Library moves Australian newspapers online

Sixteen national newspapers dating as far back as 1803 will all be available online by 2010 as part of an initiative by the Australian National Library.

So far the library has made 50,000 newspaper pages available via a beta site that it hopes to launch officially in two year's time as part of a free online service that will see 3.6 million pages digitised.

Cathy Pilgrim, director of the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program said that it would allows readers to access newspapers without needing to visit the library, or even leave home.

"The primary driver for the digitisation program is to allow people anywhere in the world to have access to Australian newspapers," she said.

"Access to Australian newspapers has not been great and we saw an opportunity to change this."

Once the national newspapers have been digitised, the Australian National Library will then begin looking at including regional newspapers. "This will make our project unique from others around the world," Pilgrim said.

Already, national libraries in Singapore, New Zealand and the Netherlands have undertaken similar projects, and Pilgrim believes that Australia will now be able to offer a similar service.

"The digitisation of newspapers will become a routine activity in the library and over time it will develop in volume and into a robust process," she said.