British Newspaper Archives to resume adding content

The following is an update from the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk), which has added no new content to its site for several weeks/months:

We have been busy working on upgrading our newspaper ingest and post-processing system – Many of you have been enquiring about when the new process will start.

We are now pleased to announce that new pages will begin to appear on the site later this week, gradually increasing to almost double the previous process limits of about 10,000 pages/day. In addition, the next few months will see inclusion of new titles from Yorkshire, Sunderland and Burnley. More news soon!

In another post the BNA has mentioned that it will be adding content that will go up to 1953, though there is no detail on what titles that will be for.

Obviously as an Ulsterman, I would dearly love to see some more Irish content appear - a lot more Irish content. Yesterday FindmyPast Ireland announced that it had added the BNA Irish content to its site - the titles being The Belfast Morning News, The Belfast Newsletter, The Cork Examiner, The Dublin Evening Mail, The Freeman's Journal and The Sligo Champion. Of those titles, however, The Belfast Newsletter and The Freeman's Journal were simply added from the previous British Library 19th Century Newspaper Collection. Scotland fares a little better on the BNA, but again, I would love to see it much better represented.

But if there is one thing I REALLY wish the site would do - it is to add accurate information about what is online. Broad year ranges such as "1812-1900" are not often the whole truth, with only a handful of years available within the ranges claimed. It is not beyond the extremes of technology to add some better descriptive information about what is actually there.

Chris

My latest book, Discover Scottish Civil Registration Records, is now available from http://www.gould.com.au (print) and http://www.gen-ebooks.com/unlock-the-past.html (ebook), whilst Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet is available at http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Irish-History-on-the-Internet/p/3889/. My next Pharos Scottish course, Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the OPRs, starts Nov 13th - see http://pharostutors.com.