Recurring Reference Question: My Teacher Wants Me to Read the Wall Street Journal Daily...How Do I Do That Without Paying for a Subscription?

Many times students come up to the desk and ask if we have the Wall Street Journal, because their professor wants them to read it every day, but they really can't afford the extra expense of a subscription to either the paper or the online version.

The answer is, of course we do! Besides getting the paper delivered, we also have digital microfilm for backfile and a ProQuest database version (current to today's date) that we pay thousands of dollars for. We maintain that expensive subscription to help our students, so take advantage of it!

Still, you do NOT want to go to wsj.com to do this. You want to come to our database files, which not only allow for on-campus access, but also allow you to authenticate through our proxy server for online access, anywhere, 24/7. (All you need do for remote use is enter your name and Suffolk ID number when prompted.)

What's the process? Let's step through it. Start by going to our Databases by Subject/Business or A-Z Database list. Click on the Wall Street Journal, but make sure that you pick the current 1984+ version and not the deep digital archive. As below.


The database starts on an Advanced Search screen because most people want to look for a topic in the paper. If you do a search for a topic (keyword, company name, person, etc.) the results will appear with the most current first. But if you want to read or browse today's paper, you probably want to take a different approach.

First click "Publications" right under the banner name of the paper, as illustrated below.

For some reason (known only to ProQuest), two options are listed. For current issues, either will do, so I just pick the top option by clicking on Wall Street Journal 1984-present


When you get to the next screen, it will offer you search options again. Or you can click through the years and dates. But if you want today's paper, the best thing to do is look for the not-that-noticeable link next to "Publication information" that allows you to View most recent issue.


This will put you into today's newspaper, presented in a page-one onward page order. You can reverse this if you like.

It sounds more complicated than it is. And although it doesn't look like the paper, all the articles are here.

Here's another tip. On the same page as the "View the most recent issue" link (see the green circle in the screenshot, one back, above), there is also an option to "Set Up Alert." Although it takes a day to receive your first alert, you can sign up to have the latest day's contents delivered to your email box. HOWEVER, the database does NOT proxyize the links to the stories, so you will only be able to click-and-access the stories ON campus....so it may not be worth bothering with.)

As always, if you have questions about this, check in with us at the Reference Desk.