Slashdot Mirror
19th Century News Coming Online
mfh writes "The BBC is reporting that approximately a million news stories from the 19th century are going online. The project will cost roughly $3.6 mil USD (converted from UK pounds) and include 100 years of news and images from publications that are no longer copyright protected, and currently only available at the Newspaper Library in Colindale, North London. 52000 newspapers and magazines will be included and the project should take 18 months to complete. This is good news for Slashdotters, as this online archival project will provide a plethora of background material for articles and comments, and possibly pave the way for better online library projects with more current material."
It's a curious subject, why are people so inclined to cling to the past? I guess this isn't exactly as case of that, this information can be useful for later reference, but it seems there are a lot more efforts to bring back the past than to think and look toward the future. What's done has been done, and it doesn't matter a whole lot anymore.
Finally! We'll be able to scan through these ancient texts to find the original source of the hilarious "Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of these" comments, used in every single thread on Slashdot! How I laugh as I read it for the 14 millionth time!
Actually should be interesting material there: Jack the Ripper, John Christie, Mary Ann Cotton etc... Yep, 1800-1900 was a good century for the UK's mass murderers.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Before everyone gets carried away with the dupe jokes (as I am the submitter), I think it's important to note the cultural and scientific differences since these articles were originally written. To have a central online repository of this much data will help students to learn. Many students today rely on Google, but google is lacking complete works. Now Google will be able to index another million articles, and that means our knowledge and understanding of that era will increase as time passes. All other benefits are still important, but the student factor is, I think, the greatest part of this.
Now that a complete online library is going online, perhaps other libraries will follow suit, and keep information free?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
As someone who has collected the five reprints of the Daily Mail from D-Day, I can say you will see far more than just the historical facts. There is a style of cartoon drawing (Illingworth) that would probably have you suspended from high school if you were to draw anything similar Not forgetting the aerial photographs of the D-Day landings. And there are those wacky adverts (what on earth was "Grandpa Kruschen" advertising?).
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I have a bound tome of the local newspaper from the year 1905. Certainly, what a difference in culture 99 year ago!
A top political problem in Europe up to that date was women wearing long pantalons in public and irresponsible aviatics flying their fragile machines above the populated cities.(sic!) All socialist parties, which are currently at the peak of power in majority of european countries were totally outlawed, and some their members executed, because of throwing home made bombs on politicians. "War to terror" was that called.
Only things which seems to be almost identical to our time are media advertisings and patent issues.
There you are, staring at me again.
I appreciate the Wikipedia compliment, since I am one of the regular contributors. This archive would definitely fill holes in the 19th-century coverage, where other sources are relatively scarce.
Wikipedia is getting better each day, but there are still gaps in many articles I wish we could fill.
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
This is great. Imagine having tons of written history available on the net. It would give those Google guys a challenge.
Maybe there should be a Gutenberg Project for old newspapers and such. Lots of metadata for easy searching.
One of the things that drives me crazy about all the stupid copyright extensions is the amount of recent history that could be digitized. Just imagine the interesting things to be learned from minor accounts from World War II and other events. Right now it's just rotting away on paper and film.
Support the Public Domain Enhancement Act!
For me, there is something very enjoyable about news and information from the past. One of my favorite books is a reprint of a 1903 Sears and Roebuck's catalog (yes, the kind the used in the outhouse). There are devices in there that I never imagined that do not have a place in our modern world. Page after page of guns are freely sold, "nerve tonics" and the like are touted as the wonder drugs of the age. Old newspapers often have ads like this in there, which for me give a reflection of the times, just as much as the stories do. Growing up, we had a copy of a newspaper lamenting the death of Abrahah Lincoln. I am not sure if this was a reprint or not - it sure was brittle enough, and I had to look at it with one of my parents with me, so I suspect it was real. Those of you who have never been exposed to information from the past as noted above might be surprised at the pleasure you can derive from peeking into a past age.
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
(shameless plug)
In a similar initiative, the company I work with has republished my country's first newspaper, from the first issue in 1812.
What I find most interesting when reading old newspaper articles is how much the news hasn't changed. It seems that society continually struggles with the same old arguments, the same old social problems, the same old quick-fix schemes that don't work, the same diversions, the same old same old. I remember thinking to myself that news changes so little (with only the faces and names changing) that after witnessing about a decade of news you have no real need for anymore.
It could also be deliberate deception. Noam Chomsky calls this the doctrine of change of course.
The content of the doctrine is: "Yes, in the past we did some wrong things because of innocence or inadvertence. But now that's all over, so let's not waste any more time on this boring, stale stuff."
The doctrine is dishonest and cowardly, but it does have advantages: It protects us from the danger of understanding what is happening before our eyes. --Noam Chomsky
The quote about "the past is over" is interestingly typical of Dubyaspeak. It sounds like nonsense, but if you look at it closely, it's actually the most pernicious form of deception. It would be very convenient for his puppet masters if we were to all forget about all that old boring stuff from history, wouldn't it?
My site: Free Nature Pictures
OK, let me give you an example. It's been beaten to death, but it will suffice. The US govt claims that it is not practicing imperialism in the occupation of Iraq. However, a good look at the history of the US clearly shows that the US govt has frequently practiced imperialism before (this comes through despite the massive distortion applied by the mainstream US political discourse to make it seem otherwise), and that at the time they often claimed that they weren't. This observation should lead, at the very least, to a healthy skepticism about their current claims.
My site: Free Nature Pictures