One of the world's biggest newspaper libraries is to begin a phased closure from December this year.

The British Library's Colindale Newspaper Collection, in Colindale Avenue, is to be transferred to a purpose-built facility in Boston Spa, West Yorkshire.

Digital access to the newspapers will also be made possible at its St Pancras site in London.

The move, first proposed in March 2007, is expected to be finished by 2011 and the Colindale site will close by December 2012.

A library spokesman said: "The library holds the finest newspaper collection in the world, providing extensive coverage of the UK over the past 300 years.

"If this invaluable resource is to be enjoyed, researched and studied by future generations, it urgen-tly needs a new home."

Newspapers deteriorate quickly because of the poor quality of paper they are printed on, and with more than 300,000 people handling the pages every year, the collection is fragile.

At present, 15 per cent of the collection cannot be used by readers due to its poor quality and a further 19 per cent is at high risk of being withdrawn from use.

The spokesman added: "About a third of the material is in poor condition and with thousands of new titles arriving every month, the building will be completely full this year.We will ensure our readers are notified well in advance of any newspaper collection moves taking place."

The facility at Boston Spa has more than 100km of shelving and is designed to store documents.

The Colindale library, which has a complete collection of British and Irish newspapers dating back to 1840, was built in 1902 and started storing newspapers from 1934.

The British Library's collection comprises 150 million items which include Chinese oracle bones dating from 300 BC to modern-day e-journals.

Eighty-eight-year-old John Frost, of New Barnet, is the founder of John Frost Newspapers, which has an archive dating back to 1630, accessible only to the media. He said he understood the problem of storing an ever-growing archive but described the transfer as "a sad loss".

"Colindale newspaper library was a name that was known to newspaper archives around the world," he said. "It was visited by thousands of students and researchers. It is the end of an era for Colindale."