The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
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The Magazines and Newspapers Collection

The Library's periodicals collection is very diverse, including the newest popular magazines and newspapers as well as scholarly and trade journals from all around the world. The collection has always been designed to satisfy the reader wanting the latest newsstand titles, the specialist interested in a particular field, and the researcher needing in-depth, scholarly information.

Current subscriptions are maintained for over 5,000 magazine titles of all kinds. More than 75 current newspaper subscriptions, local, national, and international, are also maintained.

To make the Library's magazines and newspapers as widely available as possible, collections are kept in many locations and formats.

Most of the Library's branches maintain collections of recent, popular magazines and newspapers. In general, the magazines are available for circulation, while the newspapers and a few high-demand, specialized magazine titles are for use in the Library only. A few years' worth of back issues are usually available.

At the Main Library, a circulating collection of popular magazines (including teen magazines) is available in the Atrium. A much broader selection of current magazines and newspapers for use only in the Library is available in the Magazines & Newspapers Department. About 1,400 selected titles are displayed by category in their browsing collection on the second floor bridge. Archives of more than 20,000 magazine and newspaper titles are also maintained in that department, as are most of the periodical indexes; all of these materials are available for use at the Main Library only. Magazines for children circulate from the Children's Learning Center, and bound volumes of back issues are housed there for use in the Library. Government periodical publications are available for use in the Public Documents & Patents Department.

The Library's subscriptions to online and other electronic periodical indexes and databases (some including full text of magazine and newspaper articles) are available to users at all Library locations. As many of these as possible have also been made accessible to home computer users with Library cards.

Sample Titles: New Publications

Antiques Roadshow Insider

To give you a glimpse at the variety of titles available, here is a small sample of new titles recently added to the Library's magazines and newspapers collection:

Antiques Roadshow Insider
This magazine from the popular show on PBS highlights news in the world of antiques and contains articles appraising antiques written by some of the experts that appear on the television show.

Azizah
This colorful magazine is published quarterly and is directed to Muslim women, with articles on topics like health, relationships, and fashion.

Common Review
This is published by the Great Books Foundation and contains poetry, social commentary, other essays, and book reviews.

Nasaba Magazine
This magazine targets African-American families and contains profiles on prominent African Americans of today and of the past, as well as informative articles on health and finance.

Smart HomeOwner
This new magazine covers home maintenance and how to make your home more safe and efficient. It reviews products that relate to this subject as well.

Sample Titles: Notable Archives

The Library will be celebrating its 150th birthday in 2003, but there are periodicals in the collection that predate the Library's beginnings. To give you an idea of the scope of the Library's periodical archives, here are a few of the oldest magazines and newspapers in the collection:

Scots Magazine
Perhaps the oldest periodical in the collection, this political magazine was published in England from 1739 to 1826, and the Library has the complete publishing run. It's very interesting to read the commentary about the "colonies" around 1776, including letters from English generals in the colonies.

Massachusetts Centinel
This is the oldest bound newspaper in the collection, dating back to 1788.

Times of London
The microfilm for this newspaper goes back to 1785, and the Library has the complete run of indexes for this newspaper as well.

Centinel of the Northwest Territory
The microfilm for the oldest newspaper published in Cincinnati has just one issue from 1793, and then skips to 1796 where it is more complete following that date.

In addition, the Library has complete holdings of many periodicals, including these popular and venerable magazines:

Sample Titles: Specialized and Foreign Language Titles

A sample of the Library's more unusual periodical subscriptions may give you a further picture of the variety of magazines and newspapers available. There's something for virtually every interest group.

For example, the Magazines & Newspapers Department is proud to have a complete collection of the Elvis International Forum for all those who fondly remember "the King." For animal lovers, there are of course Dog World and Birder's World, but also Turkey World and even Pygmy Goat World. For history buffs, there are the Journal of the Lincoln Assassination and the Lincoln Herald. For hobbyists, there are CQ Amateur Radio and QST, to name just one area of interest. Trade journals run the gamut from Supermarket Business to Chemical Engineering, and scholarly publications are as diverse as Journal of American Studies and Canadian Journal of Zoology.

The Library also subscribes to a number of foreign language magazines and newspapers from all around the world, including:

Newspapers

Popular Magazines and Newsmagazines