HI333 Europe Since 1945: Times of London

Newspaper articles offer firsthand perspectives on major developments in world history. Although the primary intention of newspaper article writers is to report and communicate the facts, they also implicitly convey their assumptions and ideologies through how they choose to report the story. By reading multiple articles about a particular person or event, you can often discern the underlying perspectives and biases that color the newspaper's presentation of the facts. Naturally, this presentation may in turn influence the opinions and attitudes of political leaders and the general public, and shape how the historical narrative is written.

Times (London) Digital Archive (1785–1985)
This database provides full-text access to every issue of The Times (London) newspaper from 1785 through 1985, except for Sunday editions. It can be searched by keyword and date range, with options to limit to specific sections of the newspaper.

Here are some tips on how to use this database effectively:

1. Before you begin searching, use reference sources or a textbook to identify start and end dates for the period you want to examine.
2. Enter these start and end dates into the "Limit the current search by date" textbox. For example, enter 1961-1963 to study Britain's application to join the European Economic Community, or 2/01/1945–2/28/1945 to explore coverage of the Yalta Conference.
3. Some topics may require you to look for articles written previous to or after the event you are researching. For example, when researching the coverage of Francisco Franco's death you will want to look for articles written around the date of his death (11/20/1975) but you may also want to look at how The Times covered the illnesses that led up to his death (1973-1975).
4. Combine keywords using Boolean operators (AND and OR) to increase the specificity of your search. For example, searching Prague will yield a massive number of hits, so try searches like the following to produce more focused results:
• dubcek AND (reform OR election)
• (soviet or russian or moscow) AND (dubcek or prague or czechoslovakia)
5. Regarding names, try searching for articles by using last names only. If you have too much information or too many false hits then add on the individual's first name. For example using the search of "Harold Macmillan" pulls up a smattering of articles, whereas using the search of "Macmillan" pulls up much more content. This is because articles refer to Harold Macmillan as Mr. Macmillan not Harold Macmillan.
6. If you do not find enough articles, switch the search from an "in title, citation, abstract" search to an "in entire article content." Newspaper article titles are not very descriptive so limiting your search to an "in title, citation, abstract" search may prove frustrating. Switching your serach to an "in entire article content" search will most likely provide the best search results.
7. To obtain opinion pieces only, use "Limit the current search by section" and checkmark "Editorial and Commentary". However, remember that a newspaper's ideological inclinations can also be detected in news articles.
8. In the Results list, click on an Article link to view the article.
9. To print, use the PDF Print options which appear at the end of the article. Use the PDF Print options rather than the Internet browser's print option, so that the article will fit nicely on the printed page.

Times (London) in LexisNexis (1985–present)
For historical events and developments since 1985, you will need to search The Times (London) in LexisNexis. Use the link above to search the weekly and Sunday Times.

Here are the steps to follow in order to search LexisNexis successfully:

1. Click "All News" from the left navigation panel
2. Limit your search to the Times of London by entering "Times London" in the "Or by Name" field in the "Search Source" box. Select "Times (London) The" when it appears.
3. Enter keywords representing your topic in the Search Terms box, using the Boolean operators AND and OR to combine them together.
4. Click the Specify Date drop-down box and choose "Date is between" to input the date range of issues that you want to search.
5. Hit the Search button.
6. Search results are displayed in from newest to oldest, which can help you trace the chronological development of the newspaper's opinion. But to read the most relevant articles given your search terms, use the Sort drop-down box to change the sort order to Relevance.
7. In the Article view, use the Printer icon at upper right to use LexisNexis's printing feature, which provides several handy options for formatting your printout.