Every effort has been made to compile an accurate list of department subscriptions, however we advise you to call the department if you have a question about a title or need to know the latest date received. Most of our newspaper subscriptions are received by mail, which means there is a delay between the paper's publication date and the receipt of the newspaper by the library.

• We require a Metro Boston Library Card for use of the Sunday newspapers. These papers are kept at the staff desk and are paged by the staff.
• Lottery numbers are not checked by staff or quoted over the telephone. Lottery information can be found on-line from http://www.lottery.com

Newspaper Backfiles:

The Boston Public Library can boast of one of the major newspaper collections in the country, and serves as the center for the Massachusetts Newspaper Program. The Newspaper Room provides limited access to original newspaper files. (Pre-1820 newspapers have been transferred to the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department). The majority of files are stored off site and several days should be allowed for retrieval.

Except in rare cases, users will be required to use microfilm copies of the files, provided the Library owns microfilm of the newspaper. Access may also be restricted if the condition of the files is such that use would destroy the preservation copy.

The Todd Tablet:

This tablet to the memory of William Cogswell Todd was the work of Boston Sculptor Frank Chouteau Brown, 1876-1947.  It was placed in the library after the death of Todd in 1903.  It is of made of Terra Cotta except for the center panel which is yellow marble.  The tablet is 3 ft., 6 ½ inches wide, by 2 ft. high.  The tablet is located in the Orientation Room on the first floor of the McKim Building.  The Orientation Room was the original Newspaper Room of the Boston Public Library. William Cogswell Todd was born in Atkinson, NH on February 16, 1823 and died in the same town on June 27, 1903.  He was educated at Dartmouth College, and took up the profession of teaching, serving as principal of Atkinson Academy, and later of the Newburyport Female High School. His obituary in the Boston Herald states that during the [Civil] War he invested his savings in a cotton mill, which at that time, due to the war, was not operating.  After the war when the mill resumed operation Mr. Todd’s fortune was made. He served several terms as a representative in the New Hampshire legislature. The Herald wrote, “In 1893 he made his generous gift to the Boston Public Library -- $2,000 a year until his death, the whole to be expended in the purchase of newspapers.  In no way can the breadth and liberality of Mr. Todd’s mind be better illustrated than by quoting the following letter in which he made this offer. 

Boston is a city of rare privileges, but it lacks one possessed by many others, viz.: a place where all, citizens and strangers, can enter freely and read the leading newspapers of the day—some such place as the Cooper Institute of New York affords.  The Boston Public Library is well supplied with magazines, but not with newspapers.  It is too late to discuss the value of newspapers—they have become a necessity.  The business man, the student in every department, the politician anxious to feel the public pulse, the men, who like the Athenians of old, “spend their time either to tell or hear some new thing,” all, of every pursuit and condition, must read the newspapers to learn what has transpired the world over.  The press has become the great agency by which information is diffused, leading questions discussed, the people educated and public opinion moulded. Words spoken to a hundred people in the evening are the next morning read by a hundred thousand.  Newspapers now form a large part of the reading of the whole community.  I have heard business men say that they read the newspapers daily, occasionally a magazine, hardly a book in a year.  It is not enough to read one paper, and that partisan, if any one would be correctly informed and judge clearly; yet many newspapers are too expensive for ordinary readers, and a large part are desired only for occasional use.  All this is well understood, and need not have been repeated.  Free reading rooms, I have no doubt, in the not distant future will be even more in demand by the general public than free public libraries.  As the new Public Library building is about to be opened, I trust this great want of Boston will be supplied.  If the trustees will furnish a suitable room and provide for all incidental expenses, I will pay $2,000 annually, all of this sum to be expended in newspapers, and, sooner or later, will give a sum of $50,000 to secure forever this annual payment.  Such payments are to be appropriated to furnishing newspapers for a reading room in the new central Public Library building only.  I may add that my only interest in this matter is the wish to do some good to a great many people.  Trusting that this proposition may be favorably received, I am, very respectfully yours.           - William C. Todd 

In October, 1897, Mr. Todd made a second generous offer to the Citizens of Boston, as a result of the success of his first gift.  This was the contribution of $50,000, the income of which was to be devoted solely to the purchase of newspapers.  The offer was made during Mayor Quincy’s administration and was accepted by a unanimous vote of the board of alderman.”  [Boston Herald, June 28, 1903, page 8].