Introduction
The Squirrel Hill News was a weekly newspaper published between 1929 and 1970. The newspaper’s records from 1929-1934 were lost in a fire, but a bound set of issues from 1935-1970 were donated to the SHHS by a member. The Society took steps to increase accessibility to the newspapers. First, we provided hard copies of the papers to the Pennsylvania Department of the Carnegie Library, which put this material on microfiche. We then donated the paper copies to the Detre Library at the Heinz History Center (where they can be viewed and used) and turned over the digital information to the University of Pittsburgh Archives and Special Collections. Ed Galloway, University Assistant Librarian and head of the Archives and Special Collections, uploaded the Squirrel Hill News newspapers to the Historic Pittsburgh website and linked it to the SHHS website, where the issues can be accessed by clicking on the link below.
1. Click on “Access Squirrel Hill News HERE” to go to a page with the dates and years for all the newspapers.
2. If you want to search the newspapers for a specific topic:
When the window opens that shows you the dates and years for the newsletters, look for the two search boxes under the heading “Squirrel Hill News” on the left. One says “Search,” the one to the right says “Search all issues.” In the “Search all issues” box, type a keyword for a topic you want to find. If you are searching for a topic with more than one word, such as Frick Park, it is important to put the words in quotation marks so the search results will be for that exact wording only. (IMPORTANT: DO NOT TYPE YOUR KEYWORD IN THE GRAY SEARCH BOX IN THE BAR DIRECTLY BELOW THE HISTORIC PITTSBURGH MASTHEAD ON THE RIGHT. It will take you out of the Squirrel Hill News and to the main Historic Pittsburgh website.) Press the return key.
A new window opens showing the newspapers where that topic can be found. Click on one of the newspapers.
A new window opens showing only that newspaper. Orange balloons appear in a bar under the newspaper. If you hover the mouse over an orange balloon without clicking on it, a few words from the search results will be displayed. Choose a balloon to click on and it will take you to a page your keyword is on. The word will be highlighted in yellow. (The yellow is faint and hard to see, so you might have to enlarge the page and navigate by holding the mouse button down and moving it around.) See #4 for how to navigate within the newspaper.
3. If you want to search the newspapers by date: After you click on “Access Squirrel Hill News HERE” and the page with the newspapers opens, click on a particular year in the column on the left. The window that opens will show all the newspapers for that year. Click on the one you are looking for.
4. To navigate from page to page within a newspaper: Click on the newspaper or use the white arrows in the gray boxes on the right side below the newspapers. To zoom in or out, use the pair of magnifying glass icons above the newspaper that have a plus or minus sign in them. To make the newspaper full screen, click on the large gray square icon with the white rectangle and smaller white dots in the upper right next to the magnifying glasses. To get out of full screen, click on the gray square again. You can also navigate by using the back and forward arrows of your browser.
5. To search for a topic in a particular newspaper, type a keyword in the search box next to the gray square icon in the upper right that says, “Search inside this book.” Type in your keyword and press the Return key. If your keyword is in the newspaper, orange balloons will appear.
6. To return to your search results: When you are finished looking at a particular newspaper, you can go back to your search results or go back to all the issues to start a new search by clicking on the appropriate word(s) in blue text, including “Back to Search Results,” “Prev,” “Next,” and “All issues.”
7. If you want to save a copy of a page or a particular article:
If you want to save the whole page of the newspaper, right click on your mouse and select the option you prefer to save the page.
If you want to save a picture of a particular article, you can take a screen shot of it. On a mac, press Command-Shift-4 and a plus sign appears. Position the plus sign on one corner of what you want to take the screen shot of and drag over the area you want to keep. Release the mouse and a screen shot will appear as an icon on your desktop.
The directions for taking a screen shot on a pc are more complicated and have a variety of options, so please search Google for directions on how to do it.
Squirrel Hill Historical Society 