Posted by Melody on Tuesday, Aug 25, 2015
Use this guide to find obituaries and articles in Iowa City area newspapers. To access the premium databases listed here, you must reside in Iowa City or one of the library’s contracted service areas. You will want to have your library card number and password ready. Call 356-5200 if you need assistance.
| If published… | Try… | Do I need the date? |
| Recently | Find newspapers in print at the Page Station on the 2nd Floor. We keep the Iowa City Press Citizen in print until we receive the microfilm.
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You can check out a handful at a time. Most obituaries are on page 4A. |
| After 11/13/2002 | Iowa City Press Citizen on ProQuest | No. The “Basic Search” bar will do keyword searching. |
| After 1962 | Start with the Local News Index, a database maintained by Iowa City Public Library staff and volunteers. From there, you may consult the other resources on this list.
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No. Looking up a name here will lead you to the date and page of the paper it is in. |
| Before 1962 | Head to the Microfilm housed in the library.
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Ideally, yes. Knowing the closest date possible will speed things up. |
| No idea when or where | Take your chances with Newspaper Archive. ICPL subscribes to this archive with non-comprehensive coverage between 1800 and 2015.
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No, but it helps. Newspaper Archive adds scanned issues on an ongoing basis. Currently, it has issues for the Iowa City Press Citizen between 1920 and 1973. But again, the coverage is sporadic. |
| Outside of Iowa City | Try the obituary search at NewsBank. You can search with whatever information you have, or browse by location and then filter by year and date.
NewsBank advertises having articles dating back to 1860, but most of the Iowa newspaper archives begin after 1999. The exceptions to this marker include the Cedar Rapids Gazette (1992-) and Dubuque’s Telegraph Herald (1995-). The college newspaper in Ames (Iowa State Daily) goes back to 1995 but is not a reliable resource for obituaries.
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No. Search for the name and you can then click on the options on the left to limit your results. |
Other Resources
Ancestry Library edition—available only in the library. Ask the Info Desk for assistance. #Protip: Browsing City Directories also helps narrow in on dates when and places where people may have lived.
Daily Iowan Historic Newspapers, maintained by the UI Archives, not recommended for obituaries
Oakland Cemetery interactive map
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I've been at the library for more than 10 years now, and I still find joy when choosing the best books for our readers. My current reading journey is taking me book by book through different genres. I'm challenging myself to find books that are enough outside my wheelhouse that I'd pass them by on first glance. The genre I'm looking forward to... more
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