, internal publications of the Associated Press, and more.

The Bay Area Reporter | California Digital Newspaper Collection
"The Bay Area Reporter is the oldest continuously published lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer weekly newspaper in the United States and is the highest circulation publication serving the LGBTQ communities of the San Francisco Bay Area." Includes issues from 1971-2005.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers | Library of Congress
Historic American newspapers from 1777-1963.
Gale NewsVault
Digitized facsimile pages from newspapers and periodicals around the world. Free access within BC.
(list of titles)
GDELT Project Blog
Official blog of the Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) Project, www.gdeltproject.org
"...monitors the world's broadcast, print, and web news from nearly every corner of every country in over 100 languages and identifies the people, locations, organizations, counts, themes, sources, emotions, counts, quotes and events driving our global society every second of every day, creating a free open platform for computing on the entire world."
Google News Archive
Includes some retrospective issues of the Vancouver Sun
Independent Voices
“Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.” The collection contains nearly 20,000 issues.
TV News Archive | Internet Archive
Clips and captions from US TV news shows from 2009 to present.

Primary Sources: Newspapers on Microform

Historical issues of these newspapers are available on microform in the Library@VIU.

Cowichan Leader
1905-1985
Cowichan AN 5 C695
Online: 1905-1928
Cowichan News
1978-1985
Cowichan AN 5 C694
Cowichan News Leader
1985-1994
Cowichan AN 5 C696
Daily Colonist
1858-1895, 1938-1946
Nanaimo AN 5 D2
Family Herald (Montreal)
1859-1949
Nanaimo AN 5 F35
Financial Post
1960-1998
Nanaimo HG 1 F5
Globe and Mail
1849-2009
Nanaimo AN 5 G56
Nanaimo Daily Free Press
1874-1997
Nanaimo AN 5 N2
Nanaimo Daily News
1997-
Nanaimo AN 5 N22
National Post (Toronto)
1998-2007
Nanaimo HG 1 N38
Times (London)
1914-1915
Nanaimo AN 3 T5
Times-Colonist
2001-
Nanaimo AN 5 D2
Vancouver Sun
1912-
Nanaimo AN 5 S9
Victoria Daily Times
1896-1918
Nanaimo AN 5 V5
Washington Post, Times Herald
1968
Nanaimo AN 5 W38
Winnipeg Free Press
1908-1918
Nanaimo AN 5 W5

Newsreels

News clips from throughout history on major events, sports, human interest, and more.

Archival Films & Newsreels | Films on Demand
Coverage includes:
- Jazz Age & Depression (1919-1938)
- Postwar (1946-1968)
- World War I (1914-1918)
- World War II (1939-1945)
Newsreels from VAST: Academic Video Online
Newsreels from 1929-1967.
Newsreels Search | Internet Archive
Newsreels from 1906-2021.

Historical Newspaper Indexes

To find information within historical newspapers you may need to use an index, which lists the headlines for a newspaper but may not provide access to the article or full issue.

BC Newspaper Index, 1991-2007
From the Legislative Library of BC. "A subject index of articles from the larger BC newspapers, primarily the Vancouver Sun, Province, and Victoria Times-Colonist. This index includes only significant stories, and stories of provincial government interest."
Indexes to Canadian Newspapers
Directory of indexes to contents of Canadian newspapers
Index of Historical Victoria Newspapers
Summarized transcripts of articles first appearing in newspapers published on Vancouver Island between 1858 and 1926, with links to digitized newspapers.
News Headlines in Nanaimo from 1874 to 1934 | Nanaimo Archives
"In 1934, to mark Nanaimo's 60th Anniversary, the Nanaimo Free Press published a special Jubilee Edition which featured selected headlines from 1874 to 1934..."

Searching for Historic Newspapers: Tips

Many historic newspapers are available for free on the Internet.

Search for "historic newspapers online" or a variation on that phrase. Try including the name of the city or country in which the newspaper was published.