Frequently Asked Questions

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The Customer Service staff of The Los Angeles Times online archive wants to help make your searching as trouble-free as possible. To ensure your continued satisfaction with The Los Angeles Times online archive, we offer the following answers to some of the most commonly asked questions:

• What is available in the archive?
  
  
• What is not contained in the archive?
  
  
• Where is the photo/illustration/chart?
  
  
• How do I purchase articles online?
  
  
• What forms of payment are accepted for purchasing articles?
  
  
• What is your refund policy?
  
  
• What is ProQuest Archiver (PQA)?
  
  
• How do I order back issues of Los Angeles Times?
  
  
• How do I get text reprints of an article that appeared in The Los Angeles Times?
  
  
• How do I get reprints of a photo that appeared in Los Angeles Times?
  
  
• How do I get a copy of a commemorative front page?
  
  
• How do I get better search results?
  
  
• What part of the article is actually searched for my search term?
  
  
• How do I browse articles that appeared on one specific day?
  
  
• What if I can't find my article?
  
  
• How do I find an obituary?
  
  
• I'm having trouble finding an article. Do you have search assistance?
  
  
• What formats are available for viewing an article?
  
  
• How do I print a historic article image PDF so I can view it?
  
  
• What if I have a question that cannot be answered by the Frequently Asked Questions?
  
  

Los Angeles Times current full text archive includes locally written articles from 1/1/1985 through the present.

The archive includes:

• Obituaries
• Letters to the Editor

The Los Angeles Times historical archives contain digitized article images from 12/4/1881 to 12/31/1984. Most classifieds, birth announcements, wedding announcements, photographs, charts, comics and other materials are included.

Los Angeles Times 1985+ text archive does not include advertising.

The text archive does not include:

• Classifieds
• Birth Announcements
• Wedding Announcements
• Legal Notices
• Sports Statistics
• Real Estate listings
• Weather Pages
• Advertising
• Photographs
• Charts
• Comics

Certain photographs and articles are omitted from the 1881-1984 archives due to copyright concerns.

Only text is included in the current archives 1985 - present. Photos, charts, illustrations and other graphics are not included. Please see What is not contained in the archives? for more information.

The historical archives (1881 - 1984) do contain many graphics, however, some photographs are blocked due to copyright concerns.

Our Permissions Department, which generally deals with issues of republication, may be able to provide a copy of the photo to you. Their fees vary and are based on usage. You may obtain more information about this service at the website of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
You may request a photo reprint by contacting:

    Rights & Permissions
    (213) 237-4565
    202 West First St.
    Times South, 10th Floor
    Los Angeles, CA 90012
    Email:  license@tribun e.com

NOTE: The cost varies per photo. All photo reprints are subject to availability.

Advice for new users: After you do a search, a screen will come up with the results of that search. You may view a summary of the document for free. Once you determine which document you would like to view, click on the icon with the '$'. If you are a new user, you will be taken to a pricing page, where you can choose the plan to purchase. After deciding which plan best fits your needs, you will be taken through the purchase experience. After confirming your purchase, the full text of the document will be displayed.

You may choose to print the document or save it for your personal review later on. Since you have access to this document for 90 days, you may complete the same search and retrieve the document again during this time period.

Accepted forms of payment for purchasing articles:

(Billed by ProQuest Archiver)

Customers may submit an online refund request within two hours of purchase. ProQuest will refund the full purchase price provided the customer provides an explanation of why he/she is dissatisfied with the quality of the content delivered. If more than two hours has passed, customers may contact ProQuest Customer Service by email to request a refund at mypqabilling@pqarchiver.com.

Refunds for passes will be pro-rated based upon duration since purchase and usage.

No refunds can be given more than 60 days following the original purchase date.

ProQuest Archiver is an e-commerce platform for publishers to distribute their content on the Web. Visit myPQA to learn more.

You may request an issue reprint (for the last 30-60 days) by contacting:

    Back Issues Dept
    (213) 237-5951

NOTE: The rates are $2.00 for the daily edition and $4.00 for the Sunday edition for subsc ribers and $6.25 and $10.75, respectively, for non-subscribers. (If urgent Fed-Ex delivery is needed, then the cost is instead $4.00 for a daily edition and $6.00 for a Sunday edition, a nd your Fed-Ex account number must also be supplied.) Please note: All back issues are subject to availability and are sold on a first-come, first-serve basis.

For ordering instructions, please call (213) 237-5951 so we can get your order started. Than k you.

You may request an article reprint (back to 1985) in our impressive 3-column text format wit h a large Los Angeles Times header by contacting:

    Archives Research Dept.
    (800) 788-8804
    202 West First St.
    Times West, 5th Floor
    Los Angeles, CA 90012

The rates are just 10 for a professional search which includes any article found or $10 f or every 100 headlines on any topic of your choice back to 1985 (articles subsequently chosen a re just $5 each). All article reprints are subject to availability since a few syndicated writ ers sell their past articles on their own Web sites only.

Bulk reprints, web reprints, and e-mail reprints need to be arranged through the Rights & Permissions Dept.

Our Permissions Department, which generally deals with issues of republication, may be able to provide a copy of the photo to you. Their fees vary and are based on usage. You may obtain more information about this service at the website of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
You may request a photo reprint by contacting:

    Rights & Permissions
    (213) 237-4565
    202 West First St.
    Times South, 10th Floor
    Los Angeles, CA 90012
    Email:  license@tribun e.com

NOTE: The cost varies per photo. All photo reprints are subject to availability.

Good news. With our new online ordering system, you can immediately order Los Angeles Times front page reprints with a few clicks of your mouse. To learn more about these popular pages, please visit our Front Page Reprints page.

Be specific with your search terms. If your search is unsuccessful, refine your search terms. To narrow your search, use the advanced search page to fill in date range, author, headline, or subject fields. The more information you provide, the more precise your search results will be. To get more results, select different search words or a longer date range.

Using AND narrows the search, using OR broadens the search, and using NOT excludes unwanted items. The NOT operator is useful in refining an initial query that returns a broad list of results. WITHIN and ADJ controls how close your search terms must be to one another. ADJ also checks that words found are in the same order as in your search expression. For more detail, visit Search Tips.

The basic search includes the full text of the entire article, as well as text from the headline, author field, date range, subject terms, etc. For more detail on getting good search results, visit Search Tips.

On the advanced search page, use the date range option to select the specific date, insert a "*" into the "Search for" field, and click the search button.

Please review the Search Tips for helpful information, as well as How do I get better search results?. Unfortunately, ProQuest Archiver is unable to provide research assistance for the archives. However, more information is available here.

To search for an obituary (reporter written articles on public figures), use the Advanced Search; next, in the Headline prompt box list the person's name this way:
   first name pre/3 last name
    Example: john pre/3 doe.
(Using the proximity of pre/3 tells the system to find the first name 3 words before the last name; this takes into account the use of a middle initial or a nickname.)

For the historic article image archives, enter your search terms in the main search box, rather than the headline field.

To search for a family-placed obituary (funeral notice), please visit http://www.latimes.com/news /obituaries/ and go into the area called "Paid Obituaries and Family Announcements". If the family-placed obituary was placed prior to April 26, 2001, then you will need to order a manual professional search for $40 by calling our Archives Department at 1-800-788-8804. They will search for the death notice for up to one week after the date of death which you will need to provide them.

Please review the Search Tips for helpful information, as well as How do I get better search results?.

For search assistance, you may contact:
    Archives Research Dept.
    (800) 788-8804

NOTE: The cost for search assistance is $10 for articles back to 1985 and $40+ for articles prior to that.

You can choose the format you would like to view by clicking the icon next to the article title. Please note: Only some document formats may be available. The following formats may be available:

Preview - The free Preview provides bibliographic information about the article, such as author and publication date, and a brief summary. This format contains no photos.

Full Text - The Full Text version includes the citation and abstract, along with the complete text of the article. This format contains no photos.

Article Image - Article Image refers to a black and white scanned image of the article as it was originally printed, delivered in Portable Document Format (PDF).

Please click here for instructions on printing article PDF's using Adobe.

If you still have questions after checking the frequently asked questions, please contact Customer Service. Please keep in mind that assistance is available only for technical and account-related issues. Research assistance is not provided.