AP (Associated Press), artiklar och nyheter, 1937–1985

This collection includes AP news stories (1937-85), which were selected by news librarians for microfilming to create an internal news archive of over 700 reels. The set was not meant to be complete but to include only those stories of national or international importance. Most stories take the form of “wire copy,” the version that AP sent via teletype to its newspaper members for publication. As newspapers were free to edit stories for their own purposes, the wire copy may differ from published newspaper accounts. During the period 1937 to 1950, clippings were sometimes microfilmed instead of wire copy.

How to search the records

The process of searching Associated Press Stories and Newsfeatures essentially replicates the manual search process that has been in use at AP for many years. The patron looking up a story consults the Name Card Index or the Subject Card index for the story classification number and then uses that number to locate the story in the database.

Most stories in this collection have been catalogued with a three-part classification number written in this format: 35.46-5. The first part (35) is a country code (Italy) and the second part (.46) is a subject code (Aviation). The part after the dash (5) is a page number. Classification numbers are hand-written in the upper right-hand corner of the story image and they often occur only on every other image. They are typewritten on the index cards.

Many of the names in these stories are indexed on cards and searchable in the Associated Press, Name Card Index to AP Stories, 1905-1990.collection.