THE NEWSPAPER FILES AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8192, 1 March 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE NEWSPAPER FILES AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

Since October, 1888, an important work in connection with the cataloguing and rearranging of the files of the newspapers of the United Kingdom has been going on at the British Museum. The work has now been brought down to 1837. Every volume has been carefully examined and all the important points in regard to it indicated in the catalogue. Much labour has been spent in sizing and arranging the papars year by year. By this means a, considerable amount of press room has been gained. The papers are arranged according to date. Every volume is numbered outside. Each , year has a distinct set of numbers, except ] in the case of the earlier dates, where the . number of volumes in a your is so small as to make this unnecessary. The year 1831 is represented by only forty-one volumes, each volume containing the files of from two to five newspapers, while 1840 has eighty-six volumes, 1850 has 140 volumes, 1860 has 25S volumes, and 1870 has 327 volumes, while for 1887 there are no fewer than 572 volumes ; 1847 takes up three presses occupying a space of 59 square feet, while 18S7 requires 16 presses and occupies 367 square feet. There are more than 1200 distinct papers for 1887, while for 1847 the number did nob exceed 300. The approximate weight of English, Scotch, and Irish papers i:;. he presses at the Museum is 450 tons The files for thirteen years have still to ha gone through before the work is complete. As soon as this is done a list of the new papers, with their respective numbers, will be placed in the reading-room, and it will then be as easy to obtain the file of a newspaper of a hundred years ago as it now is to procure any book in the reading-room. It may be explained that all the London newspapers since 1800 are kept quite distinct from the provincial journals. They are contained in the West Wing, where the same plan of sizing, numbering, and cataloguing has been carried out as has been adopted in connection with the provincial papers. The London daily papers, however, are arranged in set 3 on the ground floor, and are obtainable at once.