Thousands of historic newspapers from Namur have been digitised and made available online through a dedicated portal officially launched on Monday, according to the Archaeological Society of Namur and its partners.
At present, the site includes five newspaper titles: Le Courrier de la Sambre, L’Echo de Sambre et Meuse, L’Éclaireur, L’Ami de l’Ordre, and L’Opinion libérale de Namur et de la Province.
The collection currently covers the period from 1829 to 1918. By the end of 2027, it is expected to expand to around 70 titles, representing hundreds of thousands of pages.
The portal, https://journaux-archives.wallonie.be, allows users to carry out full-text searches using keywords and publication dates, making it much easier to find information.
Philippe Gémis, head of documentation at the Regional Archives of the Walloon Public Service, described the project as a major step forward for Namur’s historic press.
He said the archives would still be available in the reading rooms of the Archives of Wallonia in Namur, but that the online search engine offered significant advantages.
The platform’s viewer allows users to take screenshots, download material and extract text. It also helps protect the fragile paper originals.
Fiona Lebecque, curator at the Archaeological Society of Namur, said the portal was especially important because many archives from the late 19th and early 20th centuries were lost forever when Namur City Hall was burned during the First World War.
As a result, newspapers are now one of the main sources of information for those periods, giving the launch of the portal added significance, she said.
