Papers Past
| Available in |
|
|---|---|
| Founded | 2001 |
| Country of origin | New Zealand |
| Created by | National Library of New Zealand |
| URL | paperspast |
Papers Past is a website run by the National Library of New Zealand that provides free access to digitised newspapers, magazines, journals, letters, diaries, and parliamentary papers from the 19th and 20th centuries. It has over 9.4 million pages as of 2026.
History
Papers Past was launched in August 2001[1] with 20 publications and about 300,000 pages.[2] Users initially had to install a Java applet to view the contents, and were unable to search through the collection by text.[2][3] In 2007 a new Papers Past website was launched, which used the digital library platform Greenstone, developed by the University of Waikato. The new website used optical character recognition to scan the contents of the pages to allow users to search through them.[3] Not all titles became searchable after this update—it took until 2009 for this to happen.[4] The Papers Past website was redesigned in 2016.[5] In 2024 a correctable text feature was added, allowing users to correct errors in the automatically scanned text.[6]
In 2014 Papers Past included an estimated 3.3 million digitised pages.[7] As of 2026, Papers Past has 9,403,907 pages, including over 8.3 million newspaper pages, 560,000 pages of magazines and journals, 300,000 parliamentary paper pages, 100,000 book pages and 23,000 pages of diaries.[8]
Usage
Papers Past is run by the National Library of New Zealand and provides free access to digitised newspapers, magazines, journals, letters, diaries, and parliamentary papers from the 19th and 20th centuries.[9] In 2020 Papers Past had approximately 30 million page views. As of 2021 most users of Papers Past are genealogists, but other people who use the website include lawyers and students.[10]
Timeline of digitisation
In about 2015, over 120,000 pages, comprising 18 different Māori periodicals, were added to Papers Past.[11]
In 2015 it was announced that several newspapers from Central Otago and Queenstown would be added to Papers Past, including the Alexandra Herald, Cromwell Argus, Dunstan Times and Lake County Mail.[12]
In 2019, issues of the Forest & Bird magazine from the 1920s to 1940s were added to Papers Past.[13]
In 2021 it was agreed that editions of The Press up to 1995 would be added to Papers Past. Papers Past already had The Press articles from between 1861 and 1945.[10]
In September 2024 it was announced that issues of the New Zealand Listener magazine from 1939 to 2018 would be added to Papers Past and so would the New Zealand Woman's Weekly.[14]
In May 2025 Marlborough Express newspapers from 1929 to 1952 were added to Papers Past. Bound collections of the newspapers were delivered to Wellington by car and ferry for digitisation.[15]
References
- ^ "Launch of Papers Past". beehive.govt.nz. 22 August 2001. Retrieved 8 March 2026.
- ^ a b McGillen, Charlotte (25 September 2024). "Off the record | Past perfect". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
- ^ a b "Papers Past relaunched on Greenstone". National Library of New Zealand. 10 September 2007. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
- ^ "Papers Past — A brief history". National Library of New Zealand. 11 August 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
- ^ "Papers Past has a new website". National Library of New Zealand. 2 August 2016. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
- ^ "Text corrections new feature for Papers Past". National Library of New Zealand. 12 September 2024. Retrieved 8 March 2026.
- ^ Fenton, Andy (2014). Mind the Gap: Transforming the National Newspaper Collection: A Collection Management Approach to Preserving the National Newspaper Collection. Wellington: New Zealand Micrographic Services. p. 9.
- ^ "Papers Past collection statistics". Papers Past. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
- ^ "About Papers Past". Papers Past. National Library of New Zealand. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
- ^ a b "Major project to allow digital access to 130 years of The Press archives". Stuff. 25 May 2021. Retrieved 6 March 2026.
- ^ "Historic Maori language papers digitised". RNZ. 25 June 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2026.
- ^ "More newspapers added to a digital archive". Otago Daily Times. 7 July 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2026.
- ^ "Forest & Bird's historic magazines added to Papers Past". Forest & Bird. 3 October 2019. Retrieved 6 March 2026.
- ^ "New Zealand Listener and NZ Woman's Weekly magazines set to be digitised". RNZ. 27 September 2024. Retrieved 8 March 2026.
- ^ "Digitising Marlborough history one ferry ride at a time". Local Democracy Reporting. The Press. 28 May 2025. Retrieved 6 March 2026.