Newspapers on Microfilm
- Free - Just ask a member of the library team to book an appointment
- Reading Room
Part of: Free activities and events, Chester Heritage Festival 2022
We have over 274 years’ worth of Cheshire newspapers on microfilm. Our collection starts at 1733 and ends at 2009. You are welcome to use our microfilm reader for free. Just ask a member of the library team to book an appointment.
Microfilm is a method of preserving and storing large amounts of printed material in the space of a small reel. It is ideal for newspapers as they’re bulky to store and the newsprint paper they’re printed on deteriorates rapidly.
Each page of the newspaper is copied and minimised down to a tiny image, and these are then printed consecutively on a reel of film. The images can later be expanded and displayed using specialised equipment, which allows users to scroll the film from page to page.
As the majority of newspapers only have online content starting in the 1990s, microfilm can be a useful source of information that you may not be able to access otherwise. For example, we’ve used our microfilm collection to do research on our building from when it opened as an ODEON cinema in 1936 to its closure in 2007 and the beginning of plans for Storyhouse.