Newspaper archives

Qualitymark

I need to access about 50 newspaper articles for some research I'm doing. Would anyone know if libraries have free access to the Irish Newspaper Archive database, and if so, what libraries?

zagmund

Yes.

Your local library. If they don't then they will be able to tell you which other branches in the area have them.

z

Qualitymark

Fantastic, thanks, Zagmund. And can I print off the articles when I've found them?

zagmund

Yep, I'm reasonably sure you can print them off. If not then you should be able to do some cutting and pasting into a webmail which you send to yourself and print at leisure.

z

L1011

Cutting/pasting or otherwise saving images of large articles from the INA is a nightmare, as they're tessellated smaller images.

Qualitymark

I'll have a look, anyway, see how it works. Thanks for all the help.

Jellybaby1

MYOB wrote: »

Cutting/pasting or otherwise saving images of large articles from the INA is a nightmare, as they're tessellated smaller images.

I don't know what 'tessellated' means, but I have managed to print off many an article. The smaller items, death notices and such have printed out very well. Larger amounts of text such as one or more columns from top to bottom of the page are tricky to do the cut and paste, I find just a few paragraphs paste at a time but I've still managed to do it successfully. There might be tricks to it but I'm happy with my results, they are thankfully quite legible. It's definitely not my favourite site though and I usually approach it with prayer and trepidation.

L1011

Printing works fine, its trying to save the images as images that's the issue.

Tessellated = in tiles. The article is broken in to multiple smaller images. A death notice might be OK, a full page article in the Nenagh Guardian about a family member that was a priest (what is it with regional papers and articles about priests? This lad had more than one) comes out as about 15 tiles.

Jellybaby1

Thanks MYOB for explaining. Yes, that's how it goes all right for the larger amounts of text. Regarding priests, I have come across so much stuff about priests - a lot of folk (even now) still believe priests are next to God so I suppose that is why there is so much account of them in local newspapers, because if you knew the man, and you can bet that most of the locals did, then you knew someone who was 'next to God', old-style 'celebrities', if you like.

zagmund

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

a lot of folk (even now) still believe priests are next to God

Erm, I think technically they are next to god, aren't they?

Anyhoo, on the subject of printing larger volumes one thing you could try is using the "print screen" button - usually up near the top right of the keyboard marked something like "PRTSCR"

This will copy the screen the the clipboard. You can then open something like mspaint or Word or some other tool and paste the screen grab there. Obviously for multipage documents you will have multiple screen grabs but you can just do a quick & dirty copy and then edit them into shape later. This will at least give you an offline version of the content.

z

Jellybaby1

zagmund wrote: »

Erm, I think technically they are next to god, aren't they? z

Well, I suppose they may think they are, but does God? Sorry, I'm off topic. Finished now.

Qualitymark

zagmund wrote: »

Anyhoo, on the subject of printing larger volumes one thing you could try is using the "print screen" button - usually up near the top right of the keyboard marked something like "PRTSCR"

This will copy the screen the the clipboard. You can then open something like mspaint or Word or some other tool and paste the screen grab there.

Not in a library, you can't.

Tried it in my local library yesterday. God, it was awful. The search wouldn't allow me to choose the paper title unless you closed down and reopened the site to start from the beginning between searches. The palaver to choose the date range was dreadfully slow. Horrific site.

shroom007

Gilbert Library Pearse st Dublin has a huge catologue of newspapers

Qualitymark

shroom007 wrote: »

Gilbert Library Pearse st Dublin has a huge catologue of newspapers

Most of them (shudder) on microfilm. Last time I was there I got a slamming migraine from a few hours on the microfilm machine and asked could I have a glass of water, and was told that (the cafe was shut), I couldn't. Never in my life been refused a glass of water in Ireland before.

shroom007

Dont they still have all the Indos and Irish Press in the original format,Its
been a while since I've been there. The microfish is a head wrecker just getting it on the machine was a nightmare sometimes

Qualitymark

shroom007 wrote: »

Dont they still have all the Indos and Irish Press in the original format,Its
been a while since I've been there. The microfish is a head wrecker just getting it on the machine was a nightmare sometimes

In some cases they do. I have about 30 records from different newspapers of the 1917-1923 period to check at the moment, for one small section of what I'm at. Ordering them at a maximum of three at a time, hoping the right newspaper turns up each time, paging through each of the newspapers, photocopying them (they don't allow photography) by buying those little cards for a couple of euro each, ordering the next three - oh, sorry, we don't have the Freeman's Journal for that period, have you tried the National Library...? Ack.

p15574

It's very slow, so I've tried to multitask, by opening up multiple browser tabs simultaneously and doing different searches in each, so when I'm going through the results of one, another is in progress. You can also click a button to email an article to yourself, which I've found is better than trying to print or cut and paste in a library.

Qualitymark

p15574 wrote: »

It's very slow, so I've tried to multitask, by opening up multiple browser tabs simultaneously and doing different searches in each, so when I'm going through the results of one, another is in progress. You can also click a button to email an article to yourself, which I've found is better than trying to print or cut and paste in a library.

Ah, to do that you have to sign up for the paid subscription, which isn't possible for me at the moment.

p15574

Qualitymark wrote: »

Ah, to do that you have to sign up for the paid subscription, which isn't possible for me at the moment.

I was doing it in a library - presumably they have the subscription.

Qualitymark

p15574 wrote: »

I was doing it in a library - presumably they have the subscription.

Oh, now you interest me! I didn't realise you could email from a library!

Incidentally, what I usually do is printscreen all the articles I need, then copy them into a Word document and print it off to take to the library. Multiple windows would be too confusing. (And what a pain in the ass the website layout is - why on earth can't they have 20 references per page, easily seen and navigated, instead of that huge top on the page and a mingy three at a time that you can see?)