Find old newspaper articles (and more) with Delpher

More than 130 million pages of text from Dutch newspapers, books and magazines are searchable online at www.delpher.nl. Material from the 17th to the 20th centuries makes Delpher very interesting for anyone who wants to delve into the past. Maaike Napolitano gives ten good examples of this in this article. For seven years he has been the coordinator of Delpher at KB, our national library in The Hague.

At the bottom of the Delpher homepage, below the header birthday newspaper, enter a date of birth. If you press the search button later, you will see the newspapers of that day. If you click on them, you can read them from front to back. You can also download.

Who doesn’t love children’s books since childhood? Click the home page in the box search all and Select Basic Book† then click Call† Cross over on the next page below To collect box children’s books also.

Napolitano: “You can also search for a specific author, title or publisher. Think of C. John. A famous children’s book publisher like Kieviet, Pietje Bell or Kluitman. first click Advanced Search and then enter an additional search term in the appropriate box.” A direct link to publisher Kluitman’s children’s books can be found at https://kwikr.nl/kluitman.

Napolitano: “People often use family reports in newspapers to research family trees. This way you can discover not only when someone was born or died, but also, for example, the names and place of residence of their (father-in-law) relatives.” Select this under the title in the newspaper results Message type for family message† You can also find this filter below. Advanced Search†

You can occasionally make interesting discoveries by searching newspaper articles and advertisements for the names of people you know.

Napolitano: “The rarer a name is, the easier it is to find the right results. My maiden name is Rietrae. As a result, I quickly found a newspaper article about a musical performance that my grandfather attended as an amateur singer. And my grandmother owned a chocolate shop. I was able to find a few ads he placed.”

You may know some relatives who were once in the newspaper, for example, the mayor came because they were celebrating a golden wedding. In this case, you can search for ‘gold*’ such as the last name and year of the golden couple.

Delpher contains 39 telephone directories from the period 1901 to 1950. You will find these in the collection. Basic Bookby ticking the box in the search results. Telephone directory To pass, to surpass.

“It’s interesting to see whose phone it was at the time. After all, these are wealthier people, such as general practitioners and notaries. You see the number of affiliates growing over the years,” explains Napolitano.

“You can also search for specific addresses in phone books that you list in double quotes in the search box. For example, you can find out which people or companies live at a particular address.”

If you want to learn more about a particular historical event, the newspapers and radio bulletins at Delpher are a goldmine.

Napolitano: “Think, for example, of the fall of the wall or the 80 years of war. We see that resistance newspapers are also widely read. They are also very special: after all, they are stencils that people risk their own lives to print in small print during the war.”

Napolitano says past newspaper articles can sometimes provide more insight into current themes: “Think about vaccination policy and quarantine measures. For example, if you search for ‘Spanish flu’ you will come across lots of interesting discussions, advice and information. By the way, this example shows how important typing is when searching. Sometimes you really need to empathize with a certain period. I recently wanted to look at the historical news about the establishment of the Sint-Joseph hospital as an example at a workshop in Kerkrade. “I couldn’t find any results until I realized that back then people were talking about a ‘hospital’,” he said.

If you search for a word like home computer, you can use Delpher to find out exactly when that word appeared in the newspapers. You can even get a word frequency graph over the years by clicking on it. graphic symbol† An app often used by linguists, as Napolitano knows.

On the Delpher homepage, you’ll find links to changing theme pages and online exhibits. On these pages you can see past writings on topics that are still relevant today. If you subscribe to the newsletter, you will immediately be notified when a new inspiration page appears. They are often based on current events.