600,000 Pages Of Wales In Print To Go Online

One of the biggest projects ever to digitise and place Welsh printed collections on the web will be unveiled on Friday 26 January.

Modern Welsh Journals Online will make available free of charge an unprecedented number and wealth of periodicals and magazines published in or about Wales from 1900 to the present day. The £959,000 project is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), the Welsh Assembly Government, The National Library of Wales and the Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum (WHELF). It forms part of the current Digitisation Programme of the UK higher education body, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The JISC programme represents a total investment of nearly £22m in the digitisation of high-quality online content in a wide range of media, including sound, film, images, journals, newspapers, maps, theses, pamphlets and cartoons.

Discussions are underway with the owners of a selection of 90 titles (in both Welsh and English - 32 in Welsh, 56 in English, 2 bilingual) - which include both academic and popular periodicals: research journals on all subjects, current affairs magazines, transactions of county historical societies, denominational publications and literary journals. It is estimated that this amounts to 600,000 pages and some 3.5 million words. Modern Welsh Journals Online will also be the largest body of Welsh language text available so far on the web. It will take 2 years for staff in the National Library to digitise and publish online the whole collection.

At no cost, users will be able to browse, search, read and in some cases download articles from the publications. The web addresses, welshjournals.llgc.org.uk and cylchgronaucymru.llgc.org.uk, will lead to the same bilingual site.

The 90 titles include articles as varied as the last interview with the philosopher, literary critic and novelist Raymond Williams in 'Planet' magazine, and a famous article by the poet and pacifist, Waldo Williams, 'Pam nad ydwyf yn talu treth yr incwm' (Why I'm not paying the income tax) as a part of his protest against Britain's involvement in the Korean War. The titles begin with such publications as 'Young Wales', the magazine of the Cymru Fydd (Young Wales) movement for Welsh self-government at the beginning of the 20th century, which David Lloyd George was so involved with in his early political career. The collection will also include very recent editions of contemporary publications on an ongoing basis.

Andrew Green, Librarian of The National Library of Wales, believes the 2 year project will open the door to a wealth of knowledge, which has been hidden for too long:

Modern Welsh Journals Online is a significant step in digitising the whole of Wales in print. It forms part of the National Library's ambitious strategy to create a digital 'Theatre of Memory', which will include not just periodicals but also books, newspapers and other publications. It will be a vital and free resource for academics, learners and anyone interested in Wales. It will open the door to more than a century of Welsh achievement in culture, science and the social sciences. The inclusion of a considerable corpus of material in the Welsh language will also support the achievement of the Welsh Assembly Government's plan for a substantial increase in the number of higher education students studying through the medium of Welsh.'

Alun Pugh, Minister for Culture, Welsh Language & Sport:

"The Welsh Assembly Government is investing in bringing some of the best Welsh writing online and to a world-wide audience. Welsh Modern Journals Online will give academics and enthusiasts a fuller understanding of the interesting, and at time turbulent 20th century, from a Welsh viewpoint. This project is proof of the cooperation which exists across Welsh institutions as well as throughout the UK."

Stuart Dempster, manager of the £22m JISC digitisation programme, said:

'The National Library of Wales has for long been in the forefront of digitising and making widely available national scholarly resources of immense importance to education communities and beyond. JISC is delighted to be funding the development of a resource which continues that tradition and one which will add an important dimension to its wider digitisation programme.'

Mike Hopkins on behalf of WHELF welcomed the announcement.

'This ambitious project will demonstrate the breath-taking capacity of new technologies to provide free and easy access to a wealth of previously elusive, unavailable or simply forgotten literature on countless subjects which will be of enormous value not only to those who frequent the academic libraries that make up the membership of the Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum (WHELF) but also to anyone who has an interest in Welsh culture, history and heritage'.

The National Library of Wales joins 15 new projects and 6 established digitisation projects being funded by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee).

For more information & images:

Siôn Jobbins, NLW Press Office: 01970 632902 sij@llgc.org.uk

www.jisc.ac.uk/digitisation
welshjournals.llgc.org.uk
cylchgronaucymru.llgc.org.uk

Images available:

Alun Pugh AM Minister for Culture, Welsh Language & Sport sees digitisation process at work at The National Library of Wales


Last interview with the philosopher and novelist Raymond Williams shortly before his death, published in Planet 65, 1985















Biographical article by Arthur Mee about John Jones, the 19th-century Welsh astronomer, published in Young Wales, 1898















The first issue of the Journal of the Welsh Folk Song Society / Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Alawon Gwerin Cymru, 1909















Editorial 'Yn erbyn Fandaliaeth' [Against vandalism] in Cymru, vol 65, on tourism and development and its effect on Welsh culture, 1923




















BBC Cymrur'r Byd