The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

vivatifosi

If it made the news zag, there were many more newspapers back then. The British Library is undertaking a huge project - The British Newspaper Archive - to digitise them all.

It has a huge archive and the mass digitisation project will take years. I get regular update emails and they are constantly adding new material.

The BNA is available through subscription, or free through many libraries. It is also a family history info add on in Find My Past premium edition (which is not called premium but is whatever the more expensive one is).

CKhalvashi

Morning guys

Just gone to the kitchen to turn the hot water on so I can have a bath, it's been snowing in this part of Inner Hertfordshire.

chris_m

Morning - hasn't snowed here (not much above sea level) but there is some lower down the nearby fells than the snowline was last night

GDB2222

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Morning guys

Just gone to the kitchen to turn the hot water on so I can have a bath, it's been snowing in this part of Inner Hertfordshire.

It’s snowing heavily here. There must be all of a cm of snow covering the garden. So that’s it, we’re snowed in until the spring.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

The British Library is undertaking a huge project - The British Newspaper Archive - to digitise them all.

It has a huge archive and the mass digitisation project will take years.

While it's great ... I use/read it to find all sorts of things every day, for about 3-4 hours/day (not an addict .... er ....) I do wish it were more like the trove.au version where people can correct the OCR scanning mistakes. Don't get me started on the search options

However, once digitised, at least the information is accessible, long-lasting and portable to any new systems in the future.

My current annoyance at the digitisation is that the newspapers in my "town of interest" currently have very little. The period of "1920-1929" just has 1920 and "1930-1939" just has 1939 - and nothing after that date. There's also little pre-1800.

I dislike the lack of continuity you get from breaks ... if I spot something interesting in, say, 1920 .... I can't follow that through the January 1921 to see what any outcome was. I've also no clue when/if more will come... all I can do is monitor/spot when/if something new has been added. Maybe somebody out there has a list that says "that's it", or "planned for 2024" ... or maybe the list says "completion of everything, the lot, from 1700-2000 tomorrow" and so that lack of having a clue is annoying.

Although I doubt the British Library even has copies of the newspapers of most interest to me ...do they have "one of everything"? or is it down to individual newspaper archives existing and allowing them to do it etc? My "town of interest" archives seem to love keeping them locked away in a basement, unindexed... with doorkeepers to the information and you'd have to physically attend and sit and go through everything yourself to ever know what was printed on those pages.

Pyxis

GDB2222 wrote: »

It’s snowing heavily here. There must be all of a cm of snow covering the garden. So that’s it, we’re snowed in until the spring.

Ooh! Poor you!
Hope you've got plenty of food and fuel in!

PasturesNew

It's just cold/wet and windy down here. The sort of weather you don't go out in unless you HAVE to as there's the risk of braking on wet leaves or the wind blowing random items at you.... and the traffic just crawls along as it's the weekend and "everybody's out shopping".

There are plenty of things I'd like to go out and get ... but I won't as the weather's grotty.

I can cobble together a spot of something vaguely resembling "a Sunday lunch" from an assortment of unlabelled freezer bags and boxes of dried stuff in the cupboard so there's no need/urgency to go out for any other/more food.

I've had half a tin of peas sitting in the fridge for 3-4 days now ... they need using up. I've the last bit of chicken I cooked 3-4 weeks ago. Bit of stuffing, instant mash, instant gravy ... and maybe a bit of frozen swede (well, I say "a bit", but once defrosted I might as well just "eat the lot" .... at least, I think it's swede, can't remember offhand).

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

It's just cold/wet and windy down here. The sort of weather you don't go out in unless you HAVE to as there's the risk of braking on wet leaves or the wind blowing random items at you.... and the traffic just crawls along as it's the weekend and "everybody's out shopping".

There are plenty of things I'd like to go out and get ... but I won't as the weather's grotty.

I can cobble together a spot of something vaguely resembling "a Sunday lunch" from an assortment of unlabelled freezer bags and boxes of dried stuff in the cupboard so there's no need/urgency to go out for any other/more food.

I've had half a tin of peas sitting in the fridge for 3-4 days now ... they need using up. I've the last bit of chicken I cooked 3-4 weeks ago. Bit of stuffing, instant mash, instant gravy ... and maybe a bit of frozen swede (well, I say "a bit", but once defrosted I might as well just "eat the lot" .... at least, I think it's swede, can't remember offhand).

3-4-week old cooked chicken? :eek:

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

It's just cold/wet and windy down here. The sort of weather you don't go out in unless you HAVE to as there's the risk of braking on wet leaves or the wind blowing random items at you...

Forecast's not looking good for you either.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42297150

Southern parts of England and Wales face heavy rain and gale force winds of up to 70mph (112km/h), the Met Office said, with icy surfaces likely to be an "additional hazard".

michaels

We have a couple of inches, enough for church, carols and karate to all be cancelled.