Four million pages of newspapers from the 18th and 19th Centuries have been made available online by the British Library.
The public will now be able to scan the content of 200 titles from around Britain and Ireland.
These will include historic events such as the wedding of Victoria and Albert and the rise of the railways.
I used to do research at the Library of Congress and would occasionally have to pull up old issues of the New York Times on microfilm. By today’s standards, it was a clumsy, tedious process. However, I made it a lot more time-consuming for myself by letting myself get captivated in the minutiae of periods long past – not just the news stories, but the adverts, the gossip, the society pages. This will make that kind of pointless, but ever so enjoyable lolligagging even more enticing for people like me. Not sure whether that’s a societal gain. Probably not.
Since I got my e-reader, I’ve taken advantage of the fact that you can get all of the classics and the lesser-known works of the masters for free! Just last week I discovered some short stories by Wilkie Collins that I hadn’t read. 🙂 It would be cool if the British library would be make these newspapers available for free on e-readers, too!
1, actually that’s the stuff of history. Primary sources for the masses. It’s great.
NoVa, there is still so much of the day to day that is only available to the diligent researcher… Good times! Sleeping in my car or crashing at friend’s apartments, gaining access to small museum collections or, as you note, the amazing NARA catalog! But, as the Information Age progresses (and IMHO it is really progress) we see more scanned and made available. Equal opportunity research is a blessing.
That’ll get you every single time, NoVa. Researching the St. Louis papers at the St. Louis County Library always took me a lot longer than it should have because I would always get diverted into sports or something else. Even going through the Webster Groves, Missouri papers on microfilm at my library takes me forever since I’m always getting diverted by information about my home town.
By the way, if you’re interested in a 19th and early 20th century newspaper that can be freely searched and accessed online, the Brooklyn Public Library has made the Brooklyn Eagle available from 1841 through 1902.