Don’t you just hate it when you search the Journal Star’s archives for a story that’s more than two weeks old and they want to charge you $3 per story to download the full text? You can always go to the library and look it up on microfilm (any year) or through their subscription to NewsBank (articles from 1991-present). Either way, you have to go to the library, probably spending $3 in gas right there. Then, if you use the computer, you have to sign in and wait for a computer to become available.

But not anymore.

The Peoria Public Library has unveiled, as of April 6, a new service called “NewsBank from Home.”

The Peoria Public Library databases have always provided information for users over the internet at the library. Now a new addition allows patrons to access newspapers from home with their library card. Newsbank contains The Peoria Journal Star, The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and almost 30 top news magazines like Fortune, People Weekly, Real Simple, Newsweek, Time, Popular Science and Sports Illustrated.

Newsbank is searchable and contains full-text articles that are available without charge through this database. In most cases, newspaper and magazine websites charge for full-text articles. In addition, Newsbank returns search results from the entire database at one time and allows the viewer to save the articles to a “saved articles” folder.

This new feature for Peoria Public Library patrons will allow students, the business community, educators and hobbyists to find the information they need from any Internet-connected computer. Schools and business that may have subscribed to their own electronic versions of these databases in the past may find they no longer need those subscriptions.

All I can say is, this is FANTASTIC news. Now, that’s the kind of 21st-century library service we need around here. I’m so excited — it will make researching so much easier for me.

In order to use it, you have to have a library card. If you live in West Peoria or some unincorporated areas of Peoria County that don’t pay taxes to any library system, a library card will cost you $103. But for everyone else who pays taxes to the library system, it’s free. You just have to go down to your local library and sign up for it.