Using the British Newspaper Archive

On any computer within the Earth Heritage Trust Offices.

Once a member of staff has logged into the system.

Go to www.britishnewspaperarchives.co.uk

On your first visit you will need to register to use the website.

Click the Register button

To register you will need an email address and to choose a password. Please write this down somewhere safe (and don’t use a password you use for other things like bank accounts or email addresses) as we don’t have a record of this for you if you forget it.

You will need to select that you have read the terms and conditions, a printed copy of these is available in the office (in the British Newspaper Archive folder).

Don’t tick this box if you don’t want emails from the British Newspaper Archive. Click to say you have read the

Terms and conditions

After your first visit you will need to sign-in, using the button at the top, to get on to your saved data.

Add your email address and password and click the Log In button.

Please don’t tick the “Remember me” box as we have lots of people using this account and they all need to log-in separately.

Searching

To search the British Newspaper Archive, once you are logged in (your name will appear at the top) you can use the search box in the centre of the page.

This is a simple search and will look for all of the pages that contain any of the words you type in. Click Search box and your results will be displayed

Results

To view any particular article either click the picture or click the title

If you find an article that looks helpful then download it using the download button and you can save it to take home with you.

This will download the whole page. It is worth looking at the page to check the quality of the scan as sometimes they can be poor quality and difficult to read. It is also worth noting where on the page the article is as they can be hard to find.

As your initial search results will probably bring up a huge list of options you can refine the search using the sections on the left hand side.

Filtering by date can be helpful if you are looking for a specific event that you have a date for e.g. opening of a building.

Filtering by newspaper can be helpful if you are trying to get more details. Many papers may have a short article on a new bridge being built, but the local ones might have a whole page dedicated to a big event.

Alternatively you can use the advanced search options using the Advanced Search link.

This allows you to ensure that all of the words searched are used, or none (very helpful if a similar place or story keeps coming up that makes searching difficult). You can also limit by date, publication title or publication place.

For more tips and suggestions please see the British Newspaper Archive handout (in the British Newspaper Archive folder).

When you have finished don’t forget to Sign-out using the link at the top of the page.

Advanced search button

Filtering the results