History and Background

ICON began taking shape at the Symposium on Access to and Preservation of Global Newspapers, held May 27-28, 1997, in Washington, DC. The symposium was sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Research Libraries, the Commission on Preservation and Access/Council on Library Resources, and the Library of Congress. These organizations convened to discuss global newspapers and, most importantly, to design a course of action that would guarantee acquisition of and access to global newspapers.

• Selected papers from the Symposium on Access to and Preservation of Global Newspapers

Out of this effort, a working group was established to develop and disseminate an action plan that describes how the research library community would increase access to global newspapers. The working group was organized in February of 1998 with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administrative and organizational support from the Center for Research Libraries. The working group included 10 initial participants representing 9 institutions: The British Library, Center for Research Libraries, Harvard University, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, New York State Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Southern California, and University of Washington. For the final discussion, representatives were brought in from 3 additional institutions: National Library of Canada, University of Florida, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The working group held 3 meetings in 1998 and prepared a "Proposal to Establish the International Coalition on Newspapers" (pdf) in January of 1999. With the addition of OCLC, enlisted as a formal partner to explore the creation of the Union List of Global Newspapers, ICON was established by 13 Charter Members with the Center for Research Libraries as its home.

ICON Working Group Summary of the April 8, 1998 Meeting (pdf)
ICON Working Group Summary of the June 25, 1998 Meeting (pdf)