John North
University of Waterloo Canada
The Waterloo Directory of Irish Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900 is an enumerative, descriptive and analytical bibliography of all titles in all subjects and all languages: a gateway to 6,000 publications, a major corpus of historical documents. This paper will introduce the range of publications, and explain the various filters, or indexes by which titles may be identified: subject, place of publication, issuing bodies, personal names, dates, and key-word searches. Sample queries will be answered. For each title attempts have been made to provide locations in the UK and North America, as well as the details of online full- text access, and sample title page, a list of secondary research available on each title, the political or religious orientation, and remarkable events in the history of the publication, such as law suits, merges, bankruptcies, lapses in publication. The Directory features the family tree of those publications related by merges, title changes, or issuing body. The several thousand title pages provide an abbreviated graphical history of publications in every field: fashion, medicine, anti-slavery, theatre, engineering, agriculture….
The paper will demonstrate online access to the variety of material and the means of access. All who attend the conference will be given a year’s free access to the Directory. The publication of the Irish Directory is intended to be followed within a year by a similar Scottish Directory, already well in hand.