The Magazines & Newspapers Department was created in August 1997, when the Main Library was expanded. Prior to the formation of this department, magazines and newspapers (or periodicals) were divided among all of the separate subject departments in the Main Library, depending on their content. The vast majority of periodicals are now gathered in the Magazines & Newspapers Department to provide a sort of "one-stop shopping" for users, the casual reader and the researcher alike. The Library's magazine and newspaper collection is utilized a great deal, by local, national, and even international users, making the Magazines & Newspapers Department one of the busiest departments in the Main Library.
All of the materials in the Magazines & Newspapers Department are for reference use only, and cannot be checked out of the library, sent to branch locations, or sent through interlibrary loan.
The Browsing Collection
When the Magazines & Newspapers Department was formed, it was designed to be as self-service as possible. Therefore there is a collection of approximately 1,400 current magazine and journal titles on the bridge connecting the North and South Buildings of the Main Library. These are displayed in 22 broad areas of interest, such as History, Entertainment, Teens, and Education. A rack of current newspapers is also displayed. A few high-demand titles are kept at the Magazines and Newspapers desk.
For each of the magazine titles displayed on the bridge, there are back issues shelved on the Magazines & Newspapers Department open shelves, where the arrangement is alphabetical. Some of the most popular titles, such as Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, and Popular Mechanics, have ten years of back issues displayed in this way, while others may have less. This allows researchers and casual readers to help themselves to the most recent information easily. The most-often used newspaper microfilm is also kept on the open shelves so that there is no wait for a particular reel to arrive from the stacks.
Besides this wide variety of print periodicals to choose from, the department offers users access to the most current information available electronically through a number of full-text periodical databases.
In order to be able to access information from these many sources, the Magazines & Newspapers Department also subscribes to more than 20 current print and 40 different electronic periodical indexes, ranging from popular periodical indexes such as Reader's Guide to the more subject specific databases included in the OCLC FirstSearch system of databases.
Archives
Periodicals are not only a vital source for current information. They're also a capsule history of contemporary thought, opinion, and culture. So whether it's a Scout troop looking for the newspapers published on their birthdates, a genealogist hunting for old newspaper death notices, or a researcher interested in knowing what the hot topics were a hundred years ago, the Library's periodicals archives provide a wealth of historic information.
The periodicals archives housed in the Main Library's Magazines & Newspapers Department are immense. They include nearly 20,000 different magazine titles going back several decades, some even centuries. There are many magazines for which the department has every issue dating back to the very first.
The newspaper microfilm collection is one of the biggest strengths of the department, containing many of Cincinnati's newspapers dating back to their beginnings, as well as complete coverage of the New York Times and the London Times and their respective indexes. The African American Newspaper Collection contains microfilm of African American newspapers from different cities around the country from the late 1800s to the end of the 1900s.
Many storage formats are used to preserve these archives, from bound paper volumes to microforms, such as microfilm and microfiche. The Magazine & Newspaper Department's storage areas feature mechanized compact shelving to make most efficient use of the space available to house this enormous collection. The department has 13 microfilm/microfiche readers and printers, as well as copying machines.
To facilitate access to these archives the department maintains a collection of historic print indexes, including some going back more than a hundred years. (Additional specialized indexes are available in some Main Library subject departments.)
The Library also subscribes to many electronic indexes and databases (some full-text) which supplement the print archives. The historic depth of these sources can vary.
User Services
Staff can assist the collection's users in many ways, from demonstrating the use of various indexes to locating additional periodicals online or in other library collections.
Staff can also answer a wide range of reference questions. This service is most frequently requested when someone wants a particular article or research on a particular subject but does not have an exact citation for the information in a periodical. Staff will try to find it and send a copy to the person requesting it.
It's very important to note that the staff needs as much specific information as possible in order to conduct such a search. A common example is that someone will request a death notice or obituary from a newspaper. If the date of death is known, staff will search the newspapers in a range of five days from that date; without an exact date, the search cannot be undertaken, due to constraints on staff time. The only cost passed on to the public is the cost for making the copies.
The Magazines & Newspapers Department staff is kept busy by people from all over the country and even across the oceans who contact the department by e-mail, phone, or standard mail to request copies of articles in the collection.
The Library's Infofax service is another service popularly used in the Magazines & Newspapers Department. A person who has a specific reference to an article in either a magazine and newspaper can request the department staff to retrieve it and have it faxed directly to a business or home or to the nearest Library branch. Visit the Library's homepage for information on Infofax and the charges involved.
The Magazines & Newspapers Department can be contacted at 513-369-6973 or 513-369-3123 (fax) or by e-mail.