The State Library of South Australia (SLSA) maintains preservation standard in-house microfilming facilities and has been contributing to the Australian Newspaper Plan (ANPlan) since its beginning as the National Newspaper Plan Working Group in 1991.
Each year, SLSA microfilms all current South Australian newspapers and as many ‘old’ newspapers as funding will allow.
All retrospective filming of newspapers is funded either through ANPlan microfilming cooperative project payments from the National Library of Australia or in partnership with South Australian local councils, public libraries and newspaper publishers.
The State Library of South Australia’s current goal is to complete retrospective filming of The Advertiser, South Australia’s longest-running daily newspaper. The gap in preservation standard film for this important title has been reduced to the editions from 1953-1959. The National Library is digitising The Advertiser from SLSA’s high quality microfilm for the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Project.
SLSA’s next priority is the South Australian Register, South Australia’s first newspaper. Its first edition was printed in London in June 1836 shortly before its publishers set sail for the new colony. The Library has piloted its own newspaper digitisation projects using the earliest years of this title as well as The Border Watch (1910-1912) funded by the Mount Gambier Public Library, and the Southern Argus (1866-1913) Victor Harbor Times (1912-1978) funded by the Victor Harbor Public Library.
In January 2007, SLSA surveyed regional and suburban newspaper publishers about the possibility of receiving from them the ‘pre-press’ electronic files that are used to print current hard-copy newspapers. These files could become important elements in preserving access to Australian newspapers.
Information about newspapers and how to access them at the State Library of South Australia is available at:
Newspaper titles microfilmed in 2007/8 are:
See also Cooperative Newspaper Microfilming 2008/9.
An up-to-date list of missing newspapers is available on this website. Please contact the State Library if you are able to help locate these titles.
Last updated 13/8/09