Special Collections for ENGL 2201: NCPI and North Carolina Newspapers

The North Carolina Periodicals Index is an in-house produced database by the staff of the North Carolina Collection.  The index provides access to articles in regional publications that pertain to a wide range of North Carolina-related topics, including the arts, business, culture, history, law, natural resources, public policy, tourism, and travel.  The articles included have been selected with an eye toward supporting undergraduate research.

Coverage includes 68 current and historic publications, most of which are not indexed in standard reference tools.  Content coverage is selective as articles must be at least a page in length to be included.  Initial coverage began in January, 1992, but retrospective coverage of historically important titles extends to the 1930s.

All materials are available for use in the Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection.  Some results are available full text and can be accessed via the

• Browse the NCPI Alphabetical Subject List
• List of the Periodicals Included in the Index
• Search Tips

NewsBank: North Carolina Newspapers is a database that provides full-text access tarticles from more than 50 newspapers in North Carolina. Titles include Charlotte Observer, Asheville Citizen-Times, The News & Observer, Winston-Salem Journal, Greensboro News & Record and many others. Coverage varies, with some titles dating back to the mid-1980s but most beginning in the early 200s.  The database has recently added links to local news video from select North carolina markets.  In addition to seraching and viewing articles, users can save articles online, email stories to themselves, and even export to bibliography managers such as RefWorks.

The North Carolina Collection provides researchers access to both current and historic newspapers published in the state.

This is a collection of over 10,000 rolls of microfilm containing issues dating back to 1751.  The microflim can be viewed in the NCC's microfilm room (3rd floor) on one of their four microfilm readers. All readers have the capacity to print and printing on them is free of charge. For patrons interested in electronic scans of microfilm, there is one digital viewer available that will scan directly to PDF.

The NCC maintains two guides for the newspapers on microfilm:

• Geographic Guide
  The guide is alphabetized by city, which appears in bold type. In each individual city entry are that city’s newspaper titles, shown in italics. The year(s) refers to the issues that still exist. If a year is in brackets, it means most issues of that year’s publication are missing. The newspaper entries in most cases list the months and dates that exist on microfilm. The call number appears at the bottom of the newspaper entry.
• Chronological Guide
  For each year, this guide lists newspapers in alphabetical order by title and the city or town in which they were published. For detailed information about holdings, refere back to the Geographic Guide.

Newspapers can also be searched and holdings reviewed via the library's online catalog.