Tag: newspapers
60-day trial access to RetroNews
Beginning today, the UC Berkeley academic community will have access to a 60-day trial of RetroNews. While much of this historical French language news collection is freely available through Gallica, the advanced functionality and added content is only available to subscribers. An initiative of BnF-Partenariats, which is a subsidiary of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), RetroNews aims to increase the digitization of its paper press collections which are increasingly at risk of serious damage over time. To explore all of its features, it is necessary to create an account (s’inscrire) after authenticating with your CalNet ID.
RetroNews, a unique digital resource for research and education
RetroNews, which is the French national library’s platform dedicated to historical printed press, offers a vast online archive of French and francophone periodicals. The collection features over 600 newspapers, journals, magazines and reviews, published between 1631 and 1950: the most important titles of the daily press (Le Petit Parisien, Le Journal, Le Matin) but also periodicals of the political spectrum, regional publications and satirical magazines.
Every month, RetroNews enriches its archive with new exclusive titles in order to gather a large plurality of sources covering all of France, including its former territories, from the first newspapers up until the 20th century. In addition RetroNews offers introductory notes on its periodicals, daily editorial content and advanced research capabilities.
Leading-edge tools designed for academic research
All titles have been processed by optical character recognition (OCR) and semantic analysis, allowing highly targeted search queries. Search by date, typology, periodicity, word frequency or apply complex content filtering (topics, events, persons, organizations, locations) and watch your results pop up in the blink of an eye. The streamlined document viewer offers multiple features speeding up the research workflow, like highlighting of named entities, download, page annotation and more. The advanced features and tools are summarized in detail here.
An editorial offer by a team of journalists and scholars
Every day, articles, documentary series, video and audio content retrace historic events and their reception by the contemporary press. Embracing the methodology of public history, RetroNews offers not only a panoramic overview of the history of the press but also various starting points (by topics, by periods) that allow a large audience to discover the rich cultural heritage brought forth through the mediatization of historic periodicals.
Some reviews and further information:
- Qui sommes-nous? Basic questions about RetroNews
- The Press Collection of the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France)
- RetroNews: History Witnessed Through the Press Collections of the BnF
Please create a free account, experiment with the resource and send your feedback and comments before June 15, 2020 to Claude Potts [cpotts AT berkeley DOT edu].
See also:
Primary Sources: New additions to ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Our access to ProQuest Historical Newspapers now includes these titles:
Pittsburgh Courier, 1911-2002
Atlanta Daily World, 1931-2003
Norfolk Journal and Guide, 1916-2003
These are cross-searchable with the other historic Black newspapers we have acquired from ProQuest:
The Baltimore Afro-American, 1893-1988
Chicago Defender, 1909-1975
Los Angeles Sentinel, 1934-2005
New York Amsterdam News, 1922-1993
Our link to ProQuest Historical Newspapers provides access to 17 newspaper databases. To limit your search to specific titles, click on Databases in the menu bar, then uncheck the titles you don’t want to include in your search.
You can also use the basic or advanced search to search all the newspaper databases, and then limit your search to specific titles using the Publication title facet that appears to the left of the results.
If you have questions about how to use this resource, contact Jennifer Dorner at dorner@berkeley.edu.
Primary Sources: Gudok Digital Archive (1917-2017)
The Library has acquired the Russian daily newspaper, Gudok, which has been in continuous publication since 1917 and is one of the country’s oldest and leading trade newspapers. Since its inception, it has covered a wide range of topics dealing with the railway industry. It has also provided critical commentary on Soviet and post-Soviet Russian culture, politics, and social life. Its primary purpose has been informing the general Soviet and subsequently Russian reader with the more substantial goings on in the country in combination with a mix of biting social commentary and satire, one of the newspapers most popular features.
Primary Sources: Rafu Shimpo Digital Archive
The Library has acquired the digital archive of Rafu Shimpo, the longest running Japanese American newspaper in the United States. The paper began in 1903 supporting the small but growing Japanese community in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles, California. By the 1940s it was the most widely circulated paper in the region and included a weekly English section for second generation Japanese Americans. The paper was forced to cease publication and its publisher was imprisoned by the government during World War II, but was revived in 1946. The resource contains all obtainable issues from 1914 through 2018.
Trial: Atlanta Daily World and Norfolk Journal and Guide
The Library has trial access to the historical African American newspapers, Atlanta Daily World and Norfolk Journal and Guide until July 29.
The Library’s trial of Pittsburgh Courier has been extended until July 20.
Primary sources: World Newspaper Archive: African Newspapers, Series 2, 1835-1925
As a charter participant in the World Newspaper Archive program conducted by the Center for Research Libraries, we have access to the newly released module African Newspapers, Series 2, 1835-1925. This resource contains 340,000 pages of content from African newspapers published between 1835 and 1925, offering unique coverage of nearly a century of African history. The collection features nearly 40 titles from Algeria, Angola, Liberia, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. Titles were selected from CRL and member collections to complement and extend the range of material available in African Newspapers, Series 1. Included are such notable publications as:
• Africa’s Luminary (Monrovia, Liberia)
• Cape Daily Telegraph (Port Elizabeth, South Africa)
• Cape Times (Cape Town, South Africa)
• O Moçambique (Mozambique)
• Munno (Kampala, Uganda)
• Nigerian Times (Lagos, Nigeria)
Trial access: Pittsburgh Courier
Until June 30, 2018, the Library has access to the newspaper Pittsburgh Courier in its various iterations: The Pittsburgh Courier (1911-1950), Courier (1950-1954), Pittsburgh Courier (1955-1966), and the New Pittsburgh Courier (1996-2002).
This important African-American press title was founded in 1910 by Robert Lee Vann. At first the paper focused on local interests, but later addressed the social concerns that arose due to the influx of African Americans to Pittsburgh during the Great Migration. Vann used the paper as a platform to encourage prominent African Americans to serve their community; to promote education; and to counter the “negative coverage in the mainstream press by emphasizing African American achievement.”
Source:
Muhammad, Baiyina W. “Black Press: Newspapers in Major Cities.” In Encyclopedia of African American Business, edited by Jessie Carney Smith, Millicent Lownes-Jackson, and Linda T. Wynn, 1:79–88. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006.
Primary Sources: Manchurian Daily News Online
The Library has recently acquired the digital archive of the Manchurian Daily News and associated publications Manchuria Magazine, Manchuria Month, Contemporary Manchuria, and the Manchurian Information Bulletin. As described on the Brill website, this resource “offers scholars of Japan’s modern history an unparalleled inside view of Japan’s agenda in Manchuria and its plans for domination in Asia. Founded in 1908 in the wake of Japan’s victory in the war against Russia, the Manchuria Daily News set up in Dalian (Darien) at the headquarters of the South Manchuria Railway Company (Minami Manshū Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha) (SMR).
“Lavishly funded from Tokyo, and with the full resources of the SMR Research Department behind them, the Manchuria Daily News and the associated titles offered here constitute a formidable record of Japanese policy on Manchuria and the Manchoukuo project. From 1908-1940 this compact, feisty daily and its associated titles responded to the exigencies of the day, taking requests from a variety of official and often competing propaganda bureaux. In the Manchuria Daily News and in these associated publications, the SMR presented a powerful case for the Japanese leadership of Asia, after 1932 using Manchoukuo as a showcase for Japan’s technological, cultural and political advancement.”
Primary Sources: Moscow News Digital Archive
The Library has recently acquired access to Moscow News (pub. 1930-2014), which, as described on the database platform, “was the oldest English-language newspaper in Russia and, arguably, the newspaper with the longest democratic history. From a mouthpiece of the Communist party to an influential advocate for social and political change, the pages of Moscow News reflect the shifting ideological, political, social and economic currents that have swept through the Soviet Union and Russia in the last century.
“The Moscow News Digital Archive contains all obtainable published issues (1930-2014, approx. 60,000 pages), including issues of the newspaper’s short-lived sister publication Moscow Daily News (1932-1938).
“The Moscow News Digital Archive offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for this title, and features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other East View digital resources.”
Trial: Newspapers and Associated Press collections
Until October 20, 2017, the Library has trial access to the following resources:
Associated Press Collections including,
Associated Press: European Bureaus Collection
Associated Press: Middle Eastern Bureaus Collection
Associated Press: News Features & Internal Communications
Associated Press: US City Bureaus Collection
Associated Press: Washington Bureau II Collection
Associated Press: Washington/D.C. Bureau Collection
Daily Mail Historical Archive
International Herald Tribune
The Telegraph Historical Archive, 1855-2000
Your feedback on the usefulness of these is greatly appreciated.