ABSTRACT
Newspaper archives are one of the most frequently used primary sources for researchers. Using the terms and phrases set out in previous chapters, it is possible to recover information on LGBTQIA+ people. Researching newspapers, particularly digital ones, can be more complicated than it at first appears. This chapter outlines how to make searching more effective. It is necessary to understand how Optical Character Recognition (OCR) works in order to effectively locate keyword(s), take into account possible inconsistencies in spelling and combat replacement terminology used by OCR technologies. Boolean commands and wild cards, which can aid in the recovery of keyword(s), are also explained. Once an article is located, it is useful to identify and read multiple copies in order to compare and contrast how the story appears in various publications across the country. It is also worth considering the publication’s political affiliation and where the story appears within the paper. Three newspaper archives – Gale databases, Trove and Welsh Newspapers Online – are examined in detail to demonstrate how they work and how to use the terminology outlined in the first four chapters. The researcher should be able to apply the same methods to any digitised newspaper archive to recover LGBTQIA+ content.
