Journalism and Mass Communications Collections

Collecting Goals	General Collections	Special Collections	Other Web Sites
Park Library	Government Information	Related Collections	Library Contacts
Reference Collections	Newspaper Collections	UNC Web Sites	Faculty Library Liaison
Electronic Collections

Collecting Goals:

The Library's collections related to journalism and mass communication support teaching and research in the undergraduate and graduate programs of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and in other departments and programs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They also serve as a resource for the people of the State. Two libraries, Park and Davis, support the study of Journalism and Mass Communication on campus, and their collections are particularly strong in the areas of specialization within the School: advertising, electronic communication, news-editorial journalism, public relations, and visual communication (photojournalism, graphics, or multimedia).

The Park Library:

The Park Library, located in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, holds 5,000 books on journalism and mass communication, including reports and proceedings. It subscribes to 225 current periodicals (magazines, newsletters,and mass communication journals) and current newspapers (from North Carolina and national newspapers). It also offers online access to many specialized databases, some of which are unique to the Park Library. For futher information about materials in this library or help using them, please consult the Park Library Director.

Reference Collections:

Davis Library also supports teaching and research in journalism and mass communication. Major indexing and abstracting tools are available online, notably Communication Abstracts and Communication and Mass Media Complete. Printed works are located primarily in the Reference Department of Davis Library. E-reference materials are a good place to begin the study of journalism and mass communication, while research guides and tutorials facilitate exploration in depth in selected areas. For further information about reference materials or help using them, please consult the Reference staff.

Electronic Resources:

Many library databases provide full-text access to newspapers, books, and serials of importance to journalism and mass communication. LexisNexis Academic, a full-text database, offers full-text access to general, regional and international news, company news and financial information, legal information, and other topics such as biographical information. More specialized full-text databases of historical newspapers are also available. They appear under "News" in "Article Databases" and include the New York Times Historical Newspaper, the Atlanta Constitution Historical Newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective, and African American Newspapers: The 19th Century. Perhaps the most noteworthy serials database for Journalism and Mass Communication is Communication and Mass Media Complete mentioned above, which, in addition to indexing 400 journals, offers full text coverage of over 200 journals. Information about electronic journals related to the study of journalism and mass communication can be found on a collected list. However, the best way to find information about individual electronic serials is to enter a title search on the Library's "E-Journal Finder" web page. To request a database or serial, please contact the Humanities Bibliographer.

General Collections:

The libraries contain hundreds of thousands of printed books and serials in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences of general interest to faculty and students in the field. In addition here are thousands of theoretical and practical works on topics of more specific relevance to journalism. They include books and serials on the relationship of the periodical press to the state, liberty of the press, the technique of journalism, the publishing of magazines and other periodicals, and journalism by region and country. In addition the Library holds many titles on mass communication and media, from television to the Internet. A list current print subscriptions in the discipline is available. For further information or to request a title, please consult the Humanities Bibliographer.

Government Information:

Campus libraries provide online access to the major index and abstracting databases for government information, notably the GPO Monthly Catalog (GPO), which contains more than 450,000 records for all types of government documents printed by the US government. Major full-text and statistical databases are also available, including LexisNexis Congressional, which is a comprehensive source of current and historical bills, testimony, and reports from the US Congress going back to the founding of the republic in 1789. The Documents Section located in the Reference Department of Davis Library holds over three million print and microfilm items from the federal government, U.S. states, and international intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations and World Bank. Foreign government printed documents are housed in the Davis stacks. For further information about government publications or help using them, please consult the Documents Staff. Online information about North Carolina is available through NC Information Resources, while the North Carolina Collection has the most complete holdings of printed documents for the state. The Law Library contains extensive electronic and paper collections of federal and state legal publications, such as codes and statutes.

Newspaper Collections:

Current domestic and foreign newspapers arrive daily in the Serials Reading Room. The Library acquires at least one print newspaper and microform backfile from each of the major regions of the country, with emphasis on the Southeast. It also subscribes to more than 40 international newspapers from Europe, Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe, and China, to support academic programs in those areas. In the Microform Reading Room the Library has complete backfiles for some of the major national and international newspapers. To request a title, please contact the Humanities Bibliographer.

Special Collections:

The Special Collections departments of the Library also contain valuable materials for the study of journalism and mass communication. The North Carolina Collection has unmatched resources for the study of journalism and mass communication in the state, most notably its newspapers, clipping files, and Photographic Archives. For further information, please consult the reference staff of the North Carolina Collection. The Manuscripts Collection houses Publishing Archives and Collections, particularly "North Carolina Press Club Records." For further information, please conact the Manuscripts Department.

Related Collections:

Library holdings at UNC are extended by the collections at the Duke University libraries, particularly its newspaper collection, which as been built in informal cooperation with UNC. Duke also has large special collections of advertising materials in the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History, which includes the J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, the most comprehensive surviving historical record of any advertising agency. Users can therefore expect to find most of the resources they need in the area. The Center for Research Libraries supplements these holdings with additional microform collections of domestic and foreign newspapers and ethnic newspapers published in North America. CRL also offers foreign dissertations and government publications, books and periodicals in languages other than English, and large microform sets (especially for foreign area studies). UNC faculty and students can request unlimited amounts of materials from CRL via the web and keep them indefinitely, or until another person needs them. For further information, please consult the Humanities Bibliographer.