Free access to 19thC British newspapers - back in business!

[Currie]

Hello Scott,

I’m not really sure but they seem to be saying they’re going to make some additions to the 19th Century coverage and that will be great. Can’t say I’m too interested in 18th century stuff though, I’ve never found anything there.

I’d like to see expansion into the 20th Century but it looks like they won’t risk intruding on newspapers 100 year copyright which is a shame. I don’t know how they get away with a 100 year copyright on newspapers that are just full of adverts and reporting of facts.

There’s mention of a proposed commercial site but none of their marketing strategy seems to be directed at the general public. It’s all very vague.

I’d like them to add the 1874 year to the North Wales Chronicle. There seems to be every edition for about 75 years except for 1874, my most important year by far, which has not a single issue, very strange. The Welsh language paper is there with tons of stuff but it’s all Greek to me. I’ve sent messages to Gale and the British Library but just been ignored.

That’s life,
All the best,
Alan

[SarahND]

Somehow I got to this site:

http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/dispBasicS ... e=blcsuser

and it looks as though, while not free, the public can now pay for access:

To access the millions of articles in this database, you will need to first register as a user and then purchase either:
A 24-hour pass for £6.99 that provides you access to 100 articles over that period.
A 7-day pass for £9.99 that provides you access to 200 articles over that period.

Searching appears to be free, at least it let me search all over the place.

Not free, but at least accessible!

Sarah

[Currie]

Hello Sarah,

Lindsay beat you to this one by a nose.
viewtopic.php?t=13604

The beauty of the free search here is that, unlike the grossly overpriced Scotsman, the result snippets you see are from the actual result article and usually have enough there to tell if it’s relevant.

If you’re desperate, enjoy a fiddle, and the print is reasonably clear, you can expand the snippet a bit by searching for words in the previous snippet in the same newspaper, like so:

Search 1: http://tinyurl.com/yfzasjd

Search 2: http://tinyurl.com/ylzbsz7

Search 3: http://tinyurl.com/yfnragc

Search 4: http://tinyurl.com/ykfpel8

Search 5: http://tinyurl.com/yh8cv5u

All the best,
Alan

[SarahND]

Lindsay beat you to this one by a nose.
viewtopic.php?t=13604

Quite a long nose, it seems! Must have missed that one when I was out of regular internet for a few months. Ah well, better to have it repeated for those (like me!) who missed it the first time around

Thanks for the searching hints!

Sarah

[scooter]

I believe new titles are due to be uploaded by the end of the year. I was at the British Newspaper Library last month and asked if they knew which titles had been processed, in particular any Scottish ones. They weren't sure, however the Dundee Courier was mentioned, which is backed up by this: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/p ... lfinal.pdf Look at page 33. Alas no Fife Free Press for me!

Keep watching the site I guess.....

Cheers,

Scott

[Currie]

Hello Scott,

Coverage for Scotland is very poor at the moment. After 1867 there’s only the Glasgow Herald and the Aberdeen Journal, nothing at all for Edinburgh. By comparison for the London area there seems to be at least eight for the period for which Edinburgh has none and there are more planned.

The Edinburgh Evening News, Hawick Express and Inverness Courier as well as the Dundee Courier are also marked on the map. Does this mean that they will also turn up eventually? There’s also the Carlisle Patriot lurking just south of the border, I wonder if that one will be more useful than the average English newspaper for Scottish research.

I could never understand why there are completely missing years for some newspapers when many years either side are complete. It’s almost as if someone ran off with the roll of microfilm for that year.

(Actually I wouldn’t mind an Odiham, Hants. newspaper if there is such a thing)

All the best,
Alan

[scooter]

This might help with the Scottish coverage (and Hants!)

http://www.bl.uk/news/2009/pressrelease20091016.html

Cheers,

Scott

[Currie]

Thanks Scott,

That looks promising.

Three cheers for old newspapers,
Alan

[speusippo]

'British' password does not work anymore. Anyone knows the new password?

I'm a PhD student in Philosophy -- but here in Italy my University doesn't have the access! I need it to finish my research on Anthony Collins, the british philosopher and deist...

Thanks a lot,
Jacopo A.

[Currie]

Hello Jacopo and a warm welcome to TalkingScot.

Unfortunately the free trial with the ‘British’ password ended quite some time ago. It was very good while it lasted.

To the best of our knowledge there is no free trial running at the moment. The 19th Century British Library Newspaper Collection can however be accessed at a pay site located here http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/

It can be very good value if you have a fair bit of information to collect and can round it all up in a short period of time.

Have you tried a separate search in Google Books? Is there anything there that would be of use? Google Books can be downloaded as PDF files. http://www.google.com.au/webhp?complete ... 97b2671220

Best of luck with your research,
Alan