About Economist archive
This is an archive of the Economist magazine from its first publication in 1843 to 2006. It is in facsimile format: each magazine has been scanned. This has the advantage of allowing you to see exactly how each issue looks and showing you photographs and diagrams. However, there is also the disadvantage of the text sometimes being difficult to read; not just for the user but for the computer as well, so searching can be a bit difficult. It's worth persevering!
"In more than 8,000 issues since first publication in 1843, The Economist has presented timely reporting, concise commentary and comprehensive analysis of global news every week. With objective authority, clarity and wit, The Economist presents the world's political, business, scientific, technological and cultural developments and the connections between them. Because of its global editorial perspective, it is read by more of the world's political and business leaders than any other magazine."
Mark Holland; Gale/cengage learning from the Economist Archive's about page
Searching
Start by clicking "Begin searching". You will find yourself with a quick search box and the option to browse. You can enter individual words or phrases but it is worth noting that this search facility requires you to use Boolean search terms; most importantly AND. By putting AND between two words you look for those words anywhere within the document. Without doing this, the database will only search for the words in the order in which you enter them (Google would add this Boolean term automatically). OR and NOT are other terms, OR allowing you to look for articles with either word in, and NOT with one of the words but not the other. Using * as a 'wildcard' is also an option to broaden your searches allowing you to look for variants of a particular word eg: ship* would find ship, ships, shipping etc.
There are other ways in which you can limit your searches, especially by date. For instance, choose to look between two dates to narrow your search to a particular period. Your initial view will provide you with an opportunity to look within a particular year. However, if you want to be more specific or look over a longer period you should press More >> >> this will show drop-down menus allowing specific date selection, but you will also be provided with the ability to limit searches to particular fields such as headlines/article titles and photos/pictures.
There are a great many more ways in which you can limit or broaden your searches. To look at all of these possibilities click Search Tips.
The headlines of the results are listed in date order (oldest first, there is no relevance ranking) once your search is complete, and you can get an idea of how successful you have been by the first lot of headlines and number of results.
Browsing
If you choose to "Browse by date" you will find a timeline and be able to choose the year you are interested in, look through it then once you've found a date/issue you want to browse through you can click on it and see the various pages and their headlines. You can then bring up the stories you wish to read
Viewing articles
Once you have clicked on one of the headlines or the related page you can then view the article. A lot of the options are then on the left including zooming in and out and going back to your list of results. Be patient at this section as it can take a while to load. It is also possible to print (we advise you use the print icon on the page) and to email references.
Access
- To get to the Economist Archive you must use the link on the Exclusive Resources page or the Gateway to Websites.
- When outside the library just enter your card number without spaces in the box provided.
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