Los Angeles Times Historical Archives

This month’s electronic resource of the month is one of my favorite databases.  The Los Angeles Times Historical Archive permits users to access digitized reproductions of every edition of the paper issued between 1881 and 1990.  You can view it at the article level as well as at the whole page level and are given a number of ways to search for what you want.   I have always really liked this database for completely non-scholarly things (though it is exceptional for scholarly things too).  For example, if you are looking for an interesting way to wrap a birthday gift for a friend you could pull up and print the front page from their date of birth and use that.  It’s also kind of fun to look through older editions of the paper for the advertisements instead of for the articles.  I’ve often thought history teachers could make a fun, educationally relevant assignment out of that particular activity.

The Archives are accessible from any computer via the Library’s web page, though you will need your library card if you are not on a library computer.  Go the library’s web page (www.lapl.org) and click into the Research & Homework section and then scroll down to the L’s (http://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/research-and-homework#L) to find it.