New eresource: San Francisco Chronicle, 1865-1984

Our colleagues in the Vere Harmsworth Library have arranged permanent access to the online San Francisco Chronicle, 1865-1984. They write:

“We’re delighted to announce that Oxford users now have access to the digitised archive of the San Francisco Chronicle from 1865-1984 via Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers platform. Access is now available via SOLO or Databases A-Z (remote access for University members via single sign-on).

Though it was Northern California’s “newspaper of record,” the San Francisco Chronicle’s influence was so far-reaching that it was known as the Voice of the West. With colorful reporting and commentary on news ranging from the aftermath of the Gold Rush to the effects of World War II to the counterculture boom of the 1960s, the Chronicle offers an unparalleled glimpse into the issues and events that shaped the West Coast for over a century.”  > Continue reading on the VHL blog

Also of interest:

New: Daily Mail Historical Archive 1896-2004

The Rothermere American Institute and Bodleian Libraries are pleased to announce that Oxford researchers now have access to the Daily Mail Historical Archive 1896-2004, a resource which for many years now has topped the electronic desiderata for the university. This permanent acquisition was made possible thanks to a generous donation by the Daily Mail and General Trust.

The resource is now accessible via SOLO or Databases A-Z.

“The Tragedy of the Shells.” Daily Mail [London, England] 21 May 1915: 4. Daily Mail Historical Archive. Web. 16 Feb. 2018.

The Daily Mail is a well-known British daily tabloid newspaper which was first published on 4 May 1896 by Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe, and his brother Harold, later Lord Rothermere. This resource provides access to more than 100 years of this publication, whose circulation figures have consistently been one of among the highest in Britain since its publication. The archive is an invaluable source for all manner of projects on British and world history, politics, society, culture, publishing, and much more. In its aim to represent the working middle-class and actively campaign for particular causes, it provides an important vocal alternative perspective to other newspapers.

This resource also includes fully scanned and digitised copies of the Daily Mail Atlantic Edition, which were edited and produced on the White Star and Cunard liners between Southampton and New York between 1923 and 1931. Because there were no legal deposit requirements for these unique off-shore editions of the newspaper, which differ in many ways from that day’s printed Daily Mail, they are not held in any Legal Deposit library.

The resource can be viewed in full digital facsimile form, with copious advertisements, news stories and images that capture 20th century culture and society.

The Rothermere American Institute and the Bodleian Libraries are very grateful to the Daily Mail and General Trust for their its generous donation.

Suggested reading:

Also of interest:

New LibGuide: Newspapers and other online news sources from the 17th – 21st centuries

Newspapers are a wonderful source for historians. They are useful to find out about key events, people and places. They also include opinion pieces, of either writers, editors or members of the public in form of Letters to the Editor. All sorts of ephemera (weather forecasts, court circulars, advertising, sport results, etc.) give insight into daily life. Larger newspapers will also provide battle or war reports, law or court reports and parliamentary reports, including occasional reproductions of full-text speeches.

Finding and using newspapers effectively, however, and navigating your way through large newspaper datasets can be tricky. Help is now at hand!

A new LibGuide Newspapers and other online news sources from the 17th – 21st centuries aims to outline which newspaper and news resources, with the emphasis on online availability, are available in Oxford. While we aim to be global in our coverage, some countries or regions will have more newspaper resources than others. We have included all of Oxford’s online subscriptions, covering the 17th to the 21st centuries, and, where possible, provided details of many newspapers on microfilms, print or free on the web. Please note, therefore, that this guide is not a complete catalogue of Oxford’s newspapers.

You can browse by country/ region or by title.

The guide also alerts you to common problems and gives tips how you best construct your searches. For instance, you need to consider in which section of a newspaper you are searching and be careful what search terms to use, especially when searching full-text.

The layout of articles or advertising may also be relevant. Unfortunately many modern newspaper collections have not retained the original formatting. We provide guidance where this is the case:

Finally, we have added resources to help understand newspapers as source materials and suggested further readings.

We hope this guide will be useful to researchers. Feedback is welcome, so email isabel.holowaty@bodleian.ox.ac.uk if you have any comments, questions or suggestions on historical newspaper resources.

Also useful

More blog posts on newspapers

Trial until 24 December: San Francisco Chronicle, 1865-1984

The Vere Harmsworth Library is running a trial of the San Francisco Chronicle 1865-1984.  Researchers at Oxford are invited to explore it and send any comments or feedback to jane.rawson@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

We now have trial access to the San Francisco Chronicle, 1865-1984, via Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers platform. Access is available via OxLIP+ until 24th December…

Source: Trial until 24 December: San Francisco Chronicle, 1865-1984

New: 17th and 18th Century Nichols Newspapers Collection

I am pleased to report that Oxford researchers now have access to the online 17th and 18th Century Nichols Newspapers Collection via SOLO or Databases A-Z.

A collection of late 16th and early 17th century newspapers, pamphlets and broadsheets, the Nichols newspaper collection is held at the Bodleian Library and was bought by the library from the Nichols family in 1865. It comprises 296 volumes of bound material. In partnership with the Bodleian Library, Gale scanned the original physical copies to produce this online resource.

Burney and Nichols

The two biggest collections of 17th- and 18th-century newspapers were owned by Dr. Charles Burney and his fellow collector, John Nichols. The Nichols Newspaper Collection contains titles that are not in the Burney Collection and fill gaps from title runs in Burney. Having access, therefore, to both the 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers and the 17th and 18th Century Nichols Newspapers Collection is wonderful news for early modernists studying British history, politics, society, culture and also international relations in this period.

Using Gale Primary Sources you can search across both Burney and Nichols newspaper collections simultaneously.

Content of the Nichols Newspapers Collection

The resource, covering the period 1672 to 1737, includes approximately 300 primary titles of newspapers and periodicals and 300 pamphlets and broadsheets.

Examples of some interesting newspapers include Athenian Mercury (1691-1697), The Flying Post (1695-1733), The Post Boy (1695-1728) and many more. It also includes all four issues of The Ladies Mercury, an early example of a periodical aimed at women, and The Female Tatler, the first known periodical with a female editor.

The Female Tatler [A. Baldwin] (London, England), March 24, 1710, Issue 109. Gale.

How to use and search the Nichols Newspapers Collection

Advanced searches include limiting to type of content, year, etc. As ever when searching full-text in early modern newspaper resources, the use of language has to be carefully considered. The resource does allow you to search for variations in spelling. Reading the Help > Search section is highly recommended. Proximity searching doesn’t seem to be available, to the best my knowledge. Researchers can browse by publication title or date.

The resource comes with introductory essays and resources:

  • ‘A Copious Collection of Newspapers’: John Nichols and his Collection of Newspapers, Pamphlets and News Sheets, 1760–1865 (Julian Pooley, University of Leicester)
  • The English Press in the Long Eighteenth Century: An Introduction, Change Amidst Continuity (Professor Jeremy Black, University of Exeter)
  • London Newspapers and Domestic Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century (Professor Hannah Barker, University of Manchester)
  • Advertising Novels in the Early Eighteenth-century Newspaper: Some examples from the Bodleian’s Nichols collection. (Dr Siv Gøril Brandtzæg, University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim)
  • Dealing with the ‘Fair Sex’: Women and the Periodical Press in the Nichols Collection (Claire Boulard Jouslin, Université Paris3-Sorbonne Nouvelle)
  • The Nichols Collection, 1666–1737: Religion, Regulation and the Development of the Metropolitan Press (Daniel Reed, Oxford Brookes University)

Finally, it also includes a tool which analyses the frequency or popularly of terms in the digitised documents (Term Frequency). While the visualisation of term frequency is exciting and linking relevant documents is incredibly useful, any post-1737 results should be ignored as, of course, there are no Nichols newspapers after that year:

John Nichols (1745-1826)

John Nichols was a writer, printer, former Master of the Stationers’ Company and biographer of Hogarth (Biographical anecdotes of William Hogarth, 1781) and local history enthusiast (The history and antiquities of the county of Leicester, 4 vols., 1795-1815) . An enthusiastic collector and antiquarian, he began collecting newspapers from c 1778, when in June that year he purchased a share in the Gentleman’s Magazine, becoming sole printer from 1780.

Learn more about him and his family:

More early modern resources

New: The Waterloo Directories of English, Irish and Scottish Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900 (series 3)

Oxford researchers working on Victorian periodical literature may have noticed the recent absence of our access to Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900 (Oxford researchers only).

 

I am very pleased report that access to a more updated online version (series 3) is now available to our readers via Databases A-Z and also via SOLO shortly.

Furthermore, you will now also have online access to The Waterloo Directory of Irish Newspapers and Periodicals:1800-1900 (series 3) and The Waterloo Directory of Scottish Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900 (series 3).

Please note these doesn’t work well with Internet Explorer (IE).

All three resources are an alphabetical listing and description of 19th century newspaper and periodical publications in England, Scotland and Ireland covering all fields, including the arts, sciences, culture, professions, industry, finance, trades, labour, agriculture, entertainment, sports, church, women and children.

Between them, the directories include approximately 86,000 titles from 4,600 towns, lists 85,000 personal names and covers over 2,000 subjects.

As well as being an ongoing project to record the bibliographic record of Victorian periodical publications, tracking innumerable title changes for instance, it is indispensable for those studying the all-important context of periodical literature during an important historical period.

Each entry provides details of how and where the title is indexed, title changes, editor, proprietor/publisher/printer, key contributors, political and religious orientation, size, price, circulation, and frequency. It is therefore a useful resource to discover the editorial policy and political leanings of newspapers.

There is some overlap between the three directories, especially where a periodical was issued from multiple or different locations in the course of time.

The resource can be searched by title, issuing body, people, town, county, and subject as well as combine searches in advanced searching or doing a global searching.

It is currently not possible to search across all three Directories.

Also useful:

Remote access to British Library resources – more databases available

[updted 15 June 2022]

You may or may not know that the British Library offers remote access to a small selection of their electronic resources if you are a registered Reader Pass holder.

The list of those databases which are now available under this arrangement has grown.

They include the following which are not available in Oxford:

  • African Newspapers, Series 1 & 2, 1800-1934
  • American Broadsides and Ephemera
  • American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
  • American Indian Histories and Cultures
  • Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records & Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Parts 1 & 2
  • Book Review Digest Retrospective: 1903-1982
  • British Online Archives all collections including:
    • BBC Handbooks and Listener Research
    • Colonial and Missionary records
    • Colonial Law in Africa, 1808-1966
    • Communist Party of Great Britain
    • Industrial Revolution
    • Kenya under colonial rule, in Government reports, 1907-1964
    • records of Britain’s relationship with the Americas, Asia and Africa
    • War diaries from the Imperial War Museum: The Great War
  • British records on the Atlantic World, 1700-1900
  • Caribbean Newspapers 1718-1876
  • China, America and the Pacific
  • China: Culture and Society
  • China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980
  • Communist Historical Newspapers Collection 1919-2013
  • Communist Party of Great Britain
  • Confidential Print: Latin America
  • Creation of Israel: British Foreign Office Correspondence on Palestine and Transjordan, 1940-1948
  • Early American Newspapers, Series 1 & 2
  • Everyday Life and Women in America c 1810-1920
  • Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive 1880-2015
  • Foreign Broadcast Information Service 1941-1934
  • Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan
  • Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange
  • History Vault: African American Police League Records, 1961-1988
  • History Vault: Struggle for Women’s Rights, 1880-1990: Organizational Records
  • Meiji Japan
  • Men’s Magazine Archive
  • Le Monde, 1944-2000 (part of ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
  • The Nixon Years
  • Rand Daily Mail 1902-1985
  • Records of the Raj
  • South Asian Newspapers 1864-1922
  • Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History [covers 1835-1976]

If you don’t have a reader pass, then check if / how you can register with the BL.

If you have a reader pass, then check how to can extend it.

Email Customer-Services@bl.uk in the first instance if you have any problems accessing the resources.

Also useful:

Trial until 22 July: Rand Daily Mail (1902-1985)

Colleagues have organised a trial of the Rand Daily Mail (1902-1985), an important South African newspaper. It is available via SOLO and OxLIP+ for Oxford students and researchers.Rand Daily Mail - screenshot

The Readex digital edition of the Rand Daily Mail (1902-1985) provides researchers and students with access to a comprehensive run of this influential African news source. Published daily in Johannesburg, the Rand Daily Mail, pioneered popular journalism in South Africa and is renowned today for being the first newspaper to openly oppose apartheid and contribute to its downfall. It offers a wealth of unique perspectives not only on South Africa but also for the African continent as a whole.

Examples of stories covered include:

  • Benjamin Pogrund’s extraordinary coverage of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960;
  • Helen Zille’s uncovering of Steve Biko’’s murder at the hands of police in 1976;
  • news-breaking reporting by Mervyn Rees and Chris Day about the apartheid state’s effort to influence opinion
  • an exposé that sparked the scandal known as “Muldergate”; and many others.

Have your say

Feedback should be sent to sarah.rhodes@bodleian.ox.ac.uk. The trial ends on 22 July.

Please note, as with most trials, there is no guarantee that access can continue. In the first instance, we organise them to gauge interest and hear your views on content and functionality.

Trial until 31 May: Telegraph Historical Archive, 1855-2000

It’s time for another trial!

Telegraph - logoTogether with a colleague in the Social Science Library, we have set up a trial to The Telegraph Historical Archive, 1855-2000.

It is a fully searchable digital archive of what was once the world’’s largest selling newspaper. Researchers and students can full text search across 1 million pages of the newspaper’s’ backfile from its first issue to the end of 2000, including issues of the Sunday Telegraph from 1961.

The newspaper was directed at a wealthy, educated readership and is commonly associated with traditional Toryism, despite its more ‘liberal’ beginnings especially in regard to foreign policy. Under the editorship of poet and Orientalist Edwin Arnold (from 1873 to 1899), the paper published widely on foreign affairs and foreign cultures. This led to The Telegraph’s coverage of Henry Morton Stanley’s expedition to Africa in search of David Livingstone, which it co-sponsored with the New York Herald.

Daily Telegraph notable highlights include:

The Kaiser Wilhelm affair: On 28 October 1908, the Daily Telegraph published an infamous interview with Kaiser Wilhelm, the German chancellor who alienated the British public with such uncensored comments as ‘you English are mad, mad, mad as march hares.’

Telegraph trial - Kaiser Wilhelm snippet 28 Oct 1908

“The German Emperor and England”, Daily Telegraph, Wed. 28 Oct. 1908, Issue 16694, p.11

The cryptic crossword puzzle: the crossword was circulated to recruit Allied codebreakers during the Second World War and was published in The Telegraph on January 13, 1942.

Feedback should be sent to jo.gardner@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or isabel.holowaty@bodleian.ox.ac.uk. The trial ends on 31 May 2016.

Related links:

New: Japan Times Archives Online (1897-2014) & Chinese Newspaper Collection Archive (1832-1953)

I am pleased to report that after a successful trial last year, the following historical newspapers from the Far East are now available to historians:

 

Japan Times Archive - screenshot of articleThe Japan Times Archives Online (1897-2014) 

From its inception in 1897 (Meiji 30), The Japan Times has been Japan’s most widely read English-language daily newspaper, providing very wide coverage of world and domestic news, business and politics.

 

 

 

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chinese Newspapers Collection

Coverage: 1903 – 1953Chinese Newspapers Collection - screenshot of article

This collection of 12 English-language Chinese historical newspapers gives an insight to Chinese political and social life from 1832 to 1953. In addition to the article content, the full-image newspapers offer searchable access to advertisements, editorials, cartoons, and classified ads. The collection includes major newspapers from Peking, Shanghai and Canton as well as the important missionary publications Chinese Repository and Chinese Recorder.

… “renowned for its authoritative and influential reporting on Hong Kong, China and all of Asia. Founded in 1903 by Alfred Cunningham and Tse Tsan-tai, a key figure in the Chinese revolt against the last imperial Qing Dynasty at the turn of the 20th century, the newspaper became a platform for advocating the reform movement in China. It is highly regarded by researchers because of the unique history of Hong Kong as well as the newspaper’s editorial perspective on Imperial Japan and Communist China.”

These databases are listed on SOLO and Databases A-Z. Researchers and students of Oxford University also have remote access, using SSO as usual.

Related links

More news on historical newspapers