Staying informed about the world often starts with a simple click. You see a headline about an election, a conflict, a scientific breakthrough or something else happening halfway across the world, and you want to understand more.
You open The New York Times, start reading and then… There it is.
The paywall.
Perhaps you have already used your free articles for the month. Perhaps this is yet another publication asking for a subscription. Or perhaps the information you are looking for is hidden in an archive or research database you cannot access at all.
The internet gives us the impression that almost everything is instantly available. Increasingly, however, some of the information most worth reading sits behind locked doors.
Your QNL membership can be one of the keys.
Qatar National Library members have free access to a huge range of online resources, including newspapers, magazines, ebooks, audiobooks, academic articles and historical archives. And you do not necessarily have to visit the Library to use them. In fact, your membership may already give you access to publications you are paying for, articles you have abandoned at a paywall, or resources you assumed were simply out of reach.
Take the news. QNL members can access The Economist and The New York Times, as well as databases containing hundreds of newspapers from around the world, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, and so many others.
If you feel like wandering a little further, PressReader turns your screen into something of an international newsstand, with more than 7,000 newspapers and magazines from over 100 countries in 60 languages.
And it’s not just news. Books can follow you around too. Through QNL’s online resources, members can access OverDrive to borrow ebooks and audiobooks and browse magazines on their phones, tablets or computers, handy for a commute, a flight, or an evening at home. You could download a novel before boarding a flight, switch to an audiobook on the drive home, then pick up exactly where you left off later that evening.
Then things get particularly interesting if you start digging into the archives.
Want to know what the front page looked like the morning after humans first walked on the Moon? Or how newspapers reported a war, an election or a political turning point before anyone knew how the story would end?
QNL provides access to historical editions of newspapers including The New York Times, whose archive stretches back to its first issue in 1851, as well as The Guardian, The Observer, The Times of India and The Wall Street Journal. Many preserve the original newspaper pages, complete with their headlines, photographs and advertisements, so you can browse the news almost as readers did at the time.
There are some unexpected treasures too. The Vogue Archive contains every issue of the magazine from 1892 to the present. Browse through it and you are not just watching fashion change, but more than a century of photography, design, advertising and popular culture.
This is perhaps one of the easiest things to overlook about a modern library. Some of its most useful shelves are no longer shelves at all.
Finding information online may be easier than ever… But finding something and being able to access it are not always the same thing.
So, the next time a paywall interrupts your reading, don’t close the tab just yet… And don’t reach for your credit card either. Instead, check what your Qatar National Library membership can unlock first. If you’re not yet a member, sign up for your free QNL membership today by registering here.
You can explore QNL’s full range of online resources here or through the QNL app, which you can download for free from the App Store or Google Play. Sign in with your Library membership to access the resources available to you. If you are using QNL’s online resources for the first time, the Library’s online guides can help you get started.
You may be surprised by just how much is already waiting behind that login.
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