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Choosing Keywords

By default the keywords field will accept a list of words separated by spaces as in the example shown below:

congress economy policy

This query will show all stories that contain the words congress, economy and policy. The spaces are assumed to be Boolean ands (see section on Boolean Operators), meaning that all terms are required to be in all stories retrieved. This is only a small part of the potential power the NewsLibrary search engine offers. Features such as Wildcard Characters and Proximity Operators are also available.

Selecting a Newspaper

NewsLibrary.com contains the archives of many award-winning newspapers.  Select the newspaper you want from the complete source list provided. http://www.newslibrary.com/sourcelist You will see the available date range for each publication. You may also search for a newspaper by clicking on the name of a state, then selecting the city you wish to research. You will be presented with a list of available publications for that city.

Finding Words in a Particular Area

If you need to be very exact about where the words you are searching for appear in the article, try using the field search section on the Advanced search page. Here you can enter a word or phrase that you want to find and then choose from a list of several areas that the word must appear. If you need to find an article about "Saving Private Ryan", enter the title in the keyword field and change the drop-down filter to “Headline.” If you want to read Dave Barry's column, enter his name in the keyword field, and change the drop-down filter to “author”.

Sorting Your Results

You can choose how your articles are sorted by choosing the option that best suits your needs: Relevance, Oldest first, or Newest first. 

Date Information (searching by date)

Once you have entered your search term in the search field, you may narrow down the date by selecting “Advanced Search” and entering your date or date range in the field marked “Limit by Date.” You may enter your date range in a number of formats.

Some examples:
Jan 1, 2000 to Feb 3, 2000 - Searches all articles between and on those dates.
January 2001 - Searches all articles in that month.
3/2002 - 1/2003 - Searches all articles between and in those months.
2003 - Searches all articles in that year.

*Some papers may not be available in all date ranges.

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators permit you to create more complex queries and can be combined with Wildcards and Proximity Operators. To formulate a more complex query that combines boolean operators, select Advanced as your Search Type on the search form. See the list below for examples.

OPERATOR
DEFINITION
EXAMPLE

and
both terms must be present in the story.
congress and economy and policy

or
either term must be present in the story.
parliament or government

not
The word(s) following this operator cannot be present in the story
bill and gates not microsoft

Proximity Operators

Proximity operators allow you to specify just how close two words must occur in a story to be included in your results. See the examples below.
campaign adj5 contributions - contains campaign followed by contributions within five words
market near share - contains market and share within ten words and in any order

Wild Cards

OPERATOR
DEFINITION
EXAMPLE

*
Fills in a maximum of any five characters
pollu*n

?
Fills in any single character
wom?n