What is a periodical?
Digitized Journal Collections
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JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and basic sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added approximately on a weekly basis. The University of Illinois has access to the following JSTOR collections: Arts & Sciences I-XV, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Business IV, Global Plants, Hebrew Journals, Ireland, Life Sciences Collection, Lives of Literature, Security Studies, Struggles for Freedom - South Africa, Sustainability, and World Heritage Sites - Africa.
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Project Muse This link opens in a new windowFull-text articles from more than 200 scholarly journals in history and the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences. Disciplines covered include literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others. A brief bibliographic description of each title is given. Searches can be conducted across the full text of all journals in the database.
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Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new windowPeriodicals Archive Online is a major archive that makes the backfiles of scholarly periodicals in the arts, humanities and social sciences available electronically, providing access to the searchable full text of hundreds of titles. The database spans more than two centuries of content, 37 key subject areas, and multiple languages.
Early Modern Periodicals
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American Periodicals This link opens in a new windowConsists of digitized reproductions of more than 1,100 eighteenth and nineteenth century American newspapers and periodicals. Derived from the acclaimed American periodicals series microform collection I, II, and III. This database contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals. American Periodicals Series Online (APS Online) includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladie's Home Journal; regional and niche publications; and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's.
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British Periodicals This link opens in a new windowThis database provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
The University of Illinois owns Collections I, II, III and IV. -
Eighteenth Century Journals This link opens in a new windowPortal to newspapers and periodicals c1685-1835 brings together rare journals printed between c1685 and 1835, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Many are ephemeral, lasting only for a handful of issues, others run for several years. Topics include: the writings of Sir Isaac Newton; the French and American Revolutions; colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, reviews of literature, the theater, and fashion throughout Europe; the origins and rise of Romanticism; political debates; gender, religion, influence of the press, and coffee house gossip and discussion.
Learn more about newspapers
Finding newspapers in the Library
The Library has an extensive collection of historical newspapers in a variety of formats, including original print, microfilm, and digital reproductions. Not all of them are included in the online catalog, but if you are looking for a particular newspaper title, you should use the UIUC Newspaper Database (see below for link).
Many newspapers are embedded in larger collections of online resources, such as Ethnic News Watch (1960-present ). They may also be embedded in microfilm collections, such as the Underground Press Collection (1963-1985).
To find a specific newspaper, or to identify newspapers published in a specific year or place, or newspapers published for a specific audience (e.g. African Americans, or socialists), or to identify newspapers that are part of larger collections like the Underground Press Collection, use the University of Illinois Library Newspaper Database:
- University of Illinois Library Newspaper Database
A catalog of newspapers at the University of Illinois Library. Lists newspapers in all formats--print, microfilm, and digitized. You can search for newspapers by title, or identify newspapers by place of publication, date of publication, or by the newspaper's subject or intended audience. Only includes newspapers that are either the original print publication, or else facsimile reproductions of the original print publication.
To find collections of newspapers by geographic, temporal, or thematic categories, see our guide to finding historical newspapers:
Early modern newspapers
Find early modern newspapers in these collections:
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17th and 18th Century Burney Collection This link opens in a new windowSearchable full-text access to the British Library's collection of the newspapers, pamphlets, and books gathered by Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817)--the largest and most comprehensive collection of early English news media. More than twelve hundred titles and almost one million pages are included. These rare and restricted documents are now available online and students and academics can conduct full-text searches of titles spanning from Parliamentary papers and the London daily news to the latest English humour of the 1600s.
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America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowSearch or browse early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes: Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690 - 1876), Early American Newspapers, Series 2 (1758 - 1900), Early American Newspapers, Series 3 (1829 - 1922), Early American Newspapers, Series 4 (1756 - 1922), Early American Newspapers, Series 5 (1777 - 1922), Early American Newspapers, Series 6 (1741 - 1922), Early American Newspapers, Series 7 (1773 - 1922), Early American Newspapers Series 10 (1730-1900), Early American Newspapers Series13 (1803-1916), Early American Newspapers Series 14 (1807-1880), Hispanic American Newspapers (1808 - 1980), African American Newspapers (1827 - 1998), African American Newspapers Series 2 (1835 - 1956), Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection (1799 - 1971), Caribbean Newspapers, Series 1 (1718 - 1876) and American Business: Agricultural Newspapers (1788 - 1894).
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Early American Newspapers Digital Edition This link opens in a new windowOffers more than 700 historical American newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia printed between 1690 and 1876. Focusing largely on the 18th century, Series 1 is based on Clarence S. Brigham's History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 and other authoritative bibliographies. The core of the collection is formed by American Antiquarian Society (AAS) founder Isaiah Thomas' own collection of colonial and early national period newspapers and supplemented by issues added by Thomas' successors at the AAS.--America's historical newspapers product background help page.