Skip to content

Search improvements

← Help & Advice | Give us feedback | British Newspaper Archive

How can we improve the way you find and search our newspapers?

You've used all your votes and won't be able to post a new idea, but you can still search and comment on existing ideas.

There are two ways to get more votes:

  • When an admin closes an idea you've voted on, you'll get your votes back from that idea.
  • You can remove your votes from an open idea you support.
  • To see ideas you have already voted on, select the "My feedback" filter and select "My open ideas".
(thinking…)

Enter your idea and we'll search to see if someone has already suggested it.

If a similar idea already exists, you can support and comment on it.

If it doesn't exist, you can post your idea so others can support it.

Enter your idea and we'll search to see if someone has already suggested it.

  • Hot ideas
  • Top ideas
  • New ideas
  • My feedback

170 results found

  1. Newspapers that should be added next

    With over 1800 suggestions of which newspapers should be added next, searching if one has already been requested is a thankless task. I have a suggestion but don't know if someone has already suggested it.
    Adding a field linked to the title of the suggestion that could be searched would make any search a lot easier.

    1 vote
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  2. Why do the search abilities on FindMyPast not apply to the BritishNewspaperArchive if this is a collaboration?

    Apparently, in FindMyPast, you can use ? for a single wildcard character, ?? for two wildcard characters, or * for unlimited wildcard characters. Even more interesting is you can search and allow words between the search words as follows:

    “suton coldfield rail crash”~0 – terms must be right next to each other
    “suton coldfield rail crash”~1 – could be up to 1 word between terms
    “suton coldfield rail crash”~2 – could be up to 2 word between terms

    This would be SUPER helpful.

    3 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  3. The box to amend text is tiny making it difficult to locate the text you wish to amend

    You encourage everyone to amend / edit text that's incorrect but the section in which to do it is ridiculously tiny, you can't expand out. Makes it almost unworkable to amend in practice.

    1 vote
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  4. country search India

    You can search by country for England etc. but not by India, you have lots of India newspapers and it would be really useful

    1 vote
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  5. Newcastle Guardian and Silverdale, Chesterton and Audley Chronicle

    This may be easier for people to find if you put it under Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire rather than Newcastle-upon-Tyne in Northumberland. Obviously no-one at BNA realised there is more than one Newcastle in England

    3 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  6. WHEN I GO TO SAVE AN ITEM UNDER AN OLD FILE NAME ,I HAVE TO GO BACK TO MY SAVED LIST AND SEARCH FOR IT AS THESE ARE NOT IN ALPHETIC ORDER

    HAVE SAVED SEARCHES IN ALPHABETIC ORDER ALSO WHEN YOU RECOVER AN OLD FILE THE ITEM/NAME IS NOT HIGHLIGHTED YOU THEN HAVE TO SEARCH WHOLE HIGHLIGHTED AREA TO FIND IT

    1 vote
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  7. A search which allows you to search for nearby terms in the same text.

    Search for a word within a range of (however many) word(s) from the following word.
    You decide the maximum distance between each search term.

    2 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  8. Perhaps a search engine that isn't incompetent?

    Using the advanced search and with Exact search ticked for Mourne and Croft in "Search all words" and mourning in "Exclude words" brings up no results at all.

    I wish there was a decent alternative to your dismal service.

    3 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    2 comments  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  9. Moving the window "Article text, suitable for copy and paste"

    How do I move the window above out of the way of the image behind it? I want to move it onto a second screen and enlarge it, to make it easier to edit the text. It only seems to slide up and down, and can't be dragged left or right.

    1 vote
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  10. When I am correcting the OCR attempt, is there a way of changing the point at which an article starts and stops please?

    Reason for asking - I have hit instances where the top of one article has been subsumed into the bottom of an unrelated article, while the second half of the same article has been allocated to the start of a third article.

    1 vote
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  11. Listen to suggestions

    Listen to previous comments and do something about it . Blaming the print is not an option. After trying numerous variations I stumble on articles which have the my first search words clearly in the text. Why does it miss them on the first search? Now I find that it refuses to find the word it has found previously in any publication.
    The Gale Archive was far from perfect but was significantly better than this. I rue the day my local library withdrew it and subscribed to you a service I cannot access from home for free but have to…

    8 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  12. Improve the search terms so that exact search mean exact search

    I fail to understand the utter hopelessness of the Exact Search function. A small example - I search for Alfred King, and get any number of King Alfreds. Incredibly irritating and makes the site pointless. And surely easily remedied.

    19 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  13. Make the town of Largs searchable

    Cannot search Largs without returning “large”
    Useless

    1 vote
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  14. Exact search - not exact

    Great site, great info - poor search. Exact search = not exact!

    3 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  15. Download saved group as .csv

    Emulate TNA Discovery! Allow saved searches to be downloaded as .csv or similar to enable users to organise their data and gain much more from it. TNA downloads lots of fields - BNA would only need about 5 to be amazingly useful.

    7 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    2 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  16. Include all available pages in search

    In the refibe search > date panel some dates are not shown for some newspapers. However, the papers exist in the archive as they can be accessed by typing in the date and page number in the address bar. However, accessing the pages this way means it is not possible to download the pdf. Can you include all dates of available papers in the refine search section or allow downlaoding of papges acessed by typing date into address bar.

    5 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  17. numbers of articles

    It would be most helpful to have some kind of running total of the numbers of articles consulted/saved

    4 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  18. export searches

    Export newpaper, date, article title, abstract, group saved in, researcher comments into an .xls or .csv file for further analysis. I am a citizen reseasrcher not at an institution.

    11 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  19. In saved items, to be able to search on publication/date/other terms within the saved items

    In saved items, to be able to search on publication/date/other terms within the saved items

    2 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  20. I know the journal title and know that it has been digitised. So why is "search by title" not a search category? I can't get any results for

    2 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Search  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
← Previous 1 3 4 5 … 8 9
  • Don't see your idea?

Search improvements

Categories

Feedback and Knowledge Base

(thinking…)