KEEPING NEWSPAPERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 239, 8 October 1932, Page 8

KEEPING NEWSPAPERS.

A new newspaper department of "the British Museum has been opened at Colindale, and under its roof are collected all the newspapers published since 1800—London, provincial and foreign. These fill 275,000 bound volumes, weighing 20,000 tons and occupying fourteen aniles of shelves. At the opening Professor Gilbert Murray stressed the importance of newspaper files for the student of history. He said that if we had only a week's supply for the fifth century B.C. -we should have a flood of light thrown upon those days. If we •had only one Athenian newspaper for the week ending April 4, 431 8.C., wo should know more of the truth of the causes of the Peloponnesian War than we can gather even from Thucydides, for we should see reflected the actual spirit of the time, and we should know what the citizens of Athens and Sparta really thought about the rival claims of Empire and autonomy. The newspapers of a century and a half ago throw much interesting light on the manners and customs of •that age, and show how little the public appreciated the real 'significance of much that was happening abroad. JThe revolt of the American colonies, for instance, was looked upon at first as quite a small matter which would be easily suppressed by a few British frigates. The "Hampshire Chronicle" gave only a couple of lines to the death of Oliver Goldsmith, and I devoted half a column to reciting the many virtues of a duchess who had died at the same time, thus showing the respective estimates accorded to rank and literary genius. It is very important that records of our own country should be preserved, and it is to be regretted that many have already perished. Still, there must be many in private hands which should 'be placed in safe keeping and made available for reference. As, the old pioneers pass away there is a danger that many valuable records in their possession may become scattered or lost. Not every executor recognises the value of what is too often described as "a lot of musty old papers." We know that many valuable documents and papers that could have thrown valuable light on obscure sides of our early history are no longer available. All the more reason, therefore, for the careful search for and preservation of such as remain. We shall not need the fourteen miles of shelving such as .Colindale can boast; something (much more modest would meet our needs, but we do want some safe repository for records. One cannot but feel that as the years pass and the number of newspapers increases the housing problem at Colindale will become rather terrifying, but the thought of anyone setting out to make a card index of their contents is something too awful for the imagination to contemplate. —W.M.