British Newspaper Archives

[Dizzy600]

Hi,

I want to download images from the British Newspaper Archives and I did read somewhere that the images weren't that good. Has anyone experience of downloading the images and there quality?

Thanks
Karen

[Mutley]

I have downloaded many, some are very good and others not so.
It depends on the newspaper, the date, the original quality of the piece, the scanned image quality and possibly other reasons.

Overall, I have been happy with those I have considering that they were originally produced over 100 years ago.

[Colin Moretti]

Sometimes the downloaded pdf files have a much poorer resolution than the images you see on the screen, so much so that they can be illegible. In such cases the method I adopt is to take a clip of the image on the screen, either using the Windows snipping tool or Alt/PrtScr, then printing or saving the image (don't forget to make a note of the paper and date). Fine for shorter items but not so good for longer articles when you might have to split them into a number of images.

Colin

[Dizzy600]

Hi Mutley & Colin,

Thank you both for your replies and the tips for downloading better images. I have a lot to download so I'm trying to be prepared!

Regards
Karen

[Blueshark]

I have downloaded many, some are very good and others not so.
It depends on the newspaper, the date, the original quality of the piece, the scanned image quality and possibly other reasons.

Overall, I have been happy with those I have considering that they were originally produced over 100 years ago.

Hi Mutley.

Thanks for that. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

[Chris Doran]

As others have said, they're something of a curate's egg: good in parts. Regardless of the quality issue, for small articles, I find it's quicker to save from the screen than download PDFs.

Before you spend any money, check the free online newspapers such as New York Times amd the Australian and New Zealand achives, as many articles were reprinted workdwide. You'll also find many British regional newspapers duplicating one another – Reuter's has, after all, been going since 1849!