State Library Victoria members can access hundreds of databases from home (if your home is in Victoria). That’s millions of articles, magazines, archives, ebooks, videos, songs, audio books and more, available through the catalogue any time. We’re taking a closer look at new and/or interesting databases as well as hidden gems from our collections. Read on for top picks and tips from librarians.
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Today we’re looking at the British Library Newspapers (1732-1950) database.
The British Library Newspapers database includes over 240 newspaper titles, sourced from the extensive holdings of the British Library. Modules I to V feature British newspapers from 1732-1950; module VI, released late in 2022, features Irish titles from 1766-1922.
What makes this database so great?
The depth and scope of this collection is unparalleled. Consisting of over 300 years of British newspapers, the coverage includes specialist titles like Graphic (1870-1900) and the Illustrated Police News (1867-1900), and many powerful provincial news journals such as the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1749-1950), the Cornishman (1878-1950), the Freeman’s Journal (1820-1900) and the Manchester Mercury (1752-1830).
The titles are primarily from metropolitan and regional areas and provide researchers with a unique, first hand perspective on the social, political, and cultural events of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. They also present an alternative viewpoint to that which appeared in many of the London-centric newspapers.
This database is particularly useful for anyone researching how events in Australia were reported in the British press. Here’s an excerpt from the Northern Star reporting on the discovery of gold in Victoria. Reading through this article, it’s easy to see why tens of thousands of people were motivated to immigrate to Australia in the mid-19th century.
You can find many references to noteworthy Australians who were either visiting or living in Britain. The following article, praising a young Don Bradman, appeared in July 1930, just days after he took 254 runs at Lords.
The British Library Newspapers database is also a fantastic resource for family historians with British or Irish ancestors. A search for the name of an ancestor may retrieve personal details that are not available elsewhere, such as biographical information, physical descriptions or details of events they were involved in. It’s also worth browsing through newspapers for the towns where your ancestors once lived. By reading first-hand reports of day-to-day life, you can get a sense of what their lives were like and find out what was going on in the world in which they lived.
Browsing the newspapers
From the database homepage select Browse. Then click on the Browse Publications option to view a full list of titles held in the archive. Click on each title to display the date coverage, frequency etc.
You can also use the Browse By Date option to display available titles for a specific date.
Searching the database
From the database homepage you can perform a Basic search using keywords. Join the keywords with AND to narrow your search, i.e. Nelson AND Trafalgar AND battle.
For a more comprehensive search, we suggest you try the Advanced Search option. This allows you to search across a variety of fields including keyword, entire document, publication title, author, place of publication and day of the week. Selecting the entire document field will not only search throughout the full text of a publication, but will also highlight the search terms on the relevant page.
Search results are automatically displayed with the Oldest appearing first. Change the Sort by: option to Relevance to display the most useful or important articles first.
From the results page you can filter your results further by using such search limiters as publication title, publication date, publication city, document type e.g. advertisements, articles, public notices or illustrated works (i.e. cartoon, drawing, image or maps)
Once you have opened an article you can cite, email, download or print it by using the icons that appear in the Navigation bar (towards the top right-hand side of the screen).
More to explore
We hope you enjoy exploring the British Library Newspapers (1732-1950) database. If you’d like to view some of our other Australian and international newspaper databases, please go to our A-Z databases -Newspapers historic page.
Have a research query or questions on how to use our online collections? Ask a Librarian.
Image credits: All images taken from the British Library Newspapers (1732-1950) database.
