Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980
Overview
Abstract
This collection, the first installment in the American Ethnic Newspapers series within Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers collection, presents 369 titles published by Hispanics in the United States, going back to the first known Hispanic-American title published in New Orleans in 1808.
CRL is working to gather additional information and critical assessment of this resource. We encourage our community to submit comments on their experiences with it.
This resource is currently offered to CRL libraries at favorable terms. Representatives at each library have been sent login access to view purchase or subscription offers.
Sources
Sources for this review include information publicly posted or obtained directly from the publisher, data collected by CRL staff and members, and examination of the digital collection when possible.Other sources are noted where cited.
This database was also reviewed in: Holly Ackerman, "Newspaper Databases in Latin America and Latino Studies: Four Key Products," The Charleston Advisor 11(3) January 2010: 11-17. Accessed October 2, 2012.
Analysis
Collection Content
A list of source titles provided by Readex is included in Appendix A.
This collection, the first installment within Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers collection, presents 369 titles published by Hispanics in the United States, going back to the first known Hispanic American title published in New Orleans in 1808.
The nature of the content in Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 is impressive. With a focus on Hispanic issues and news of specific interest to Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain, rather than just general news presented in Spanish, this will be a very valuable source to researchers.
The geographic spread (and relative proportion) of titles appears to closely represent demographic density of current Hispanic populations. The few exceptions to this—states with Hispanic concentrations but without titles represented—are Utah and Nevada, as well as a few states in the South, such as Georgia and North Carolina.
Content is heavily weighted toward two states: Texas and New Mexico. Together they represent well over half of the titles selected, and 70 percent of the “volume” of the database (by number of issues). California and New York make up an additional 20 percent of the content, leaving the remaining 10 states to cover less than 10% of the database’s content.
A Spanish-language interface option might be appropriate for this database but is not available.
Delivery
The Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 series shares a common interface with Readex’s other news products (African American Newspapers, 1827-1998; 20th-Century American Newspapers, Series 1 to 3, 1923; Early American Newspapers; and American Ethnic Newspapers). The platform offers a variety of advanced search features, such as :
- Searching one, all, or selected newspaper titles
- Limiting by specific date ranges
- Searching specific “article types” (News/Opinion, Legislative Acts or Legal Proceedings, Advertisements, Matrimony and Death Notices, etc.)
- Narrowing by place of publication
- Full-text search, or headline only
But the interface notes that “some documents have not been indexed by article types.” For best results, users may need to search without selecting such filters.
Details
Direct from Publisher
Sources
Collection Content
| Subjects covered | American history, Hispanic American history, politics, Hispanic American literature, labor movements | |
| Geographic coverage | Published in the United States | |
| Chronological coverage | 1808–1980 | |
| Content types | newspapers | |
| Source formats | microfilm | |
| P | Total titles | 369 |
| P | Total pages | 440,908 |
| P | Digital collection launch date | January 2008 |
| Update frequency | NA | |
| Collection ongoing | N | |
| P | Completion date | June 2011 |
| Available supplements | NA | |
| Major languages | Spanish, English |
Technical Platform
| Browser compatibility | MSIE 6+, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera | |
| Authentication options | IP recognition, username & password, library card, Shibboleth | |
| P | Archiving solution – master files | 400 dpi group 4 TIFF - bitonal or grayscale (dependent on source material) |
| P | Archiving solution – derivative files | 400 dpi group 4 TIFF (bitonal) |
| Availability in web discovery tools | N | |
| Open URL target | Y | |
| Federated searching, z39.50 | Y | |
| Local host option | Y (with purchase of tapes, according to terms of license) | |
| Usage statistics | Y | |
Interface Tools
| Full text displayed | N | |
| Page images | Y | |
| Color images | N | |
| Search full text | Y | |
| Advanced search | Y | |
| Search within results | N | |
| Limit results by dates and/or document types | Y | |
| Display highlighted search terms | Y | |
| Display snippet -- search term in context | Y | |
| Relevance sorting | Y | |
| Save searches | N | |
| Download PDF | Y | |
| Download HTML | N | |
| Print page | Y | |
| Print full document | Y, up to 75 pages at one time (can do multiple downloads for long documents) | |
| Export citations | Y | |
| Annotation tools | N | |
| P | Cross-product searching | Y |
| ILL | Y (special provision upon request following CONTU Guidelines) | |
| Restrictions on use |
Provider
| Publisher / Distributor | Readex, a division of NewsBank | |
| Address | 5801 Pelican Bay Boulevard, Suite 600, Naples, Florida 34108 | |
| Contact | www.readex.com; readexmarketing@readex.com | |
| Related product(s) | Early American Newspapers, Series 1 to 9; Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection; American Newspaper Archives; AHN Select; multiple other Archive of Americana collections | |
| CRL Profile of Publisher | url |
Terms
| Options | ||
|---|---|---|
| P | Subscription option | Y |
| P | Purchase option | Y |
| P | Multiple year payments option | Y |
| P | Hosting charges | Y |
| P | List of purchasers available | Y, upon request |
| P | Sample license available | Y, upon request |
| P | MARC records purchase fee | NA |
| P | Pricing based on tiers? | Y |
Appendix
Follow CRL
Stay informed by subscribingto our e-mail list and social
media outlets.
