TMU Libraries Omni Search
TMU Libraries Omni Search
For optimum use, sign in. This search engine searches for journal articles (many are available electronically), books, e-books, theses and dissertations, and newspaper articles from some recent and a selection of archival newspapers. It indexes digitized content such as out-of-copyright books and journals that are available from sources such as The Internet Archive and The Hathi Trust. Omni facilitates discovery and borrowing of print books from other universities in Ontario excluding the University of Toronto.
Refine your search using the filters on the left.
For more advanced searching across a more targeted set of resources, you may want to try a discipline specific indexing/abstracting database or collection as listed in the next boxes.
- Omni Research Tips and FAQThere are useful suggestions on how to use this search tool effectively.
Key Indexing Resources for Historical Aspects
Indexing and abstracting tools designed for historians will cover a selection of journals, books, and other types of resources that are targeted for historians. There will normally be additional search functions such as "Time Period" of the event that you want to research. General search engines such as Omni do not have this type of filter. When abstracts are provided, these short summaries of the articles can help you quickly determine if the article is of potential use to you.
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new windowThis database contains abstracts of articles from journals relating to the history of the world (excluding Canada and the US) from 1450 to the present. Also included are abstracts of important books in this field.
- America : History & Life This link opens in a new windowAmerica History and Life contains citations, with abstracts to social science and humanities literature on all aspects of U.S. and Canadian history, culture and current affairs from prehistoric times to the present.
Maximum of 6 simultaneous users. - Politics Collection This link opens in a new windowThis collection provides access to renowned databases such as PAIS and WPSA, covering the international literature in political science and public administration/policy, along with related fields. Together, they provide abstracts, indexing and full text coverage of journal articles, country reports, dissertations, think-tank reports, working papers, government documents and more, including full-text from many leading political science and international relations journals.
Digital Collections (Access for TMU Community Members Only)
- Black Studies Center This link opens in a new windowBlack Studies Center brings together essential historical and current material for researching the past, present and future of African Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself. It is comprised of several cross-searchable, component databases, which include:
- Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new windowBlack Thought and Culture contains the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, letters, speeches and other material.
- British And Irish Women's Letters And Diaries This link opens in a new windowBritish and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of women, as revealed through pages of published letters and diaries from 1500 to 1900, including several thousand pages of previously unpublished materials. Drawn journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings, much of the material is in copyright. Represented are all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, many geographical regions, the famous and the not so famous.
The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database. - Empire Online This link opens in a new windowThis resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowNorth American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
- Oral History Online This link opens in a new windowOral History Online provides in-depth indexing to more than 2,500 collections of Oral History in English from around the world.
The collection also provides keyword searching of more than 271,000 pages of full-text by some 9,000 individuals from all walks of life. It also contains pointers to some 3,000 audio and video files and over 17,000 bibliographic records. - Slavery, abolition and social justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new windowThis resource on trans-Atlantic slavery and abolition brings together original manuscript and rare printed material from dozens of libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Documents are presented alongside contextual essays contributed by leading academics in the field; each essay will have hypertext links to the primary sources it discusses.
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new windowWomen and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 is organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000. This collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. women’s history generally. The collection currently includes 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools.
Archival Newspapers
- British Library Newspapers, Part I & II: 1800-1900 This link opens in a new window
Sourced from the extensive holdings of the British Library, this resource delivers a wide range of irreplaceable local and regional voices to reflect the social, political, and cultural events of the nineteenth. These newspapers, emerging during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a crucial channel of information in towns and major cities, provide researchers with a unique, first-hand perspective on history.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Defender This link opens in a new windowThis historical newspaper, Chicago Defender provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1909 - 1975 - ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Globe and Mail This link opens in a new window
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1844 - 2021 - ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times This link opens in a new window
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1851 - 2021 - Times Digital Archive, 1785-2019 This link opens in a new window
Researchers can search through the complete digital edition of The Times (London), using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is available, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to aid searching.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Times of India, The This link opens in a new window
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1838 - 2011 - ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Toronto Star This link opens in a new window
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1894 - 2022 - ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Wall Street Journal This link opens in a new window
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1889 - 2013 - ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Washington Post, The This link opens in a new window
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1877-2008
There are numerous digitization initiatives for local newspapers around the world. See for example:
United States: Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
New Zealand: Papers Past
Australia: Trove: Digitised Newspapers and More
See also Carol Singer's archived guide at Bowling State Green University to Historical Worldwide Newspapers Online
Current and Recent Newspapers
- US Newsstream This link opens in a new window
US Newsstream is part of Global Newsstream. It enables users to search the most recent premium U.S. news content, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full-text format. For academic and public libraries, US Newsstream offers exclusive access to the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and co-exclusive access (with Factiva) to The Wall Street Journal. US Newsstream also offers one of the largest collections of local and regional newspapers, and is cross-searchable on the ProQuest platform.
- Canadian Newsstream This link opens in a new window
This database offers access to the full text of several Canadian newspapers from Canada's leading publishers. This full text database includes the complete available electronic backfile for most newspapers, providing full access to the articles, columns, editorials and features published in each. Some backfiles date as far back as the late 1970s.
Search for individual newspapers and journals by title from Omni, Journals search by title