Why Aren't Old Houston Newspapers Available Online

[tmariar]

Been meaning to post on this for a while: Have I missed a site that gives searchable access to the full archives of the Houston Chronicle and/or Houston Post? Assuming there isn't one, does anyone know why?

I've been amazed how much information about Houston history that is not otherwise available online can be found in the archives of the Galveston newspaper (1842-present). I use newspaperarchive.com to full-text search what I think is a fairly complete set of those archives - it charges a fee, has a not-so-great interface, and the OCR is hit and miss, but at least it's something, and its been really helpful in my research. It makes me sad to think how much information I (and others) could be finding in the archives of the Houston Post (1880-1995) and the Houston Chronicle (1901-present) - the Chronicle's online archives only go back to 1985 and only cover the Chronicle (not the Post).

Yes, there are Houston newspaper archives available at the library on microfilm. And I love seeing people post information that they found in the microfilm on the rare occasion it happens because I know the effort that went into getting it. But microfilm access is not the same as searchable online access. [i'd argue that microfilm is nowhere near as useful a tool, and that this issue is important because casual local-history hobbyists doing most of their research online play a crucial role in increasing interest in local-history topics and making information on those topics easily accessible to others on sites like HAIF. I'd even go as far as saying that the difficulty in accessing local newspaper archives is a small part of the reason that Houston as a city doesn't have as great an appreciation for its history as most other cities, resulting in the current preservation-unfriendly climate. But those are just my opinions, and my goal here is to get information.]

I'm trying to find out more about why complete and searchable local newspaper archives are not available online - something I know very little about. I haven't seen anything explaining why the pre-1985 Chronicle archives have not been made available online. [The Chronicle has said that it does not have any Houston Post archives available on its site any longer (they used to also be available back to 1985) because of the difficulties in complying with the requirements of the Tasini v. NYT decision. The Houston Press did a short piece on the topic here.]

I don't want to criticize the Houston Chronicle for not making these archives available online (either on their own site or on a third-party site like the Galveson paper) if such criticism would be unfair... but I can't come up with a good explanation. The Galveston archives are available and searchable as mentioned. The full New York Times archives seem to be available and searchable online. The full Washington Post archives seem to be available and searchable online. And I think some of the older archives of the Houston papers must be public domain by now, so that even a Tasini argument wouldn't apply.

[EDIT: Changed subtitle to be more descriptive]

[sevfiv]

My first reaction is money - they're just not willing to put up the cost to digitize/transcribe. I can't find any significance to the 1985 date, either. Plus, the 1985+ archives aren't digital images at all, just text files...

Microfilm has been the only access to pre-1985 papers in Houston - there are indices available for the Post and Chronicle which help, but I have only been able to find them back to the 70s (so they don't help that much).

The Washington Post has free access back to 1976 and the New York Times offers free access to articles in the public domain (1851-1922) and both the New York Times and the Washington Post offer articles for $3.95 (with quantity discounts).

I would definitely criticize the paper for not being more proactive about it (unless they are without telling anyone).

[Vertigo58]

Especially the old local ones like Public News. I save many hard copies circa 1981-86, but often wondered if the creators were ever able to place online for future viewings?

Any old Public News folks out there?

This site claims it returned but I have not seen anywhere?

[tmariar]

Yeah, sev - I hate to be cynical, but my guess is that the Chronicle doesn't want to lose the income they would get from selling access to their archives, and so won't give the OCR rights to do so to a third party, but hasn't made its own database available yet because of the expense (i.e., it hasn't been a budgetary priority).

I hope it intends to do so, and I very much hope that it is already in the process of working to give us full access - even for a fee (hopefully they would offer a blanket access rate). If that's the case, though, I do think they are still open to criticism for at least the delay and for failing to provide us with any information about what's going on and what their plans are.

And I worry that there may be more to it - the little information we do have is that the recent Post archives are "permanently" unavailable. Why can't the Chronicle handle the recent Post archives as they did the recent Chronicle archives? The Houston Press article suggests that it's because it would be more expensive to do so, as the Post was not as good in their record-keeping as the Chronicle. But if the recent Post archives are permanently unavailable, what of the older Post archives? Is the Chronicle saying the Post archives will never be online because it doesn't want to incur the expense of making them available? If the Chronicle is not planning to provide online access to the full Post archives, it seems like it should allow a third-party site to do so, and not to delay that process once the decision is made not to do it themselves. [From the little I know about Tasini, it does not cover digitized copies of complete newspaper issues (see the Press piece) - judging from newspaperarchive.com, apparently that holds even if the digitized copies are text-searchable. And, as mentioned above, there should be no issue about public domain articles.] Maybe I'm missing something there but, without more information, I don't know what to think. What could explain newspaper archives becoming "permanently" unavailable online? It's kind of a scary thought to me.

I'll try and find out more from the Chronicle - just wanted to try to inform myself a bit more before doing so.

[editor]

Been meaning to post on this for a while: Have I missed a site that gives searchable access to the full archives of the Houston Chronicle and/or Houston Post? Assuming there isn't one, does anyone know why?

Very few newspapers have their archives online, and those that do generally only go back to the mid-1980's. That was when most newsrooms moved to their second computer systems. It was called BASYS and was the first system that could store and recall (archive) old articles. Before that everything was paper files and microfilm. Even in newsrooms that had computers in the 1978-1984 range, those systems weren't really able to store the written newspaper articles. They had enough memory and processing to do one or two newspapers and that's it. Once the paper was on a dead tree, that was the archive.

There are a few exceptions to this -- the big one is, of course, the New York Times. The Times has its archive available online back to about 1860. That's because the Times spent a metric buttload of money scanning it in and running OCR against the text. The results are pretty good, but not perfect. The Times chargs for access to the old articles as a way of paying for the expense of digitizing them (though subscribers get 100 articles per month for free).

The New York Times is not the Houston Chronicle. The Times is a paper of record for the nation and will be used for hundreds of years by historians, researchers, educators, and more. That means more money and an easier justification for going through the process.

Today probably 5,000 people a day try to pull a 1970's article from the Times. 50 years from now it will probably be closer to 50, but still earning money.

50 years from now I doubt if you'll get more than 3 or 4 people a month who want a 1970's article from the Houston Chronicle. It's not a reflection of the quality of the paper, just its stature in the history of our nation.

Many newspapers used BASYS systems deep into the 90's. Most newsrooms probably still have a couple of machines kicking around for access to the archived articles. It was only a couple of years ago that migration tools became available to move this information onto regular DOS and Windows boxes. Today it's usually only the old timers who understand how to access this information. The new kids coming in expect everything to be right at their fingertips because they have no sense of the progress that's been made in the last ten years. "Journalism" programs in college teach them how to blog and use social networks, but they can't conjugate a verb or diagram a sentence.

Remember that a lot of newsrooms didn't go to computers until the mid-1990's. I worked in a place from 1991-1994 that was all paper the whole time I was there. I was dating a girl at the local newspaper and she showed me their BASYS system once. It was an absolute beast. In 1994 I moved to a new job which only had one computer, and that was to pull in the AP, UPI, and local wire services. This was the primary function of computers in small and mid-sized newsrooms for a long time because one computer could replace five or ten teletype machines. Since this was before the internet, every time you wanted to add a wire service you had to buy a port card to hook your computer up directly to either the local wire loop or a satellite dish. Since I was the capitol reporter (with my own office in the basement below the governor's office) I was considered "important" so I was given an TRS-80 Model 100 and an acoustic coupler to help do my job. I never found out what I was supposed to do with the coupler since we didn't have any computers back in the newsroom that I could dial into.

By the time I left in 1995 it still only had the one computer. One condition of me taking a job at my new place that year was that the station had to buy a computer for me to use. They did it (because I was the boss) but the rest of the newsroom had to share a single computer. People forget that computers cost a lot of money until the late 90's. When I took that job in 1995 I had the option of either getting three new computers for the newsroom or hiring a full-time reporter. I went with the reporter.

[tmariar]

Thanks for the BASYS info - that sounds like a likely explanation for the 1985 cut-off for the current Chronicle archive.

I won't argue that the Chronicle is the New York Times. But you make it sound like the Times is a unique and very special case in making its full archive available and searchable online. This service is also offered (for example) by the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Denver Post, Dallas Morning News, Boston Globe, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Not to mention the Galveston Daily News, as discussed above. It doesn't seem to be all that rare to me.

And I do think that there are many people who want access to the Chronicle and Post's archives - especially the archives from the 1800's and early 1900's. Just among the people who post in this Historic Houston subforum of this internet forum there are probably 50 people who would pay for online searchable access.

On your point: "50 years from now I doubt if you'll get more than 3 or 4 people a month who want a 1970's article from the Houston Chronicle. It's not a reflection of the quality of the paper, just its stature in the history of our nation." I think you may be thinking only of people researching general topics, and not of the considerable amount of scholarly and informal research done on regional history topics - not to mention genealogy. A paper's quality or relative "stature in the history of our nation" doesn't really come into it when the only newspaper of record you're interested in is the local newspaper.

Anyhow... I do still appreciate your thoughts and the BASYS info. I'm taking your overall point as being that it would be too expensive for the Chronicle to do what the NYT did. But if a Tasini-culled database of individual articles is too expensive, what about digitized images of entire issues? And if that's too expensive, why not give a third party the right to digitize images of archival issues?

[NenaE]

I agree, I have often wondered why the old Houston newspaper archives are unavailable. Checked the site for yrs. for availability, still none. I handled microfilm at my job, for quite a long time, so digging up archived film data is much less cumbersome for me than most people. You are right, it does take a lot of work. But the library employees are usually very helpful. I have in the past researched at the Pasadena main library for info., it's smaller scale, so less hassle, parking downtown is costly. But currently it is going through expansion construction. Might still be closed, temporarily. Will have to check out the Galveston link, gracious.

[editor]

Thanks for the BASYS info - that sounds like a likely explanation for the 1985 cut-off for the current Chronicle archive.

I won't argue that the Chronicle is the New York Times. But you make it sound like the Times is a unique and very special case in making its full archive available and searchable online. This service is also offered (for example) by the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Denver Post, Dallas Morning News, Boston Globe, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Not to mention the Galveston Daily News, as discussed above. It doesn't seem to be all that rare to me.

I'm not surprised to see the Tribune in there, as it holds itself in unwarrantedly high esteem. Ditto for the Globe. But The Galveston Daily News surprises me. Good for them, especially considering that Galveston was far more important than Houston in the early days.

And I do think that there are many people who want access to the Chronicle and Post's archives - especially the archives from the 1800's and early 1900's. Just among the people who post in this Historic Houston subforum of this internet forum there are probably 50 people who would pay for online searchable access.

You're right -- there is an unquenched thirst for information about Houston's history. It's hard to believe that Historic Houston wasn't an original section of HAIF, but was only added years later. It's now our most popular section.

On your point: "50 years from now I doubt if you'll get more than 3 or 4 people a month who want a 1970's article from the Houston Chronicle. It's not a reflection of the quality of the paper, just its stature in the history of our nation." I think you may be thinking only of people researching general topics, and not of the considerable amount of scholarly and informal research done on regional history topics - not to mention genealogy. A paper's quality or relative "stature in the history of our nation" doesn't really come into it when the only newspaper of record you're interested in is the local newspaper.

I think that's where it's all going -- genealogy. I think that's going to be the big push for newspapers to get their archives online (where available). The explosive growth of services like Ancestry.com has shown this, and the internet is turning what once was a hobby into an industry. I think the newspapers could be missing the financial boat in this case alone.

Anyhow... I do still appreciate your thoughts and the BASYS info. I'm taking your overall point as being that it would be too expensive for the Chronicle to do what the NYT did. But if a Tasini-culled database of individual articles is too expensive, what about digitized images of entire issues? And if that's too expensive, why not give a third party the right to digitize images of archival issues?

I think the third-party route may be what happens. And if I had to guess who it would be, I'd say Google. It can pull and digitize microfilm a lot easier than books, and it's already done that with thousands of books. If Google were to do just the out-of-copyright issues of newspapers, it would be a huge benefit to society and possibly its bottom line.

OK, I've switched sides -- I don't see why the Chronicle doesn't follow the lead of other newspapers large and small. All I can figure is that it has different priorities for limited funds or simply doesn't think it's important enough to let a third party like Google or a local historical society take on the challenge.

If the Chronicle ever gets around to doing the Post's electronic archive, I'd love to see that. I bet most of those old articles are stored on 9-track tapes or in bubble memory or other unstable formats that can no longer be read. A couple of years ago there was a big rush among Commodore 64 enthusiasts to get all the programs they could on the internet because the floppy disks were deteriorating. I bet the Chron would face an even bigger challenge.

It would be interesting to see how deep the public archives go at the Chronicle's sister papers. That might give us a hint at whether the Chronicle will ever open up or not.

[tmariar]

Unless watching the entirety of season 5 of The Wire practically in one sitting over the weekend counts as insight into the newspaper business, I have virtually none. And so appreciate the input of a veteran!

When I started looking at newspaper sites, it became clear that there are "major" (working definition being top-20 circulation) newspapers other than the Chronicle that don't offer historical archives on their websites. So the Chronicle is not alone in that respect. However, I didn't check to see whether historical archives for those papers were available on third-party sites, as they are for the Galveston paper.

It appears that the technology is out there to make historical archives available in conformance with Tasini (either Tasini-culled or as digitized full issues). And that many papers make historical archives available. That some papers choose to do so on their own website, and that others choose to sell the rights to do it to a third party - the latter option, I assume, would cost the paper nothing and might even bring in some immediate revenue instead. So while there is still likely a lot about this issue I don't understand, it seems to me that the Chronicle could be making historical archives available online (without any investment in a Chron website database if it doesn't want to incur that expense) but chooses not to do so. Granted, the historical Post and Chron archives are Chron property, and the public does have access of a sort at the library... but I can't help feeling that not giving the public any kind of online access is not the right thing to do. And that, if they are planning to offer access on their own website, it would be good to know their estimated timeline. If it's just that they don't think there's a demand for it, that would be good to know, too.

The only other Hearst paper I think I checked was San Francisco, and I didn't see an historic archives database.

Re the wonderful Historic Houston HAIF subforum: my recollection is that it was once the "Haunted Houston" forum or something like that - hence the reference still made in the index description to "places that go bump in the night." Pretty big transformation over the years. Well done!

[gonzo1976]

If I could make the whole thing freely available online (photos included) I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Many of you may know this already but there are 19th century Houston newspapers available online (for a fee).

[sevfiv]

I didn't want to start a new topic, but has anyone else had a problem recently with the Chronicle archives?

This is all I get when I click on a result:

[tmariar]

I have had more trouble recently than usual getting results from Chronicle Archive searches - but it's usually a "0 results for:" message. I just did a test search from this page, using the search term "Berryhill" and an 85-08 date range, and got the "0 results for" message - but not the screen you posted.

[sevfiv]

I got 384 results for "Berryhill," but in previous searches where zero results came through, I noticed that parentheses were added around the word - after removing them and searching again (from that result screen) the results actually showed.

Funny, I didn't get that blank-ish page this time when clicking on a result - it's intermittent.

[tmariar]

I got 384 results for "Berryhill," but in previous searches where zero results came through, I noticed that parentheses were added around the word - after removing them and searching again (from that result screen) the results actually showed.

Good to know - I know I've gotten different results when I've run searches repeated times, and that I sometimes play with the search term on the results screen like you did, but never noted exactly what seems to make a difference.

I figured the Chronicle just has a lot on its mind its lately.

[mkultra25]

Google is undertaking an effort to digitize old newspapers and make them available online. More details here, and the Google News Archive search page here.

[CampLogan1917]

I think this is an excellent topic worthy of discussion. My fear is that the Internet is moving towards being almost totally commercial in nature. More of the things that were free are no longer free. Photographs that use to be available have had the switches turned of so you can't download for your own purposes. I'm afraid the internet is moving toward taxation, regulation worst of all a political item to be kicked around at the whims of the politicos.

That said there are some sites that are doing a good job of making their files available to everyone with the ability to download the photos as long as credit is given to them. As a public service most of the daily newspapers have donated their archives to Wayne State University, an urban university, in the heart of Detroit. So many of the photographs in this collection are invaluable as a pictorial history of the city and the region. But, it's not just the newspapers because many private collections have been donated, also. Here's a link to this very fine collection and it is very pedestrian friendly:

http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/image/imag...=vmc;page=index

CampLogan1917

[sevfiv]

^That's why I hope things like Creative Commons are embraced more as information is being more readily available electronically.

[NenaE]

Do you guys know about this book being on-line...the b/w pics are great, scattered throughout the book, a little hard to find, though.

Link: http://texashistory.unt.edu/permalink/meta-pth-5865:5 a good Houston history source, but remember when reading, it was 1942. There is a picture of the Sears dept. store on S. Main in there, somewhere.

Thank you, University of North Texas Libraries.

[sevfiv]

Do you guys know about this book being on-line...the b/w pics are great, scattered throughout the book, a little hard to find, though.

Link: http://texashistory.unt.edu/permalink/meta-pth-5865:5 a good Houston history source, but remember when reading, it was 1942. There is a picture of the Sears dept. store on S. Main in there, somewhere.

Thank you, University of North Texas Libraries.

Nice - I'll have to bookmark that!

[tmariar]

Yeah, that's a good one. I know Editor was talking on another thread about asking everyone to help contribute to a HAIF list of Houston-related books... I think a list of Houston-related links would also be good. (Especially if it were subdivided into categories such as Houston history.)

I like lists.

[NenaE]

FYI - the Sears picture is found on sequence 79, (in between book pages 52 & 53). There are some great photos in this book. I would like to add a hard copy of this one to my personal collection.

[FilioScotia]

Been meaning to post on this for a while: Have I missed a site that gives searchable access to the full archives of the Houston Chronicle and/or Houston Post? Assuming there isn't one, does anyone know why?

The Chronicle's online archives go back to 1985. When the Chronicle bought the Post in the mid 90s, it did more than just shut it down and order the employees to be out of the building by noon.

Chronicle executives carried out a mass murder of the the Post and its entire history.

Except for the archives at the Houston Public Library, the Post is gone forever, and there are no plans for online archives.

Now you know why I have such a low opinion of the Chronicle's owners and managers.

[sevfiv]

What a bad decision by the Chronicle. I guess we're stuck with indices and microfilm

[Firebird65]

What a bad decision by the Chronicle. I guess we're stuck with indices and microfilm

Actually, in defense of the Chronicle, they do a bang up job with their archives. They are one of the few Texas papers whose archives A) go back more than five years and are free to use. Almost every other Texas newspaper I go to that has archives only go back to maybe 2004 and for those few that do go back further, you have to pay for the article.

Don't complain. It could be far worse.

[sevfiv]

Referring to the Chronicle's apparent decision to do away with the Houston Post archives (except for what's at the library), I think it's deserving of a complaint...

[tmariar]

Firebird - I'm glad for the recent-years archive of Chronicle stories online. It's the historical archives of the Chronicle and the Post that are not available online - 115 years of the Post, and 80+ years of the Chronicle.

And I am not out to criticize the Chronicle, unless asking questions counts as criticism - I'm just trying to find out what's going on, as discussed in my original post. I emailed "About:Chron" blog author (the blogger is now Jim Newkirk - he may have been the blogger at the time I emailed also, but I'd have to look back to make sure), who I think is the right person to email, and included a reference and link to this thread, but didn't get a response. I think this is the only recent post he's made about the archives. Maybe one email isn't enough?

I think enough of the Chronicle to believe that FilioScotia must have been being metaphorical in post 23 and didn't mean to suggest that all that remains of the Post archives is microfilm at the local library. I can't imagine anyone involved in the newspaper business being party to the actual destruction of a newspaper's historical archives (going back to 1880!), even if it was a rival newspaper.

If I were to find out that the Post archives exist only on microfilm at the library, you'd bet I'd have some choice words for the Chronicle.

FilioScotia - If you have any more information, I'd love to hear it!

I've looked for even general-interest articles explaining the different considerations that go into newspapers' decisions about what to do with their historical archives, and/or why Tasini doesn't seem to have affected the availability of a large number of newspapers through services like newspaperarchive.com, and haven't been able to find much. Bottom line, I'm trying not to criticize the Chronicle without knowing more, but am having a hard time educating myself on this topic...

[NenaE]

I've looked for even general-interest articles explaining the different considerations that go into newspapers' decisions about what to do with their historical archives, and/or why Tasini doesn't seem to have affected the availability of a large number of newspapers through services like newspaperarchive.com, and haven't been able to find much. Bottom line, I'm trying not to criticize the Chronicle without knowing more, but am having a hard time educating myself on this topic...

After trying newspaperarchive.com for a trial period, I ended up just frustrated at the lack of Houston information. Researching with downtown library microfilms/ microfish is extremely time consuming, costly (parking) & at times the quality of the info. is compromised by scratches to the film. Seems like on-line archives would just be a better idea, if mainly for preservation, or back-up storage reasons. If fees are charged, wouldn't that be one motivation for the Chronicle to pursue it? Besides being a business that thrives on relaying information to the masses on a daily basis? I'm personally disappointed in them.

[FilioScotia]

I can't imagine anyone involved in the newspaper business being party to the actual destruction of a newspaper's historical archives (going back to 1880!), even if it was a rival newspaper. FilioScotia - If you have any more information, I'd love to hear it!

My apologies. Back up there in my original posting I intended to include the HPost's own morgue archives, which were extensive.

As far as I know they still exist, but I don't know if the public has access to them. That's a question to ask somebody in charge at the Chronicle's morgue.

My feelings about the Chronicle have more to with the trashy way they treated the Post employees the day they shut it down. They were treated like criminals. Ordered to clean out their desks and escorted out of the building by armed security. I get angry just thinking about it, and I tend to shoot my mouth off a bit too much when I get angry.

[tmariar]

Just found 10 years (1893-1903) of the Houston Daily Post online at the Library of Congress site.

[gonzo1976]

My apologies. Back up there in my original posting I intended to include the HPost's own morgue archives, which were extensive.

As far as I know they still exist, but I don't know if the public has access to them. That's a question to ask somebody in charge at the Chronicle's morgue.

The public doesn't have access to the Post or Chronicle archives. There just isn't enough staff to accommodate outside researchers.

And, yep, the Chronicle has the Post morgue, including clip files and photos. The HPL only has the negatives.