Today is the launch day for the British Newspaper Archive – www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk – and there’s lots of exciting stuff going on to celebrate this special event!
Live Digitising of Historical Newspapers on the BBC1 Breakfast Show
From 6.30am this morning, the BBC1 Breakfast Show will be broadcasting from the British Newspaper Library at Colindale. So if you tune in to this programme you’ll be able to see the scanning team hard at work, making digital copies of historical newspapers for the website.
‘Old-Fashioned News Vendors Gather to Wow Commuters at Kings Cross Station! Read All About It! Flash Mob Extra!’
Or if you’re passing close to Kings Cross Station in London today, then you might like to pop in and visit the old newspaper stand that we’ve set up. As well as reading some of the old newspapers on the stand, you can meet the old-fashioned news vendors as they shout their (alas, almost-forgotten) cries of ‘Extra! Extra!’ and ‘Read all about it!’ The retro newspaper vendors will be performing in the morning, at lunchtime and during the afternoon rush hour.
Join in the Launch on Facebook and Twitter
But don’t worry if can’t watch us on the telly or visit us at Kings Cross, as we’re also publishing loads of interesting content on the web today. We’re adding videos to our Youtube channel (including a film of the stand at Kings Cross – we’ll be publishing that after 7am), posting content on our Facebook page and tweeting about the launch on our Twitter page.
Infographic
We also have a very jazzy infographic for the launch. This graphic offers a quick guide to the newspaper archive project in a very entertaining manner. So it’d be great if you could join in the fun today, and let us know your thoughts on the launch and the new website. Please tweet us at @BNArchive, using the #oldnews hashtag.
Visit the Website and Discover Millions of Amazing Stories
The British Newspaper Archive is free to search, so why not visit the website and discover some of the wonderful stories that this digital Sheherazade is waiting to tell the world…
