About the Guardian and Observer Archive

This online archive organised by ProQuest provides facsimile copies of the Guardian and Observer dating back as far as 1791 to 2003 (the Guardian from 1821 and the Observer from 1791).  It can be accessed from within Westminster Libraries and from outside by anyone with an internet connection and a Westminster library card.

When you first get into this database you will see a search box. It is worth bearing in mind that a search from here will be looking through all of the thousands of articles and that it may work better if one is to use the advanced search option. Nevertheless, there are some very good features on this first search box especially if you are generally searching for a popular topic...

Using the quick search box

As soon as you start typing in a key word for your topic you will get some suggestions below for possible searches. For example try typing churchill and you will be given various combinations of words. When you perform your search you will then rely on their relevance criteria to sort your results and find the best ones out of the thousands which are available (searching for just one word will give you thousands of results e.g. churchill produces over 87,000). There are various ways of narrowing your results though the use of the options on the right e.g. date. 

Advanced search

If you do not wish to rely on ProQuest to choose the correct articles for you, or you wish to look for something specific then you should use advanced search. Here you will be able to say that you want to:

• Search for particular words in headlines
• Put AND between words or phrases this means you will search for articles containing both words or both phrases, or perhaps a word in the headline and a word within the article if you want
• You can choose to look through different parts of the paper e.g. adverts, articles, notices, even weather!
• Most importantly of all though you can choose to search with a period of time, or before or after a certain date.

Looking at your results

When you have conducted your search you will see a list of results telling you the headline, date and which paper the article is from. You will also notice that to the right of all these is an option to preview each one; some of these previews may include part of the article.

Once you have decided which you wish to read, click the headline and you will get the article in PDF format; you also have the option to view the whole page if you wish. Although some of the scans can be hard to view it is possible to zoom in more; this can really help with this problem.

You can move around on the page using the bars to the top and bottom or if your mouse has a wheel, holding down your wheel and then moving your mouse gently. It is possible to save and print these PDF documents for future reference using the buttons provided at the top of the article.

More information can be found on the help pages.

• Go to the Guardian and Observer Archive
• Go back to the Exclusive resources page
• Go to the Gateway's News and Magazines