All Bowdoin students, faculty and staff now have institutional access to the Portland Press Herald through the Bowdoin library website. Marjorie Hassen, director of the College library, explained that there have been several requests in recent years from students and faculty for Bowdoin to establish institutional access to the Press Herald, but the paper has not had a model that would allow for institutional access until this fall.

“We worked with [the Press Herald] to determine a way to do that—[we] provided them with information that we have from other newspapers we have institutional access with—the Wall Street Journal, New York Times—in describing how that works, and then [the Press Herald was] able to create a model that made it possible to do this,” Hassen said in a Zoom interview with the Orient. “We were the first institution to talk with them.”

Hassen explained that the funding for access to the Press Herald will come out of the library’s budget. She also noted that Colby College has now established institutional access to the paper as well.

Hassen expects that digital access to the paper will be particularly useful for students who are studying remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There are people, before COVID, who would come into [Hawthorne-Longfellow Library] every day and look at the newspapers,” Hassen said. “But now, since there are so few students on campus, it’s been particularly helpful because then everybody has the same access, so that’s been terrific. And it helps students who are away who are interested in what’s going on in the area … keep up fairly easily.”