Library of Scotland Offers Broadsides From 17th to the 20th Century

The Library of Scotland has a new online exhibit available, a collection of almost 1800 broadsides dating from 1650 to 1910. The exhibit, called "The Word On the Street" is available now at http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/index.html .

This is truly nifty; you may search by keyword or browse by subject, from Accidents to Weavers. I chose the "Marvels" category, which has seven entries. The entries are listed with a hyperlinked headline and a summary of the article ("This supernatural report begins: 'Wonder of Wonders, or the Speech of a child born near Edinburgh on Thursday the 15th of March 1770 as delivered ten minutes after it came into the world.'")

Clicking on the headline brings you commentary on the item (apparently talking, prophesying babies were very popular in broadsides) an image reproduction of the item, and in many cases the opportunity to both read a transcript and download a PDF facsimile of the item. A keyword search for "cooper" found twelve results laid out like the category listings.

In addition to this huge amount of content, there's also background on broadsides, information on illustrations, and information on additional resources. Great, a huge time sink.

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