Contemporary press reports on events ranging from the Charge of the Light Brigade to the Great Exhibition of 1851 are being made available online by the British Library.
Up to four million pages, mainly dating from the 19th century, but in some cases going back to the early 18th century, can now be accessed on The British Newspaper Archive website, which the Library has launched with online publisher brightsolid. The archive, which could previously only be accessed by visitors to the British Library’s newspaper library at Colindale, north London, has been digitised by brightsolid’s team over the past 12 months at the rate of up to 8,000 pages each working day.
The project has focused on out-of-copyright material from before 1900, but brightsolid is negotiating with various rights holders to secure permission to digitise newspaper runs from the first half of the 20th century. The project is expected to scan up to 40 million newspaper pages over the next 10 years.
Highlights of the current collection include exhaustive details of crime and punishment, with severe sentences or transportation meted out for only minor demeanours, eyewitness accounts of contemporary events such as the railway mania of the mid-19th century and the rapid expansion of the temperance movement, together with illustrations and advertisements ranging from the latest fashions to miracle cures for baldness and venereal disease.
“The launch of the British Newspaper Archive website opens up the British Library’s newspaper collection as never before,” sais Ed King, the British Library’s head of newspapers. “Rather than having to view the items on-site at the Library, turning each page, people across the UK and around the world will be able to explore for themselves the goldmine of stories and information contained in these pages – and the ability to search across millions of articles will yield results for each user, that might previously have been the work of weeks or months, in a matter of seconds and the click of a mouse.” The new service is being promoted to people researching family history, including family notices, announcements and obituaries, and users can search by name, location, date and newspaper title in tracking down ancestors.
Searching the website generates free preview snippets of results found, with a fee payable for downloading full articles and images. Payment options for users range from pay-per-view access for 48 hours or 30 days to a 12 month subscription package. The website, is free to use in the British Library’s reading rooms near St Pancras in central London.