mobile-friendly page | skip navigation

Montana State University in Bozeman Montana State University - Home Montana State University Library - Home

About the Newspaper Index

The Great Falls Tribune and Bozeman Daily Chronicle were indexed by librarians at Montana State University Libraries in Bozeman from 1986-2007. Electronic records dating back to 1987 are available and have been incorporated into this online index. Articles were added to the database through 2007, and the indexing was reviewed for accuracy, after which the Web-searchable database was updated. Both the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and the Great Falls Tribune have their own searchable indexes from their Websites, and the Libraries no longer duplicates the service here beyond CY 2007. If you find a typographical or indexing error, please contact us.

In general, Montana-related stories are indexed, even if they are wire-release bylines. Stories not specifically on Montana but on issues affecting the state or local region, such as bison, wolves, and Yellowstone were also usually indexed. Sports news was generally not indexed. Guidelines for indexing were as follows:

Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Substantive state news, and news of Gallatin Valley and Bozeman, including special features, relevant editorials and letters to the editor, university news, obituaries (but not funeral announcements), and speakers.
Great Falls Tribune
Substantive state news, including economics, politics, history, environment, mining, universities, education, agriculture; obituaries (but not funeral announcements); and relevant editorials and letters to the editor.

Stories are indexed with subject terms, most of which are from Library of Congress subject headings. Additional subject headings are generated for local and regional subjects, and personal names are also used as appropriate. Headings and cross-references can be found by browsing the thesaurus, or you can do a search to find subject headings matching your term(s).

Headlines of stories may also be searched. Prior to 1999, headlines were subject to a length limit, due to the software used for the database. This limit cut off all headlines at 60 characters (including spaces), and should be taken into account when searching.

Obituaries were indexed with, and searchable by names of individuals.