'A digital Aladdin's Cave' — Brightsolid's British Newspaper Archive project brings history to life

A multi-million-pound joint venture between Dundee-based digital publishers brightsolid and the British Library sees a massive archive of newsapers released online for the first time today.

The Illustrated Police News of Saturday, January 10, 1880, covers the Tay Bridge Disaster, one of the vast range of subjects in the archive.

By Graham Huband, business editor
Published in the Courier : 28.11.11
Published online : 29.11.11 @ 07.15am

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The new British Newspaper Archive website (link) contains around four million pages of content from more than 200 newspapers from across the UK and Ireland, and up to 8,000 new digitised pages are being added every day.

Brightsolid chief executive Chris van der Kuyl.

The searchable resource mainly features material from 18th and 19th century titles.

Among the first editions to be uploaded are copies of The Courier's earlier titles dating from 1844 to 1900. Likely to attract lots of attention from local readers is contemporary coverage of the Tay Bridge Disaster of December 1879, in which 59 people lost their lives.

Brightsolid — which has its headquarters at Dundee Technology Park — was chosen as the British Library's partner after successfully delivering similar projects based on the 1911 census for the National Archives.

The 10-year tie-up will eventually see more than 40 million pages of archive material digitised and will include in-copyright material after Northcliffe became the first major publishing house to sign up to allow a large selection of its regional and local titles up to 1950 to be included.

Chief executive officer of brightsolid Chris van der Kuyl describes the new archive as a ''digital Aladdin's Cave'' that will safeguard the world's greatest collection of newspapers for generations to come.

The archive — which extends to more than 500 terabytes of data — will be managed from brightsolid's state-of-the-art data centres in Scotland.

Mr Van der Kuyl said: ''Whether it's researching your ancestors or looking up where you live, the British Newspaper Archive will bring you results at the touch of a button.

''The 65 million stories available online today are the story of the UK, and we're adding 120,000 stories a day.

''We have a strong track record of marketing projects of this scale through our family history sites and making them easily accessible to consumers, most recently working with UKTV to create a new genealogy programme Find My Past.

''This programme has used historical newspaper content to unearth details of historic events for the descendants. Through our parent company, DC Thomson, we have strong links with the publishing industry and we have been working closely with publishers during the digitisation process and will continue to do so as the project progresses.''

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey welcomed the partnership behind the new site.

He said: ''It is a great example of the public and private sectors collaborating to deliver something that neither party could have delivered by themselves. I searched for my own constituency of Wantage and within seconds had 42,000 results — an indication of the breadth and variety of material featured.

''I am delighted that the British Library and brightsolid are working together to transform access to the nation's published memory.''

Patrick Fleming, head of Reader and Reference Services at the British Library, said: ''We're delighted to be working with brightsolid to unlock millions of pages of historic newspaper content.

''By making these newspapers available online we open up the archive to people across the UK and around the world, many of whom would never have set foot in our physical reading rooms — but who can now search via their own desktop.''

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors said it is important that newspapers which tracked the development of British society are secured.

He said: ''The British Newspaper Archive website opens up a magical new window on a magnificent treasure store of real history, recording the lives of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in vibrant communities rather than merely the cold facts of politics and pestilence.

''Thank goodness ageing newspapers are being brought back to life through new partnerships and modern, accessible media, to enthrall new generations.''

You can explore the archive from today at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk You can also stay up to date with new additions by following on Twitter (link) and on Facebook (link)

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