"300 years of newspapers to go online"

[Nick29]

"The British Library has announced a 10-year project to make 40m pages from its newspaper archive available online.

The record of more than 300 years of journalism, including coverage of the Crimean and Boer Wars, will be put on the web by the publisher BrightSolid. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8690919.stm

[Old Bristolian]

Excellent news - it seems they are going to concentrate on local papers before 1900 too. The service will be free when viewed at Colindale - it will be interesting to see what Brightsolid's charges might be

Steve

[coombs]

Brilliant news. I hope they soon index a few more post 1900 newspapers.

[mshrmh]

The British Library has announced that their collection is to be digitised by Brightsolid (owners of Findmypast etc). It is expected to take 10 years. There will be free access at the BL and via subscription elsewhere.

The press release on this link has more details

http://www.bl.uk/news/2010/pressrelease20100519.html

Topics merged

Modified: Apologies - I spotted the first post after I'd typed this & the Mod beat me to the merge!

[MarkyP]

This isn't going down well in all quarters, James Murdoch, chairman of News International certainly doesn't agree. To be found here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/may/21/james-murdoch-attacks-british-library

And the response from the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/may/21/jamesmurdoch-british-library

I can't wait! 

[suttontrust]

It's good news and, provided they stick to old newspapers, it's nothing for Murdoch to worry about.  However, it remains to be seen what is digitised, and how.
I would particularly welcome the digitisation of local newspapers.  Most of these have gone out of business or changed hands, and their archives are not accessible unless you can get to the local record office or library and know exactly what date you want.

[MarieC]

Sorry to appear thick, but I have two questions that I hope someone can answer.

Firstly, how will this differ from the digitisation of newspapers that the Gale Group has done, in collaboration with the British Library, and made available online for a cost?

Secondly, surely copyright does not cover all years of the newspapers?  There must be quite a lot that are out of copyright, and therefore of no concern to the Murdochs.

I might just remark, in passing, that the National Library of Australia is digitising Australian newspapers up to 1954 and making them available FREE on its website!  I imagine the cut-off date is to avoid copyright problems.  So far no-one has squeaked - not the Murdochs, not anyone - and it is a wonderful resource.  The Fairfax family (owners of the Sydney Morning Herald) have actually sponsored the digitisation of that newspaper, so they have no issues with it!!  Already quite a bit of stuff there, and quite a lot to come.

MarieC

[richarde1979]

Sorry, but I think James Murdoch is right. What gives them the right to digitise and  charge access to material which others own the copyright to? If I had written a book, and the copy lodged with the British Library was digitised, put online, for a fee, and they get all profit, that would not seem right. Newspapers are commercial businesses. Of course as a genealogist I do look foward to the resource, but that doesn't stop me thinking Murdoch is essentialy in the right.

[mshrmh]

Firstly, how will this differ from the digitisation of newspapers that the Gale Group has done, in collaboration with the British Library, and made available online for a cost?
MarieC

MarieC - the BL is a "copyright library" and therefore should have a copy of every publication in its jurisdiction. The Gale collection is a small part of the newspaper collection. As an example Manchester Library has a list of periodicals they hold and at the bottom are the few that have been digitised (ie in the "Gale" collection). In other words there's a lot of other material.
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_studies/460/manchester_local_studies_library/5