Online PDFs
Format:
Reproduction of the original saved in Adobe's Portable Document Format. Some early years of ProQuest titles are scanned from microfilm versions.
Examples:
Library PressDisplay (Thousands of newspapers and magazines from more than 100 countries).
ProQuest Historical Newspapers (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and many other newspaper titles).
ProQuest Digitized Newspapers
Content:
While Library Press Display is full content, some content is retained for 90 days, but retention periods do vary from four days to many years, depending on the title. ProQuest Historical Newspapers contains main-line newspapers from first publication to a moving date some number of years ago depending on the title. Full original content displayed in as PDF files. Original layout, color, and graphics.
Pros:
Easy to search full text; networked; original format/content.
Cons:
Very expensive either initially or ongoing; some titles currently reproduced from microfilm, quality can be poor; searches are incomplete due to accuracy limitation of the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software used to generate the searchable text. Limited availability of titles. Either not current or current but with limited archive.
Access rating:
Good. Networked.
Preservation rating:
Good. (But note that Library Press Display, for example, retains only the last 90 days with significant variations across their titles.)