British Newspaper Archive's 3rd anniversary

The British Newspaper Archive at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk celebrates three years online on Saturday November 29th 2014. Digitising content from the British Library's extensive newspapers collection and making it keyword searchable is its ambition, and to date it now has some 301 titles represented online from across Britain and Ireland, with plenty more to come. Content from the project is also available via its sister sites FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk) and Genes Reunited (www.genesreunited.co.uk). The digitisation project is planned to last for some ten years, so it is almost a third of the way through its projected aims. The site has provided a write up on its story so far at http://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2014/11/28/the-british-newspaper-archive-is-3-years-old/.

So how does it measure up? I must admit to having a bit of a love-hate relationship with the site. Whilst it is undoubtedly one of the most useful resources online for family history research - or at least, will be - its information in informing users as to what is actually available is fairly appalling. For each newspaper title available, the site will only tell you what the planned year range will be with regards to its availability once it has been completed, not what is actually online at present. So for example, if we have a mythical title - say the Daily Shug - the site might tell you in its listings that it is the "Daily Shug 1835-1950". What it won't tell you is that at the present time, of that 1835-1950 coverage, there might only be coverage from 1842-1848 available at present. This means that when doing a search, you have absolutely no idea how complete your enquiry is - you may think you are searching complete coverage, when in fact you are only accessing part of it. I also find the way that it uploads new content deeply frustrating - a few years of this title here, a year or two of that one there - rather than taking a title and just going through it all in one go. There may be reasons in some cases as to why that may be, but the lack of any information about when a title's digitisation is to be resumed is just not available. It's frustrating as hell.

It is for these reason that I only occasionally dabble into it for personal research, as I would much rather wait until the collections I am interested in are more complete, than constantly have to keep wasting time searching the same databases over and over again. Nevertheless, newspapers are the great resource waiting to be tapped into, so the fact that the project is happening is certainly a godsend for family historians (particularly those a little more patient and forgiving than myself!).

For more information on how to access British and Irish newspapers both online and offline in archives across the two islands, my guide British and Irish Newspapers provides some useful guidance, and can be purchased from vendors in the UK, Canada and Australia - for full details please see my books section at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.


Chris

Stuck for a Christmas gift?! I have a series of genealogy books available in the UK, Australia and Canada, on Scottish, Irish and British based subject areas. Further details at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. Santa approves!