Papers Past showcases selected historical New Zealand newspapers and periodicals.
Why use Papers Past?
The newspapers in Papers Past are a good source of information about the social and political events of the times. Researchers of family history and whakapapa (genealogy) will find the shipping news, births, deaths and marriages of interest. Advertising also features strongly. A range of regional newspapers are available on the site, making it a valuable source of information on life outside the main centres.
What's available on Papers Past?
Papers Past covers 70 titles from throughout New Zealand. The titles and dates of the newspapers that have been digitised are listed on the Papers Past website. All newspapers are fully searchable and can also be browsed by date, region and title.
What's new on Papers Past?
In May 2012, nearly 100,000 additional pages from the Auckland Star newspaper were made available on Papers Past, covering 1903-1926. This material provides an excellent insight into the news of New Zealand's largest urban population during the tumultuous years of the early 20th century. These Auckland Star issues were brought to Papers Past by a collaborative effort between Auckland Libraries and the National Library of New Zealand.
Coming up on Papers Past
Our collaborative digitisation program will be bringing the following title to Papers Past in 2012. There will be other titles coming to Papers Past this year as part of our normal ongoing digitisation program, but the titles below should give a feel for some of the regional colour coming to the site soon.
Read about the collaboration programme
- Akaroa Mail: ca. 8000 pages from 1921-1939
- Lyttelton Times: ca. 3,500 pages from 1862-1865
- Manawatu Daily Times: ca. 5500 pages from pre-1900 and from 1906-1908
- Manawatu Evening Standard: ca. 8000 pages from pre-1900 and from 1906-1910
- Horowhenua Chronicle: ca. 11,000 pages from 1910-1920
- Bay of Plenty Beacon: ca. 7000 pages from 1939-1945
- Hutt News: ca. 5000 pages from 1934-1945
- Northern Advocate: ca. 12,000 pages from 1921-1925 (pending permission from copyright owner)
- Waikato Times: ca. 4000 pages from 1872 and from 1887-1892
- Westport Times: ca. 2000 pages from 1875-1878
Two more titles will be offered the opportunity to have pages microfilmed over the next six months and digitised in the following financial year:
- Hutt Valley Independent
- Upper Hutt Weekly Review
Suggest a new addition
Your input helps us choose what to add to the site next. If you'd like to suggest a title for Papers Past, please contact us. Email us with the name of the newspaper and the date range you would like to see added.
Currently, we're only adding newspapers published in New Zealand before 1950, and sometimes availability or copyright issues prevent us from adding requested titles.
If you have any other information about the newspaper, please include it, as it will help us make a decision. We'll get in touch if we need any clarification.
Access items in this collection
Although the Papers Past website contains more than two million individual newspaper pages, this is only a small proportion of the Library's newspaper collections. You can access a much wider range of newspapers by visiting the Library, including current publications, in print and on microfilm.
More about the Library's newspaper collections
