The Burney Collection of 17th and 18th Century Newspapers - free online
13 January 2009
The largest single online collection of English news media from the 17th and 18th centuries - the Burney Collection - is now available free of charge for the first time to Higher and Further Education institutions and Research Councils across the UK.
The Burney Collection offers unique insights into two centuries of history through access to over 1,270 newsbooks, newspapers, pamphlets and a variety of other news materials published in England, Ireland and Scotland, plus papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia.
Digitised through a partnership between the National Science Foundation and the British Library, and then developed and hosted online by Gale/Cengage Learning, the digital version of the Burney Collection has been purchased in perpetuity by JISC Collections on behalf of the UK academic and research community at a national level following an open and transparent procurement process.
Until now, access to the Burney Collection has been restricted - both in print and online. The corpus of printed materials - originally collected by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) and greatly augmented since its acquisition - has been housed at the British Library but, due to its value and fragility, it has not been available for general use. In addition, the cost of acquiring online access to the Collection has been beyond the means of the majority of institutions.
As a result of this important new agreement, an unlimited number of students and researchers at academic institutions across the UK can now access these essential materials simultaneously - from wherever they are 24x7. This will have very significant benefits for research and education and, available free of charge to all institutions, equality of access is also assured.
The complete Collection (including illustrations) is fully cross searchable, and granular metadata plus an extensive range of search and browse options opens up unrivalled and exciting research possibilities.
Among the highlights of this unparalleled collection are:
- Day by day coverage of the financial scandal of the 1720s, the South Sea bubble, with reports in the Weekly Journal or Saturday's Post of how Parliament decided that if they leave the country the directors of the South Sea company 'shall suffer death as a felon without benefit of clergy and forfeit to the King all his Lands, Goods and Chattels whatsoever'
- The first advertisement for The Memoirs of Fanny Hill in the Whitehall Evening Post, 6 March 1750, the day it was published and also, in the issue of 17 March, a report of how the publisher was taken into custody and all copies were seized.
- News of the election of George Washington as president of the United States in the St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post on 21 April 1789.
- Insight into English attitudes to contemporary events, such as when the English Chronicle or Universal Evening Post used the unusual device of a headline - FRENCH REVOLUTION!! - for a whole page article on 18 of July 1789, which reported sympathetically on the fall of the Bastille four days earlier, including how the officers were decapitated in 'a sad but necessary spectacle ... a solemnity worthy of the highest admiration.'
To access the collection, librarians should visit: www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/burney
The Burney Collection complements a range of other archive resources which have already been purchased as part of the UK National Academic Archive - for example Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers, Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals Online , and Periodical Archive Online: JISC Collections Selection.
Dr Kristian Jensen, the British Library's Head of British Collections, said: "The Burney Collection is one of the jewels of the British Library's collection and we are delighted that the digitised version will now be accessible to scholars across the UK. Researchers in subjects ranging from the French Revolution to social conditions in 18th century England will benefit from digital access to this treasure trove of material, just as they have with our 19th Century British Newspapers."
Lorraine Estelle, Chief Executive Officer at JISC Collections, says, "The Burney Collection of Newspapers is one of the British Library's most heavily-used microfilm collections, so we are confident that this agreement for online access will be widely welcomed by scholars."
Diane Thomas, Sales Director at Gale/Cengage Learning, comments, "Invaluable to anyone studying English history, the Burney Collection has in the past been accessible to relatively few people. Our partnership with JISC Collections now ensures that every UK university and college student and researcher has unrestricted access to this cornerstone resource, whether they are on campus, at home, or even on the move."
Notes for Editors:
For further information, please contact
Rossella Proscia, Cengage Learning EMEA, tel: 020 7067 2657, email: rossella.proscia@cengage.com
Rebecca O'Brien, JISC Press Office, tel: 0117 331 0657, email: r.obrien@jisc.ac.uk
Ben Sanderson, British Library Press Office, tel: 01937 546126, email: ben.sanderson@bl.uk
About the Burney Collection (http://www.gale.cengage.com/DigitalCollections/pdf/BritLibNewspapersltr.pdf)
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers contains the newsbooks, newspapers, pamphlets and other news materials gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) together with the extensive additions since the collection was acquired - amounting to more than 1,270 titles. In almost 1 million pages, the collection covers 200 years of accounts from newspapers from England , Ireland , Scotland and from British colonies and represents
About JISC Collections ( www.jisc-collections.ac.uk )
JISC Collections was established by the UK Higher and Further Education funding councils to negotiate at a national level with publishers and owners of digital content on behalf of the academic and research community. This national negotiating role provides the community with efficiency gains in excess of £38 million per annum.
About the JISC Collections UK National Academic Archive (www.jisc-collections.ac.uk)
The JISC Collections UK National Academic Archive includes an expanding range of specially selected archive resources which have been purchased in perpetuity on behalf of UK Higher and Further Education institutions, and Research Councils. This important programme is part of JISC Collections' ongoing commitment to widening access to essential materials across the subject spectrum, and delivers over £7 million in annual efficiency gains.
About Gale (http://gale.cengage.co.uk/)
Gale - part of Cengage Learning - is the largest and most respected publisher in the world of reference databases and digital primary source collections for the library and academic market. Gale's Digital Collections, which include Eighteenth Century Collections Online, The Times Digital Archive and The Making of the Modern World, have set the standards for large-scale, fully text-searchable archival databases. They now include almost 75 million pages of digitized primary source material in over 10 languages, dating from 1450 to 2003, - newspapers, journals, books, documents and handwritten manuscripts. Gale's products are sold and supported through Cengage Learning offices worldwide.
About Cengage Learning (www.cengage.co.uk)
Cengage Learning delivers highly customised learning solutions for colleges, universities, reference centres, government agencies, corporations and professionals around the world. Cengage Learning solutions are delivered through specialised content, applications and services that foster academic excellence and professional development, as well as provide measurable learning outcomes to its customers. Cengage Learning's mission is to shape the future of global learning by delivering consistently better learning solutions for learners, instructors and institutions.
About the British Library (www.bl.uk)
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. Further information is available on the Library's website at www.bl.uk.