How do I find the newspaper for a specific date?

Submitted by David on Mon, 03/02/2015 - 20:57

Q. Dieter asks how he can look at the Hong Kong newspapers for 6 August 1888.

A. Start by visiting the Hong Kong Public Library's online newspaper collection:

https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/web/guest/old-hk-collection

Type the date you're looking for into their search box. You need to follow their date format, which is:

"YYYY-MM-DD"

So for 6 August 1888 you'll type:

"1888-08-06"

(Make sure you've put double-quotes around the date). Then click the SEARCH button.

You'll see three results:

  • Hong Kong Daily Press, 1888-08-06 
  • The China Mail, 1888-08-06
  • The Hong Kong Telegraph, 1888-08-06

Click VIEW ONLINE next to the paper you want to read, and a pop-up window appears with a scanned copy of the newspaper. You'll probably want to click the "Full screen" icon (it's in the bottom-right corner and looks like four arrows) to make it easier to read.

Notes:

  • The quotes, " ", tell the search to look for an exact match. If you leave them off and search for 
    1888-08-06
    you'll see six results. Three are from 1888-08-06 (August 6th) and three are from 1888-06-08 (June 8th).
  • If you're not sure the exact date, you can also use the "YYYY-MM" format. So a search for
    "1888-08" 
    gives 81 results, and shows you all the newspapers from August 1888.