The newspaper collections of the British Library are among the world's finest. The repository at Colindale, North London, UK, holds some 20 miles of UK, Colonial, and overseas newspapers published since 1800. The author charts the work of the British Library over the last dozen years, in using the technology of the time to explore how digitisation can provide greater access to portions of the British Library's newspaper collections. Software and hardware developments have quickened since 2000, and projects have been completed on a small scale to prove the concept of Internet access to texts using software which can enhance readibility of texts, and also can search all of the texts, with results immediately available to users. In currently undertaking a large project to scan up to 2 million pages of nineteenth century newspapers, the Library is moving to a larger level of scale in its programme to provide wider access to its newspaper collections.