Newspapers at the Washington State Library

 

Washington State Library's newspaper collection includes current issues on paper and historic newspapers on microfilm with some issues searchable online. We subscribe to about 125 daily and weekly newspapers throughout Washington, plus a few out-of-state papers. The microfilm collection consists of over 50,000 reels of newspapers dating from the 1850s to the present. We offer even more research options through our subscriptions to newspaper databases. In some cases a Washington State Library card number may be required to view these collections. If you are a Washington state resident you can request an e-card for remote access here:  Download a card application.

 

Search Newspaper Titles in our Catalog (paper, microfilm, links to digital)

 

  • Search our online catalog to find out which papers we have and for what years. 
  • You can limit your search to the Washington Newspapers collection, which allows you to search by City, County, Title, Subject, or Keywords. 
  • Choosing the Washington Newspapers collection also provides access to an interactive map of our state that allows you to pick a county and see a list of all the papers we have for that county.

Find out more about our microfilm collection, including how to access it and where to purchase film yourself, by clicking here.

 

Historic Washington Newspapers Online from the State Library

  • Washington Digital Newspapers - Contains a range of territorial era newspapers beginning in 1852 and regional community digitization projects through the early 2000s. This is a full text searchable collection of newspapers with new historical WA newspaper titles added each year.
  • Chronicling America - With a grant from the National Endowment for Humanities, the Washington State Library is participating in the National Digital Newspaper Program; an effort to digitize early (pre 1925) issues from newspapers around the United States. Currently Washington has contributed 23 newspapers from our large microfilm collection and continues to add more. These issues are full-text searchable and downloadable free online at the Library of Congress - chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.

*Click here to see links to more historical newspapers online* 

 

Newspaper Databases         

  • ​[REQUIRES WSL ACCOUNT LOGIN] Newspapers.com (Ancestry/ProQuest) - The largest online newspaper archive, established in 2012. Used by millions for genealogy and family history, historical research, crime investigations, journalism, and entertainment.
  • ​One File News (Gale) - Regional, national, and world newspapers.  Over 100 contemporary Pacific Northwest News Publications, and diverse WA coverage with publications such as...
    • The Bonney Lake & Lake Tapps Courier-Herald, The Boomerang (Eastern Whitman County, WA), Columbian (Vancouver, WA), Edmonds Beacon, The Enumclaw Courier Herald, The Goldendale Sentinel, Kitsap Sun (Bremerton, WA), Mattawa Area News, Mukilteo Beacon, The Palestine Chronicle (Mountlake Terrace, WA), Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), The Wenatchee World, The Whidbey Examiner (Coupeville, WA)
  • ​General OneFile (Gale) - Magazine, news, and journal articles on general interest topics and current events.
  • ​Washington News Sources (NewsBank) - Explore and research topics across Washington State.  This resource contains news sources from across the state, including: the Bellingham Herald, Chinook Observer, Chronicle, Columbian, Daily Herald, Daily News, Daily Record, Daily World, Kitsap Sun, News Tribune, The Olympian, Seattle PI, Seattle Times, Spokesman-Review, Tri-City Herald, Yakima Herald-Republic and more.
  • The Olympian (Newsbank) - Search the Olympian from 1891 to the present.
  • Seattle Times Collection (NewsBank) - Search Seattle area history with The Seattle Times Integrated Collection. With coverage from 1985 – current, the Collection contains full-color newspaper pages, individual full-text articles and content only published online.
  • Olympian and Seattle Times Historical Newspapers (Newsbank) - Search the historical collections of the Olympian and Seattle Times. Coverage begins with the 1891 Morning Olympian.
  • The Spokesman-Review (ProQuest)* - With coverage from 2010 - recent provides breaking and in-depth coverage of Spokane area news, sports and community. Barcode Authentication Required.
  • News-Tribune (NewsBank) - Explore Tacoma and Pierce County, Washington news, events, people, and history with the News Tribune Collection. Search current and archived issues with full-color newspaper pages, full-text articles and content only published online.
  • HeritageHub (NewsBank) - Explore your family history with the premier collection of U.S. obituaries and death notices for in-depth genealogical research from 1704 – today. HeritageHub helps you easily identify relatives, uncover new information and potentially unknown family members. Includes deep coverage from all 50 states, hard-to-find content from the mid 1900’s, and original obituary images. Remote access available to library cardholder.
  • Issaquah Press (Issaquah History Museum) - Search and view digital versions of the Issaquah Press from 1907 through 2017.
  • World News (Newsbank) - Explore reliable resources on a variety of topics and issues.

 *Note: Replaces the previously offered product, Spokesman-Review "Digital Microfilm"

Pacific Northwest Newspaper Indexes

  • Washington State University - Kimble Northwest History Database - Wallis (1968 CEA) and Marilyn (1964 CLA) Kimble of Kingston, WA, made a gift in 2001 as seed money to establish a specialized digitizing project in The Libraries at Washington State University. 18,500 of the 30,000+ articles from the Pacific NW Newspaper Clippings file were scanned, with indexing and description terms entered to make them searchable. These newspaper articles were collected and organized in the 30s and 40s by dedicated historians working for the Works Progress Administration. 
  • University of Washington – Pacific Northwest Regional Newspapers and Periodical Index - University of Washington Libraries’ Pacific Northwest Regional Newspaper and Periodical Index (Regional Index) is an electronic database containing citations from newspaper and periodical articles dealing with the Pacific Northwest. The Regional Index online contains citations for articles dealing with the Pacific Northwest published since January 1, 1997, in the Seattle Weekly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Daily of the University of Washington.
  • Index to the Olympian and Historical Clippings - Produced by Washington State Library, this index contains citations to articles in The Olympian (Olympia, Washington) and other Washington state newspapers. Dates covered are from 1993-2009.
  • Washington State Library's Newspaper Indexes & Abstracts
  • Pacific Northwest Card File Search - The Pacific Northwest Card File appears to have been started in the early 1950s as a finding aid for biographical and historical information in the Washington State Library. Information was indexed from newspapers across the state as well as many published local histories, creating a very unique point of access.
  • Oregon State Library – Oregon Index - The web-accessible Oregon Index is a selective index to Oregon newspapers and to Oregon items in other select publications. The index is a voluntary operation, maintained by indexers at the Oregon State Library and other libraries across Oregon. The Oregon Index database is divided into two files, a current file covering 1995 through current date and a back file covering 1985-1994.