Newspapers Collection Development Policy

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries' newspapers broadly support the informational and scholarly needs of the University community.

Bibliographers select newspapers for the Libraries and wecome suggestions from faculty and students. However, because of the high cost of digitized newspapers, as well as paper copies delivered by airmail, the Library is parsimonious in what it adds.

Current Newspapers: Selection Criteria

For current newspapers, the Libraries rely on electronic delivery. These include newspapers in facsimile format provided by Library PressDisplay (720 newspapers from 78 countries in 38 languages with 60-day back issue access) - as well as large, commercial aggregated electronic news products such as Factiva, NewsBank, Ethnic NewsWatch and LexisNexis. Selection is based on the titles covered, search functionality, timeliness, access policies, and cost. Newspapers, of course, are also widely available on the World Wide Web at no cost.

In addition, the Libraries receive a small number of newspapers in print format:

Philadelphia, Penn and Regional Newspapers

1. The Libraries acquires Philadelphia newspapers that have city-wide relevance and distribution, such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Tribune. The Library relies on the collections of the Free Library of Philadelphia for the numerous neighborhood newspapers in the city.
2. The Libraries collect the major University of Pennsylvania newspapers, such as the Daily Pennsylvanian and the Summer Pennsylvanian.
3. The Libraries do not collect newspapers published in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey suburbs or in Delaware. Local public libraries are the best sources for these materials.

Papers from other Metropolitan Areas and non-U.S. Papers

1. The Library acquires a small number of newspapers (both U.S. and foreign) which are essential to support a wide range of scholarship and that, in some cases, are not readily available by other means, for example, The New York Times, Le Monde,Asahi shinbun, Washington Post (Annenberg Library), Baltimore African American.

Backfiles of Newspapers

The Libraries purchase microfilm backfiles of U.S. and foreign historic newspapers to support teaching and research at Penn, although most backfiles are now available to Penn scholars through Center for Research Libraries, which holds microfilms of over 6,000 foreign newspaper titles and 500 U.S. ethnic newspaper titles. (CRL also maintains current subscriptions to 54 foreign-language ethnic papers and 19 African-American papers.) As funds allos, historic newspapers are acquired in digitized format. These current include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Defender, The Philadelphia Tribune, The Pittsburgh Courier, as well as collections like the Burney Collection (historic British newspapers), African American Newspapers, and Early American Newspapers.