New Year's Holiday Closings

All Rock Island Library locations, including Library2Go bookmobile routes, are closed Tuesday, Dec. 31 and Wednesday, Jan. 1 for the New Year's holidays. Libraries are open normal hours Dec. 30 and Jan. 2 of New Year's week. 

Stay in touch over the holidays with our digital services and PrairieCat app. Our website "online branch" is always open! We wish you a very Happy New Year, and our thanks for using library services in 2024! 

Read Beyond the Paywall with our Newspaper Resources!

In addition to the New York Times Online, we now offer the Newsbank database suite, which significantly expands your access to digital newspapers at no cost!  It includes more than 2,500 local, regional, and national newspapers, and  TV news content. 

Newsbank products include: 

  • America's News  - wtih content and archives back to the 1980s from more than 3,700 news sources
  • Heritage Hub death and obituary database, with notices dating back to 1704, with coverage from 50 states
  • Dispatch-Argus collection, keyword and article searchable back to 1993. Full image scans available from July 2023 on. 
  • Galesburg Register Mail, Chicago Sun-Times, and Peoria Journal Star collections. 
  • Newsbank products are available to all Rock Island Public Library cardholders 24 hours a day with an Internet connection and card credentials. Anyone using the Rock Island Library WiFi or Internet connections can also use them! 

Use America's News to compare coverage on national issues, read up on hometown news, or research local and national issues, events, people, government, education, arts, business, sports, real estate and much more. Articles can be clipped or downloaded, and America’s News also provides citations.

To get started, use your Rock Island Library to log into the America's News collections at our Digital Resources page