National Library Home > News & Events
Gateways

The Australian Newspapers Beta Service

Click to enlargeThe Australian Newspapers Beta service homepage (click to enlarge)

The National Library, in collaboration with the Australian State and Territory libraries, has made available an exciting new service which provides free online access to selected out-of-copyright Australian newspapers. The Australian Newspapers Beta service is currently in beta testing phase, but users can already search and browse over 2 million articles from over 200 000 newspaper pages dating from 1803, with more pages added daily.

Through this service the Library is providing access to every article, advertisement and illustration on every newspaper page being digitised. Users can browse the newspaper pages or search across the full text of the articles. We anticipate that users of the service will range from academics, family historians, and social and economic researchers through to school students.

Already the Library has had feedback from a range of users, including an Australian musicologist who has described the service as providing a ‘momentous advance’ in his research focusing on a composer in Sydney in the 1840s. Another has said ‘I am a historical researcher and this site makes me want to leap up and down with excitement because this is an amazing resource which will save me an enormous amount of time.’

Originally commencing in May 2007, the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program (ANDP) will digitise and make available online around 4 million Australian newspaper pages by mid-2011. Initially the project is focusing on digitisation of a major daily newspaper from each state or territory, but the aim is to expand the service to include regional and local newspaper titles in the future. The Library has also received a $1 million grant from the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation which will enable The Sydney Morning Herald to be included in the service.

The National Library welcomes feedback in this early stage of this ambitious project.

To access the Australian Newspapers Beta service go to http://ndpbeta.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home, and for more information about the program go to www.nla.gov.au/ndp.

Cathy Pilgrim
Director, Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program