Gale launches first complete online archive of the Financial Times

Today, December 1st 2009, 119 years of global business and financial news from the Financial Times will be available through a unique digital archive. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, is launching the Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006, offering researchers and historians online access to the complete run of the world’s most authoritative daily business newspaper, from its first issue in 1888 to the end of 2006, with additional annual updates. The resource will make its debut preview today at The Online Information Show, London, Olympia. Visitors are welcome to join the celebrations at 4:30pm on stand 526.

Approximately 790,000 fully searchable pages, including every article, advertisement and market listing, are now viewable individually and in the context of the full page and issue on the day they were published. Available as a subscription or one-off purchase to all academic, public and government libraries, the archive has been created from existing microfilm master copies and each item has been categorised by subject or topic to allow fast retrieval and review of relevant articles.

Bringing the best voices of yesterday and today’s journalism online, the Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006 provides a comprehensive, accurate and unbiased research tool for anyone interested in or studying global trade and finance, politics and business. Helping scholars to understand the present through history, it offers insight, analysis and commentary on major turning points from the Boer War and the Fall of Communism to the rise of the motor car industry and its effect on regional and national economies.

While questions of immediate concern to the London markets were covered from an early date, the Financial Times broadened its coverage after World War I to include international banking and the emerging importance of new economies such as those of Canada and China. Events witnessed by the Financial Times include the establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (1944), the assassination of John F. Kennedy (November 22nd 1962), the creation of the Euro (January 1st 1999) and the Enron scandal (December 2nd 2001). It has also observed global change, such as the increased importance of property and real-estate in the world economy since the 1970s, the surge of new financial instruments and banking policies which led to the 2009 credit crunch and present-day recession. With daily sections dedicated to international news, the Financial Times unquestionably provides the most detailed foreign affairs coverage of any daily newspaper in the world.

Mark Holland, Publishing Director for Gale Cengage Learning EMEA, comments: “The Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006 will be widely welcomed as an essential primary source for all researchers, teachers and students working on international business, finance and politics, from the height of the Victorian era to the 21st Century.”

Alison Parker, Director of Content Syndication, Financial Times, adds: “It is a pleasure to collaborate with Cengage Learning on this exciting project, which provides an invaluable digital resource for financial historians, especially in light of the current economic crisis. The historical perspective afforded by decades of daily reports on the London Stock Exchange and world markets will no doubt be instrumental to research on topics such as financial and economic history.”

Professor Richard Roberts, Advisory Editor for the Financial Times Historical Archive, Institute of Contemporary History, University of London, comments: “We live in financial times, past, present and future - the Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006 is the essential, definitive resource for knowledge and understanding of global history, business, finance and politics over the last 120 years.”

David Kynaston, visiting professor of history at Kingston University, and author of The Financial Times: A Centenary History, comments: “The Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006 provides invaluable access to what for many years has been one of the world's most prestigious and authoritative newspapers.”

The full archive is now available by subscription or purchase and uniquely, this key title will soon be cross-searchable with The Times and The Economist, creating an authoritative historical newspaper resource spanning three centuries. For more information about the Financial Times Historical Archive or to request your free trial, please contact emea.marketing@cengage.com or visit: www.gale.cengage.co.uk/financial_times_historical_archive.

For further information about Gale Cengage Learning and its range of new products, please visit the website at www.cengage.co.uk or contact Rossella Proscia, Marketing Director at Cengage Learning EMEA, Tel: 01264 332831 or email rossella.proscia@cengage.com.