The Burney Collection: But, But, But...

The largest single online collection of English news media from the 17th and 18th centuries, the Burney Collection, is now available free of charge for the first time to Higher and Further Education institutions and Research Councils across the UK.

The Burney Collection offers unique insights into two centuries of history through access to over 1,270 newsbooks, newspapers, pamphlets and a variety of other news materials published in England, Ireland and Scotland, plus papers from British colonies in Asia and the Americas.

Digitised through a partnership between the National Science Foundation and the British Library then developed and hosted online by Gale/Cengage Learning4, the digital version of the Burney Collection has been purchased in perpetuity by JISC Collections on behalf of the UK academic and research community at a national level, following an open and transparent procurement process.

Well, that's jolly great...but: given that these are *public* collections, and have been digitised with *public* money, is it really too much to ask if hoi polloi like me might be granted a little bit of access to this great stuff?