Read, browse, and search through digitized newspapers at hetarchief.be.

Want to browse through the past or are you looking for specific source material? Since August 26, you can find an unprecedented collection of historical Flemish press at hetarchief.be. More than 180,000 editions of some 900 different newspaper titles, including a large part of our newspaper collection, have been made available.

The Boekentoren newspaper collection: fragile heritage now accessible online

With around 5,000 different titles, the Boekentoren has an impressive and historically valuable newspaper collection. This heritage, dating back as far as 1667, is an indispensable source for anyone who wants to study history up close. The newspapers were often printed on inferior paper, which means that some of them are at risk of disintegrating due to acidification.

In order to preserve these sources for the future and make them accessible to a wide audience, the Boekentoren has been participating in digitization projects for many years. As part of this, newspapers from
the First World War and the Gazette van Gent, the oldest Belgian newspaper published until 1940, have been digitized. These newspapers, amongst others, are now available via the digital platform hetarchief.be, an initiative of meemoo. Here you will find them alongside 180,000 historical newspaper pages from other Flemish providers.

“Newspapers are unbeatable as historical sources!” says Hendrik Defoort, collection manager at the Boekentoren. "Until the First World War and the breakthrough of radio, newspapers were the main channel for gaining insight into what was going on in society. In a compartmentalized society, they also gave voice to all possible opinions and views from all walks of life—from the ‘catholic pillar’ to the ‘socialist block’. And that is unique, because Belgium's press history is exceptionally rich: while we already had a socialist daily newspaper in Ghent in 1884, a cosmopolitan city like Paris was unable to finance a socialist daily newspaper before 1900. It is precisely this wealth of voices that makes the preservation and accessibility of our newspaper heritage particularly important."

Hendrik Defoort, collection manager of the Boekentoren

Searcheable thanks to text recognition

Thanks to the use of smart text recognition (OCR), the newspapers are also fully searchable, which makes it much easier to search for specific people, events, or topics.

This access offers the opportunity to follow social developments, culture, and politics changes through the decades, and provides an indispensable source for research, education, and journalism. With the availability of the digitized newspapers on hetarchief.be, this unique history is now widely shared and preserved for the future.

Getting to work on newspapers at hetarchief.be

A large proportion of the newspapers can be searched easily and free of charge by anyone. If you come across a more recent newspaper that you cannot view immediately because it is still under copyright, you can still request it from the provider. Hetarchief.be is therefore the starting point for anyone looking for newspapers. Currently, 20 different organisations share newspaper material on hetarchief.be.

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