Old Hong Kong newspapers

The basics.

Click here for answers to the two most common questions, or scroll down for more information.

• How to find the newspaper for a specific date
• How to search the newspapers for a certain word or phrase​

The full story.

Yesterday's news is today's history, so these are a great resource for finding out about old Hong Kong. You can search for a mention of a specific place / person / event, or you can just browse through and see what turns up – I always like looking at the old advertisements too, eg for the tobacco that 'soothes your throat'!.

Here's a collection of the tricks I use:

• Newspaper collections in Hong Kong
• Searching online
• Searching in person
• Viewing the results
• Sharing your findings
• HK newspapers in overseas collections
• HK news in other newspapers

I look forward to hearing yours.

Newspaper collections in Hong Kong

Both the HK Public Records Office (HKPRO) and the Hong Kong Public Library (HKPL) hold copies of old newspapers.

HKPRO:

Perhaps the most valuable and certainly the most frequently used library reference source is the newspaper collection, consisting of 15 local English-language newspapers. Copies of one of Hong Kong’s first newspapers, the Friend of China, are held as well as runs of the China Mail, Hong Kong Daily Press, Hong Kong Telegraph, Hong Kong Weekly Press, Hong Kong Register, Hong Kong Observer, Hong Kong News (the newspaper published by the Japanese during the occupation), and the South China Morning Post. With the exception of a few issues for the period leading up to the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941, holdings of the latter newspaper are complete from 1903 to 1977.

The library also keeps seven Chinese-language local newspapers: the Hsun Huan Jih Pao, the Yau Sho Wai Po, the Kung Shang Jih Pao, the Wah Kiu Yat Po, the Wah Kiu Man Po, the Hwa Shiang Pao, the Hwa Shiang Pao (evening edition).

Several specialised press cuttings files are held, one example being selected items relating to public works for the period 1945 to 1974.

From the HKPRO Fact Sheet.

HKPL:

Here's a list of the English-language newspapers in their collection, and the years they have available for each of the three different formats.

You can see the full list here, which also describes their collection of old Chinese-language newspapers.

Searching Online

HKPRO:

I've never managed to get their online newspapers search to return any results at all. I may be making some simple mistake, so if you have it working, please leave a comment below.

HKPL:

Their online Multimedia Information Service (MMIS) is the tool I use most. MMIS can search in the text of old newspapers, and returns scanned images of matching pages so you can read them online. But... it has several limitations you need to be aware of:

• I've only been able to make search work from an Internet Explorer web browser, not from other browsers such as FireFox
• If you visit their website and can't see any search form, the service may be shut for one of its (many) housekeeping times. Opening hours (all Hong Kong local time) are:
   - Tuesday: 8:00a.m. - 9:00p.m.
   - Wednesday: 1:00p.m. - 2:00a.m. the next day
   - Thurs to Mon (& public holidays): 8:00a.m. - 2:00a.m. the next day
• Not all newspapers are included in the search (SCMP is the major exception). Check the table in the previous section to see which newspapers are accessible online via the MMIS.
• The search misses large sections of newspapers. For older issues it seems to only search through text in headings (I expect the text in the body of articles was too small for OCR to work reliably).

Still, it often returns useful results, and is well worth trying out. You've got several approaches to searching:

• By keyword: eg, every reference to 'kai tak'. This is where I usually start.
• By date: You have can choose to see all newspapers published in a given year, month, or day. This can be a better approach if you're searching for information about a certain event, and you know the rough date. It's slower, but you can sometimes find information that the keyword search missed.
• By keyword and date: A refinement of the first option, useful if the first search returns too many results. Eg if a search for 'kai tak' returns too many results, you may repeat the search, splitting it into several searches by decade.

The first two use the Basic Search page, while the last one uses the Advanced Search page. The HKPL has a page describing how to use them to search their newspaper collection.

Searching in person

If you want to search one of the newspapers that isn't accessible via MMIS (or if you don't like staring at a computer screen), you'll need to visit the HKPL or HKPRO in person. You can read copies of the old newspapers using their microfilm (they also call them 'microform') readers.

Viewing the results

If you took the 'search in person' option, the staff at the HKPRO or HKPL will show you how to use their microfilm readers to view the newspapers.

If you've searched online, here's a way to make reading the papers on your PC a lot easier:

The trick is to use a viewer that lets you see each page in the browser, instead of having to download each one as a file first. The viewer I'm using is called Alternatiff. It is available as a free download. (I found it via this page, which lists some alternatives if you don't like Alternatiff).

Sharing your findings

If you find something good in the newspapers, please let us know about it. I recommend your reference includes:

• The name of the newspaper
• The date it was published
• The page the article appeared on

That's enough to let anyone else quickly find the original article.

HK newspapers in overseas collections

I've only heard of this one collection so far, from Reader C:

Microfilms of some newspapers of the 1930s and 1940s are available at the University of Toronto library--more specifically, the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library.

Please leave a comment if you know of any others.

HK news in other newspapers

If you're researching a topic that was considered international news, it can also be worth searching in the international newspapers.

Some are in specific, single-newspaper collections. Eg the fall of Hong Kong in 1941 is covered in issues of The Winnipeg Tribune from that period.

Then there's also the Google News Archive, introducted to us by reader 80skid:

Google has added a very cool function - allowing you to search scanned newspapers over the past century or so. the best feature is the timeline, showing the frequency of stories about the search terms, plus you can narrow it down to free archives. The number of newspapers seems limited at the moment - but check this for example - the Sydney Morning Herald on the fall of Hong Kong:

http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers?id=e2AQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_JQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7261,6902738&dq=hong+kong+war+japan&hl=en

What can you add to the list? Are there other collections we should know about, or tricks you've found for better searching & viewing?

Regards, David