Newspapers and the Press

The word newspaper was first used in about 1670 (though earlier forms of newspapers, known as corantos, were published in Holland, Germany and England from about 1620).

The Baillieu Library holds a large collection of newspapers from around the world, with holdings of some titles dating back to 1622. They are available in a number of formats, print, microform and electronic. (The bulk of papers are in microfilm).

A listing of the Newspapers held in the Baillieu on microfilm is available on the Library website.

Newspapers are wonderful sources of information, and provide a window into the events and moods of the day. However its necessary to be aware of the bias (if any) of the editors and journalists. Also, often events are reported in a hurry, to meet deadlines.

In addition to general newspapers, the Music Branch Library holds a number of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music periodicals, which are also of great interest to the Music Researcher.

The development of musical romanticism coincided with the parallel development of musical journalism and the creation of a very large number of periodicals dealing entirely or in part with musical activities. Specialized music journals--alone numbering more than 2,000 in the nineteenth century--feuilletons in daily newspapers, articles in literary periodicals, in theatrical journals and in magazines de mode, as well as engravings and lithographs in the illustrated press constitute a remarkable documentary resource of monumental proportions that is of primary and unquestionable importance to the music historian. [RIPM website]