In Delpher you can search millions of old newspaper articles (and more). An extremely handy tool if you want to dive into history, for example for school or work. How do you work with it in a targeted manner? You can read that in this article.
on www.delpher.nl more than 130 million text pages from Dutch newspapers, books and magazines can be searched online. It’s material from the 17th to the 20th century, which makes Delpher super interesting for anyone who wants to dive into the past. Maaike Napolitano gives ten beautiful examples of this in this article. She has been coordinator of Delpher within the KB, our national library in The Hague, for seven years now.
1059.9 terabytes
In Delpher you will find 682,048 books until 1960, 2,094,960 newspapers until 1995 and 432,961 magazines until 1970. That equates to 98,605,175 book pages, 21,167,883 newspaper pages and 12,073,915 magazine pages. In total, this concerns 1059.9 terabytes of files.
The website was created in 2013, based on the idea that source documents from Dutch history should be freely accessible to everyone as much as possible. The website is still growing. “Every day, the KB digitizes an average of about 22,000 pages,” says Napolitano.
Look up the newspapers of your birthday
At the bottom of the Delpher homepage, under the heading birthday newspaper, enter a date of birth. If you then press the search button, 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.
Find an old children’s book
Who doesn’t love the children’s books from their childhood? To do so, click on the home page in the box Search all and choose Book Basic† Then click To search† Cross on the next page below Collection the box children’s books at.
Napolitano: “You can also search for a specific author, title or publisher. Think of C. Joh. Kieviet, Pietje Bell, or a famous children’s book publisher such as Kluitman. First click on Advanced search and then enter an additional search term in the appropriate box.” The direct link to the children’s books of publisher Kluitman can be found at https://kwikr.nl/kluitman†
Check out your family tree
Napolitano: “People often use the family reports from newspapers to investigate family trees. In this way you can not only discover when someone was born or died, but also, for example, discover the names of (in-law) relatives and their places of residence.” Select this under the heading in the newspaper results Message type for family message† You can also find this filter under Advanced search†
Make discoveries about acquaintances
By searching newspaper articles and advertisements for the names of people you know, you can occasionally make interesting discoveries.
Napolitano: “The rarer a name, 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 in which my grandfather participated as an amateur singer. And my grandmother had a chocolate shop. I was able to find several advertisements that she had placed.”
Discover famous relatives
You may know of some relatives that once appeared in the newspaper, for example because they were celebrating a golden wedding, and the mayor came by. In that case you can search for ‘gold*’, for example, the last name of the golden couple and the year.
Wildcards and Search Operators
When searching in Delpher, you can use so-called Boolean search operators, such as OR, NOT and PROX. You can use the latter operator to search for words or names that are within a maximum of ten words of each other.
You can also use wildcards. Right away ? (question mark) replace 1 letter, with an * (asterisk) any number of letters. If you’re looking for an exact word, use “double quotes” or [rechte haken]†
For more information, see: www.delpher.nl/nl/platform/pages/zoekhulp†
Find out who lived in a house
Delpher contains 39 telephone directories from the period between 1901 and 1950. You will find them in the collection Book Basicby checking the box . in the search results Phone Books to cross.
“It’s interesting to see who had a phone at the time. After all, these are the wealthier people, such as general practitioners and notaries. Over the years you see the number of affiliates increase,” explains Napolitano.
“You can also search for specific addresses within the phone books, which you list in the search box between double quotes. For example, you can find out which people or companies have ever lived at a certain address.”
Listen to old radio bulletins
If you want to learn more about a particular historical event, the newspapers and radio bulletins in Delpher are a goldmine.
Napolitano: “Think, for example, of the fall of the wall, or the 80-year war. We also see that resistance newspapers are read a lot. They are also very special: after all, they are stencils that people printed in small editions during the war, at the risk of their own lives.”
Historical views on current issues
Newspaper articles from the past can sometimes provide more insight into current themes, says Napolitano: “Think of the vaccination policy and the lockdown measures. For example, if you search for ‘Spanish flu’, you will come across a lot of interesting discussions, advice and information. By the way, this example shows how important spelling is when searching. Sometimes you really have to empathize with a certain period. Recently, during a workshop in Kerkrade, I wanted to look for historical news about the establishment of the Sint-Joseph hospital as an example. I couldn’t find any results until I realized that people at that time spoke of a ‘hospital’”.
Interesting links about the Spanish flu
Searching for ‘Spanish flu’ or ‘Spanish disease’ yields many interesting results, says Napolitano. Some examples:
https://kwikr.nl/griep1 A result page with many articles.
https://kwikr.nl/griep2 The beginning of the epidemic.
https://kwikr.nl/griep3 The initial slow spread of the disease.
https://kwikr.nl/griep4 Precautions to prevent spread.
https://kwikr.nl/griep5 School closures due to the Spanish Flu.
Find out when a word first popped up
If you search for a word such as home computer, you can use Delpher to find out exactly when that word first appeared in newspapers. You can even get a graph of word frequency over the years by clicking on the chart symbol† An application that, as Napolitano knows, is often used by linguists.
Get inspired
On the Delpher homepage you will find links to changing theme pages and online exhibitions. On those pages you can see what was written in the past about topics that are still relevant today. If you subscribe to the newsletter, you will immediately hear when a new inspiration page has appeared. They are usually based on current events.
More information?
The KB provides free workshops to associations about the use of Delpher. Groups can also request guided tours of the KB building, our national library in The Hague. If you want to know more about that, please fill in the contact form at www.delpher.nl/about-delpher/contact†
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