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News Sources

a guide to news sources available to staff and students at Edinburgh Napier University

Getting started

You can search for news items in Google, of course  --   but you can do it much more comprehensively by searching either LibrarySearch or Nexis Uni. 

Most major newspapers are available in Nexis Uni  Find out how to get the best from it!

  • Using Library Search will most often find articles in Nexis Uni anyway, but you may find other things as well.
  • Although the versions here may not include layout and photographs, the archives are probably much longer than you normally find using Google.

Using Library Search

 

Go to LibrarySearch 

 Type some search terms into the search box

  • Once you have some results you can narrow down your search to Newspaper Articles.  
  • To do this, look at the options under Format at the right hand side of the screen:
  • Select Newspaper Articles (you may have to click on Show More before you can see this option)
  • You can now click through to Full Text from your results.

Occasionally items in Nexis Uni may take you no further than the correct newspaper, without retrieving the article.  This is usually EASILY FIXED  by pasting some text from the title of the article you wanted into the Nexis Uni search box.

Nexis Uni is a very comprehensive database of worldwide newspapers and is well worth the time spent in finding out how it works.  Please see the next box.

You can search for individual online newspapers in LibrarySearch

  • Use the Journal Search tab at the top
  • Type some words from the title of your newspaper and click on any full text links that appear
  • The sources you find here may be text only, not the actual newspaper's website, but there may be much longer backfiles.

This will probably only find a selection all the titles available.  Searching for a newspaper in Nexis Uni will probably have more comprehensive results.  Please see the next box.

Using Nexis Uni

To access Nexis Uni, go to LibrarySearch and click on the Databases tab at the top.

  • Search for Nexis Uni and click through, accepting the terms and conditions.
  • Nexis Uni opens up automatically at the News tab.
  • You can now enter search terms and set conditions using the filter boxes:
  • e.g. Anywhere in the text / Major mentions / In the Headines / 3 or more mentions
  • You can also choose a specific date if you want, or a range of dates
  • You can choose to search All News, All Languages, or select from the groupings in the drop-down menu
  • e.g. UK National newspapers / Scottish Publications / Arabic language news
  • Or you can click More sources and start typing the name of a newspaper, e.g. Scotland on Sunday
  • You can explore the other options such as Index Terms, and items that can be excluded, .
  • e.g. Documents with fewer than 500 words
  • When you are ready click the red Search button.

You may get a message saying More than 3000 results  - you can view the top 1000 immediately, or edit your search further

  • Results are often text only, though increasingly there are links to full layout versions.
  • You can use the Google translate box to read results in a different language, but the quality is not guaranteed!

Nexis Uni can search a range of magazines and websites as well as News sources  -  select the Home tab to search everything, or explore some of the other tabs available, e,.g. Companies, Biographies, Market Insight.

To access Nexis, go to LibrarySearch and click on the Databases tab at the top.

  • Search for Nexis and click through, accepting the terms and conditions.
  • Nexis opens up automatically at the Search News tab.

To browse a particular day of a newspaper:

  • Leave the search box blank
  • Cllick on More Sources below
  • Search for your newspaper and select from the list that appears
  • Go to the box showing All available dates
  • Select Custom date and choose your date range
  • Click on the red Search button

If you have left the main search box blank you should see all the articles in your chosen date of the newspaper.

Nexis Uni provides extensive online help.

Click on Help in the top right hand area of the screen to access to the help menu, or click on Search tips in the blue search box.

Topics covered include:

  • Searching with Nexis Uni
  • Working with Search Results
  • Working with Search History
  • Nexis Uni Video Trainings