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Let’s read newspaper-Contents of The Taiwan Shinminpo and Kounan Shinbun

Publication date: 04 Jul 2022
Author: Lee Yi-ling |Staff member of the Archives of Institute of Taiwan History

The Taiwan Minpao, The Taiwan Shinminpo and the subsequent Kounan Shinbun (Kounan News) constituted the newspaper series published between April 1923 and March 1944. However, surviving copies of the daily published since 1932 were few. In view of the importance of this newspaper series, the Institute of Taiwan History began gathering remaining copies both in Taiwan and abroad, and discovered an exclusive collection of The Taiwan Shinminpo (1938-1941). The newspapers carried diverse contents, including political and economic affairs, local news, arts and new knowledge, which are rare and precious historical materials for research on Taiwan history during World War II.

Reviewing the daily newspapers published since April 1932, this article attempts to elucidate the layout format and language use as well as main contents and subject matters covered in the columns. Moreover, it further analyzes the particularity and variations in choice of contents as time evolved and the environment changed. This article provides an in-depth introduction to this newspaper of the Taiwanese, and invites you to read the newspaper and revisit major and minor happenings of Taiwan past.

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The newly updated "Taiwan Collectanea Online" is now fully accessible for online use starting today.
2024-03-29

The "Taiwan Collectanea Online" is built upon the existing Taiwan Collectanea Search System from the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, which contains nearly 50 million characters of full-text data. Additionally, it integrates approximately 12 million characters of digital information from recent excavations of the "Taiwan Shinminpo 臺灣新民報." Here is a brief overview of the collected content:

Taiwan Collectanea Search System full-text data
The "Taiwan Collectanea Search System" includes the complete texts of the "Taiwan Collectanea" compiled and published by the Economic Research Department of Taiwan Bank from 1957 to 1972. This collection covers official documents and private writings related to Taiwan from the Tang and Song dynasties to the Japanese colonial period. Additionally, it features summaries from the "Abstracts of Taiwan Collectanea " and Chiang Yu-ying's "Taiwan Fu Zhi 臺灣府志," totaling 311 titles in all.

"Taiwan Shinminpo" series collection of newspaper publications
"The collection includes digital enhancements of the "Taiwan Shinminpo," the only newspaper during the Japanese colonial period founded by Taiwanese individuals. It traces its origins back to the "Taiwan Minpo," and its most significant historical documents span from 1938 to 1941, previously unpublished and unstudied. Additionally, it continues with the "Kounan Shinbun 興南新聞" from 1923 to 1944, although some issues are missing (primarily from 1934-1937). Nonetheless, it remains the most comprehensive archive of the Taiwan Shinminpo available both domestically and internationally, comprising approximately 410,000 newspaper issues and over 12 million characters of full-text content, including headlines, editorials, overseas travel logs, local features, and more. Ongoing efforts are being made to continually add to this collection.

This database offers comprehensive data retrieval capabilities. Users can browse through volumes and chapters of the Taiwan Collectanea, view newspapers day by day or by lists, and explore full-text content by topic. Additionally, users have access to linked images. Effective immediately, this database is fully accessible for online use worldwide.


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