[Ads-l] "Access: Newspaper Archive"

George Thompson george.thompson at NYU.EDU
Thu Jan 24 17:39:21 UTC 2019


Some of you folks are always eager to learn of files of digitzed
newspapers.  "Access: Newspaper Archive" is a commercial database; I don't
know how widely available it is, but I at least am blessed to have the use
of it.  But before you charge your academic library demanding that it
subscribe too, let me offer a bit of caution.

>From "Access: Newspaper Archive", searching for the word "streetcar" in NYC
newspapers:
"New York Times
<http://access.newspaperarchive.com/new-york-times/1867-04-08?tag=streetcar&rtserp=tags/streetcar?pc=20293&psi=67&pci=7&psb=dateasc>Monday,
April 8, 1867, New York, New York

for this Stale, haa lamed a BMaw'to treedmen. dapreeatfaig viol sat
aaaartlenler enppoMd rtgalB; and mrgtag tham to have MB lor w Oouria lor
Jen to the rectal *streetcar* Thia totter re- saBjeot whioh. la BOW
Mcatviag atttn i.on aad exciting of our gljoilaqulB neigbbore. H o( rich o
This seems to be typical of the readings this database offers.  Surely this
is a useless product?  Although a "rectal streetcar" is an interesting
concept.
Of the 48 "words" in this extract, I count 17 which are actual English
words, though some (totter, exciting, and of course rectal) are probably
the result of a misreading by the OCR.

GAT


-- 
George A. Thompson
The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)
http://www.parliament.uk/worksofart/artwork/james-gillray/an-excrescence---a-fungus-alias-a-toadstool-upon-a-dunghill/3851

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