31–36 of 36 posts
It's such a shame that recent historical newspapers are closed source in this way. We could learn so much from quantitative analysis of culture if there were downloadable data or at least an API.
Well you can, go to your local library and look at microfiche. It's how we used to do it. Primary research. If you're lucky they may have OCR or a tagging system. If not, reels of microfiche
It's such a shame that recent historical newspapers are closed source in this way. We could learn so much from quantitative analysis of culture if there were downloadable data or at least an API.
You can easily find historical newspapers on archive.org. For example: https://archive.org/details/sim_los-angeles-times_the-los-an...
It's such a shame that recent historical newspapers are closed source in this way. We could learn so much from quantitative analysis of culture if there were downloadable data or at least an API.
I do fear that too much of the modern era will end up locked behind paywalls and ultimately lost once private equity has no use for it anymore.
They seem to be competing with https://www.newspapers.com/ , which has been providing access to historical newspapers for about 10 years now. I did a few searches on OldNews.com to compare with Newspapers.com, and it seems that OldNews has a smaller database, with far fewer newspapers. It didn't contain results from a sampling of local newspapers that I tried, nor from major newspapers like the NY Times, Wall Street…
They seem to be competing with https://www.newspapers.com/ , which has been providing access to historical newspapers for about 10 years now. I did a few searches on OldNews.com to compare with Newspapers.com, and it seems that OldNews has a smaller database, with far fewer newspapers. It didn't contain results from a sampling of local newspapers that I tried, nor from major newspapers like the NY Times, Wall Street…
In Australia at least, the state and national library sites offer free , searchable access to newspapers going back since the early 1800’s. Even obscure community papers are available. Is a similar thing not offered by the equivalent US institutions? What is the threshold of ‘worthiness’ for a publication to ge archived and served by Library of Congress?
It would be awesome if all these newspaper archives were freely available via Archive.org or a similar service. Seems strange to need a subscription to view old newspapers. Perhaps part of the fees pay for hosting costs and the work that goes into compiling so many sources and slapping a easily navigable UI on top of it, etc.
Finding papers and digitizing them takes a a lot of work. Is nice that sone not for profits like archive.org do that work for no cost but expecting others to do it for you for free is what seems strange to me.