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Birmingham newscuttings collection

Criterion for inclusion

The criteria employed to decide whether or not a cutting should be included in the collection are:

  1. The majority of the article should have some relevance to the current administrative area known as the City of Birmingham. There may be times when the article also provides reference to other areas in the West Midlands or investigates a topic in general. These articles are kept if they provide significant reference to Birmingham. We do not retain articles which only mention Birmingham as a place on a list. We do not retain cuttings for areas on the periphery of Birmingham.
  2. The second point for consideration is that at the time of cutting the article, can the information be found via any other reliable source location. We also attempt to make amends for justifiable oversights by considering articles for inclusion at a later date.
  3. We also consider the possible future historical value of articles when cutting. We ask ourselves if we can imagine a reader contacting the library in the future to locate such cuttings.
  4. The content of the cuttings veers away from personal accounts and focuses more on themes and topics. We unfortunately do not have scope to process ever newspaper piece which provides a very personal account of a situation. We do not collect cuttings on court hearings nor individual crimes. We recognise the personal anguish of such events but do not have the relevant staff resources to warrant a truly satisfactory response to the monitoring of these issues.
  5. Alternatively, we hold copies of the Birmingham newspapers from their date of origin. Be aware the newspapers, unlike the majority of the newscuttings, are not indexed.

The newspaper cutting collection is just one strand of many resources forming Archives and Collection’s commitment to reflecting the ever changing cultural fabric of Birmingham and must be viewed in this light to be fully appreciated.

You can access the Birmingham newspaper cuttings collection on level 4 of the Library of Birmingham during our core opening times.

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