“But how do I access this newspaper?!” Best practices for finding press resources in the library

“Why can't I access this Le Monde article?” “Don't we have a subscription to the Financial Times?” “I'd like to read this article from the South China Morning Post, but I doubt we have access through a subscription...”

We subscribe to numerous press resources. However, because these subscriptions come with different types of access, it can sometimes be difficult to find your way around our catalogue, even though everything is there! That's what we'll be looking at on this page.

Here are some best practices that will help you quickly navigate between these different press resources. We will cover the following cases:

1. I am looking for a press title and would like to know if we have a subscription.
2. I am looking for a specific article 

Two prerequisites:

• Everything happens in the library catalogue: I am not trying to access subscribed press titles via a search engine such as Google.
• I log in when I am in the catalogue

1 - I am looking for a specific publication and want to know whether we subscribe to it

This couldn't be easier: I enter the title of the resource in the catalogue search bar (I can also restrict the search to journals by selecting "journal" under the search bar).

This is the case for the newspaper Le Monde. 

Perfect! All I have to do is click on the record and follow the instructions. I can see whether the resource is available in print (available in the Saint-Guillaume library kiosk or in closed stacks), digitally, or in both formats, along with all the information I need to access it.

In our case, I can see that it is an online resource: I can click on the "Le Monde” link. 

We recommend that you first click on "Terms of use" to find out the specific conditions for accessing this resource: for example, for New York Times, by clicking on "Terms of use", I see that I need to create a personal account.

This is the case, for example, with Banouto, a Beninese newspaper:

Don't panic. In this case, I will search the press databases that aggregate thousands of titles: the two main ones being "Europresse" and "Factiva".

I type "Factiva" into the catalogue search bar and use the online link to access the Factiva website. To access more content, I "switch Factiva" by clicking on the top right:

Then, in the "Source" field, I enter the name of the publication:

We now have access to this newspaper!

The same principle applies to Europresse: I access the advanced search and search the available sources : 

2 - I am looking for a specific article

When searching for a specific article, it is tempting to enter the title of the article in question into the catalogue search bar. Unfortunately, this search will not return any results for press articles!

This is because the catalogue does not index press articles: press resources are only included at the level of the press title  (The Financial Times, Le Monde, Sud Ouest, etc.).

Therefore , you must identify where the press title that published the article is located (see point 1) and, once you are connected to the resource or database that contains the press title in question, search for the article you wish to read.

Please note: You will often see the term "articles" in the catalogue (under the search bar, in the sorting facets), but these are academic articles and not press articles.