WELCOME TO THE BAY GUARDIAN ARCHIVES, 1966-2014
How to use these archives
You can view and search the archives in two formats:
- Flip-through editions have all migrated to their permanent home at the Internet Archive. Click the button below to browse at archive.org.
- Text articles for many of our articles written after word-processing software became standard are also available. These articles are presented based on where they originally appeared, whether in the print edition of the Guardian, or online at SFBG.com.
Not all articles are available in both formats, so try both if you can’t find one.
Issue numbering
The Guardian editorial calendar resets in October. Issue #1 was published the first week of October every year. How to search PDFs Our search bar above only returns results from full-text stories from our print and blog sections. All our PDFs are hosted at the Internet Archive.
Blogs vs print sections
In most cases, posts that appeared online at sfbg.com but not in print (e.g., blog entries and some listings) are not categorized by Issue. To find blog posts, search for the blog name or browse under the SFBG Blogs menu item.
Topic searching
We have newly reindexed all topic keywords based on basic automated text analysis. If you notice really screwy results when searching by topic, we’d appreciate you letting us know.
Writer searching
In some cases the name attributions in the old database file don’t reflect the correct byline. We’d appreciate your help identifying misattributed stories so we can correct them.
Structural continuity
Over its 50 year history, the Guardian’s structure evolved continuously. Sections grew and split, columns came and went, topics got expanded into special editions and sometimes refolded back into the paper. For the most part, we’re presenting sections and organizational concepts as they would have appeared circa 2014. That means that some special editions, pullouts, columns and blogs may be categorized differently here than they were at original pub date. As older and pre-internet issues of the paper become available, we’ll rely mostly on automated text analysis to help determine how to categorize and find stories.