Digital Microfilm of Barrons, HC, NYT, WSJ and Washington Post.

Houston Public Library has switched 5 of its microfilm titles to digital microfilm. The titles that are now available digitally are Barron’s, Houston Chronicle, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. There are links to these titles on the Alphabetical Database list and under the Newspaper subject webpage. Barron’s and Wall Street Journal are also available on the Business and the Investing webpages.

Basically digital microfilm is the same image you would see if you were using physical microfilm and a microfilm reader, but online. The advantage of this new format is that patrons don’t have to come to Central to use the microfilm but can do so from a branch or at their home or office. The other advantage is that unlike the databases we have of some of these titles, digital microfilm has images of everything in the newspaper from cover to cover. This means obituaries and advertisements are included. However, digital microfilm can not be searched as a database would since it is merely a collection of images. You can choose what edition you want to see by selecting the title and the desired date. Our subscriptions start January 2008 and are current. Keep in mind there will be a delay between when the newspapers are published and when they are available in microfilm.


One last note, the fantastic thing about digital microfilm is that it will allow you to find images of obituaries. If the patron has the dates involved you can go straight to the digital microfilm and choose those dates to find the obituary. If the patron does not have dates, search first in the Houston Chronicle database to locate the date of the obituary and then use the digital microfilm.