Get an Overview of the Conversation on your City

Use EITHER/ BOTH the Holman Library One Search tool or Worldcat, a tool for searching library catalogs all over the world, for a preliminary assessment. Check:

1. Are there current books about your city?
2. What are authors writing about your city? What issues are important enough to write about? 

Tips for One Search:

• Use the advanced search and enter your city name as Subject.
• Click on a title to learn more about what that source focuses on. Scroll down to find the description, subject headings, and perhaps a list of chapters. 

Click on image to enlarge

Tips for WorldCat:

• Use the advanced search and enter your city name as Subject.
• Choose NOT (guides OR pictorial OR travel). 

Click on image to enlarge.

Find your city's official web site

Try doing a web search of the city name and "official website" (in quotes). This works for most cities

• Note: Most US city sites end in ".gov"

For international cities you may have to look harder to not just find the official tourist site.

To find the official (rather than tourist) website of an international city, Wikipedia provides a link to the government website from the city profile box on the upper right of the article page.

• Note: If you use Google as your search engine, you can select "Translate" to view a foreign language website in English.

Find News about or from a City

See if you can find current journalism ABOUT and FROM the cities you are exploring.

Find news about a city: 

STRATEGY 1: Try the library Newspaper One Search to see if you can find news about or from your city.

Type in the name of your city and browse results. 

STRATEGY 2: Start at the library databases ProQuest News and Ebsco News to see if you can find news about your city.

Type in your city name and change the search field to Subject. 

STRATEGY 3: For non-mainstream perspectives, search for your cities in two other Holman Library news databases:

STRATEGY 4:: Search for news about your cities on the Web. Type in the city name and select a news limiter if available, or just type in the keyword news.

Search for News from a city:

STRATEGY 1: In ProQuest find news published in your city by searching within Publications. Enter city name and change the dropdown from In Title to In Publication Summary.

STRATEGY 2:: Search the Library Periodicals List for news from your cities.

Click on the link for the Holman Library One Search. In the green banner at the top of the page, click on Search the Periodicals List.

• Type your city name into the search – and see if your library has newspapers or magazines (not journals) from the city.
• Note: Pay attention to the date to be certain we have current enough issues. Click on the title to find the date range. The periodicals search looks like this:

STRATEGY 3: Explore Today's Front Pages

For news about and from a city, explore Freedom Forum: Today’s Front Pages

1. Click on All Newspapers.
2. Click on Filters. Select a region or US only
3. Use the Gallery view or map to look for the front pages of your cities.