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."
... approximately a million news stories from the 19th century are going online ... This is good news for Slashdotters ...
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This story is a dupe: http://yeoldeslashdott/article.asm?yere=1842&mone
I just hope we don't start getting dupes from 1859 around here...
Does it have a million news stories from the 19th century?
No, well thats at least one benefit.
lexis-nexis seems to cost money too.
You were just going for a early post werent you, regardless of actually having anything worth saying.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
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.
I hope these stories aren't like the small town papers I used to read growing up in the Appalacian Valley. "Mr. and Mrs. Smith had dinner at old widow Jackson's house Sunday after church meeting. Her leg is healing fine. They sat around and watched Andy Griffith reruns and ate collard greens n' such." ..some of these small towns seem to be stuck in the 19th century. So, I would expect the mentality of the writers and editors of the 19th century to be similar.
For non-UK ./'ers, Page 3 is a page in one of our more popular tabloids, The Sun, that publishes a large picture of a semi-naked lady every day. In fact, Page 3 is the only reason anyone ever buys The Sun.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
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
Millions and Millions of Articles put online that Slashdotters Won't Read!
This is old news.
Inventor Eli Whitney Applys For "One-Click" Cotton Gin Patent
Pianists Seek Curbs on Player Piano Technology
"Roll Sharing" Circles Seen as Threat to Recital Revenues
Unsolicited Telegraph Messages on the Rise
So-called "Lard" Telegrams Now Comprise 60% of Traffic, Operators Say
Utah Granted Statehood
Gov. McBride Lays Claim to Concept of Statehood, Says Other States Owe $6.99 Each
(I think The Onion does this better than me.)
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
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!
This reminds me of a website that Nothwestern has opened that has most of the case files from Chicago homicides from 1870 to 1930.
Take a look.
It's incredible. How did anyone ever survive the city during that time period? If you feel like doing a little sleuthing and completing some unsolved cases, check it out. There's solved cases there as well.
It's a good complement to Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen.
The other amazing this is that almost nothing has changed in over 100 years...
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
Sorry to burst your bubble but they do. I have no idea how they do it, and tbh the sheer processing power or raw manpaper of scanning scares me.
They say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but I think those who learn from history are doomed to repeat it anyway.
"I think we can all agree, the past is over." --Dubya
Seriously, though, the past is interesting because it continues to have effects on the present and the future. Also, because we can learn from patterns that have occurred in the past and from past misakes, so stydy of the past helps us to understand what's going on right now. I think a lot of people who want us to forget the past have very specific things in mind from the past that they'd like us to forget.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
There is a style of cartoon drawing (Illingworth) that would probably have you suspended from high school if you were to draw anything similar
Leslie Illingworth's original cartoon collection is in the National Library of Wales. The entire collection has been digitized and will be launched shortly on the Library's digital mirror.
I've been working on a project similar to this for several years now. http://www.digitalnewspapers.org We have nearly 200,000 pages online and searchable.