New Year, New Database

The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800 - 1900, Series 2 is now available in an online version from North Waterloo Academic Press in Canada (the print edition, available since 2003, runs 20 volumes). Those with an interest in the history of Britain and its empire during the 19th century will find this an indispensible guide to a critical body of source materials for research. According to the editors, the Directory's goal of indexing "every periodical and newspaper published on a regular basis, from daily to annually, in every language, within England" between 1800 and 1900 has now yielded some 50,000 titles. Main entries include bibliographic descriptions of individual titles, frequently accompanied by reproductions of title pages, comments on the purpose of a publication taken from sample issues, and holdings information for UK and North American institutions. The Directory also features indexes for places of publication (county and town), issuing bodies, subject, and people associated with these publications. The "genealogy" of British periodicals in this era can be traced through information about merged issuing bodies, title changes, and publications produced by the same issuing body.

The Directory provides enormous value by gathering together information about the most important sources of information for the reading public during the nineteenth century, making visible to researchers titles that might otherwise be easily overlooked.