Forty million pages of historic newspapers will be digitized for use by historians, genealogists and other members of the public in a partnership between the British Library and brightsolid, it was announced Wednesday, 19 May, 2010.
Historic Newspapers at the British Library
The British Library, the national library of the United Kingdom, is responsible for preservation and access to the national newspaper collection. It archives 52,000 newspaper titles on microfilm or in hard copy; these newspapers cover 300 years and include local, national and international newspapers. Currently, only 49 newspapers from the UK, dating from 1800-1900, are digitized. They are available to view online for a fee from the British Library website, but access to the remainder requires a visit to London.
The new partnership calls for at least four million historic newspaper pages to be digitized in the first two years, with up to forty million completed by the end of the ten-year agreement. Brightsolid will recoup the cost through user fees when the images are places on a website. There will be no cost to the British Library.
Copyrights on Historic Newspapers
Newspapers printed prior to 1900 are considered to be out of copyright, and the partnership between the British Library and brightsolid will focus on these first. The partnership will work to obtain copyright permission from twentieth-century newspapers, and online access to these will be of major assistance to genealogists and historians in their research.
The historic newspapers to be digitized will be selected to fill several areas of interest:
- Specific geographic areas.
- The census years from 1841 to 1911.
- Key historical events and themes, such as particular wars, slavery, and civil rights.
Accessing Old Newspapers Online
The historic newspaper images will be available on findmypast.co.uk and genesreunited.co.uk, fee-based family history websites which are owned by brightsolid. There may also be a dedicated, fee-based website for the historic newspapers. Researchers who visit the British Library in person will be able to access the newspaper images for free.
Brightsolid previously partnered with The National Archives to digitize the 1911 UK census, and currently manages the ScotlandsPeople genealogy website.
Easy access to historic newspapers is of great value to genealogists. The newspaper images will be fully searchable, a great improvement for researchers who have had to pour over digital or microfilm copies a page at a time.
When an ancestor’s family is found on the census, the newspaper from that year can be searched to find additional mention of that family, and to add understanding to their lives in general. When an ancestor is known to have fought in a particular war or been involved in an important event or cause, the newspapers can fill gaps and explain situations from a contemporary viewpoint.
“Given that they are the first draft of history, they cover the world through three centuries, anything ranging from the abolition of slavery, the Boer War, suffragette movement, right through to the minutiae of individuals’ lives, indeed from birth right through to death,” said Dame Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, when making the announcement.
Sources:
- British Library
- brightsolid.com
Jennifer Jensen - Jennifer Jensen is an Indiana writer just returned from a lovely few years in County Cork, Ireland. She has been the Feature Writer for ...
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