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Now this is fabulous: the British Library’s enormous archive of 19th-century newspapers. (Story in the Guardian here.) The terms are somewhat confusing, and only paid subscribers will be able to download stuff — but still. Amazing. It might not make Nicholson Baker happy, but it makes me happy. I have to get Wheaton’s library to subscribe ASAP.
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Oh, thank you, thank you, for pointing to this treasure trove. It's a bit selective in the newspapers included -- no Times frex. But lots of variety, including provincial papers.
The pay-as-you-go option isn't an outlandish price. L10 for a week's access and a couple hundred articles. So even those who can't access via a Library Subscription aren't out of luck.
Now, if they could only put the Burney Collection (17-18thC newspapers) online for access outside the computers in the London Reading Rooms. Dream, dream...
nadezhda, don't you suspect that the Times opted out of this because they want to control (and sell) their own archive? That would be my guess, anyway.
I bet you've hit it on why the Times is missing.
I was casually using the Times as an example of London papers -- they've got some important ones but not as many of the Napoleonic era ones (most of which didn't survive so don't have an archive to milk) as I would have hoped. But they do have the Examiner! Yeah!