About ICON

The International Coalition on Newspapers project develops strategies to preserve and improve access to newspapers from around the globe, working on issues including bibliographic access, copyright, and information dissemination. ICON was officially established in 1999 by 13 charter members and is based at the Center for Research Libraries.

ICON’s newspaper preservation program addresses challenges related to the storage and preservation of international newspaper collections, such as inadequate storage conditions and lack of funds for microfilming. ICON selects titles for preservation microfilming with issues coming from the collections of participating institutions.

ICON provides a freely accessible database of bibliographic information for more than 25,000 newspaper titles from participating institutions. ICON also actively coordinates and supports cataloging of international newspapers in participating U.S. libraries to increase the availability of bibliographic and holdings records.

ICON provides a clearinghouse of information about international newspapers and preservation efforts. ICON collects and disseminates newspaper preservation policies from around the world and compiles preservation standards for microfilming, digitization, and retention of materials in their original formats. In addition, ICON seeks to augment the online presence of scholarly and professional information about international newspapers by digitizing bibliographic aids and reference works.

ICON is supported in part through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its advisory board is comprised of representatives from the Library of Congress, British Library, Library and Archives Canada, University of Illinois, and University of Washington; many other institutions participate in ICON's preservation, database, cataloging, and survey projects.