Just in case some of the list members have not seen news during 2007 re- the above. During 2007 the National Library of Australia in collaboration with each Australian State and Territory library commenced a large-scale Aust Newspaper Digitalisation Project. The project will greatly increase access to Australian historical newspapers beginning with the earliest, the Sydney Gazette 1803, and the library has started in 2007 to digitise one major newspaper from each State/Territory to 1954 [the year when copyright came into play]. By the end of 2012 some 3.5 million newspaper pages will be freely available on-line via a text-searchable database.... just fantastic. By the end of this year [2008] they hope to have the following newspapers available :- Sydney Gazette Maitland Mercury [NSW] Argus [Melb] Hobart Gazette Courier Mail [Brisbane] Advertiser [Adelaide] West Australian Northern Territory Times. >From 2009 the library will digitise other newspapers from the first half of the 20th Century. Although they recently received a million dollar grant from the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation to support the digitisation of the Sydney Morning Herald from 1831 to 1954, which is fabulous, they still need more funding to complete the Project. This is just fantastic news for the Australian genealogy and history circle. You will be able to access birth, death, and marriage notices, obits, shipping reports, to name just a few. . hoorah for the National Library of Australia. Irene Kerr, co-ordinator, The British King [ship] 1839 Genealogy Research Project