ICON Weekly News Digests

Project News

 

7/26/10

In this issue:

1. South Asian Newspapers module of the World Newspaper Archive is now available
2. LYRASIS and Creekside Digital partnership to now include microfilm scanning
3. British media group KM to digitize over 25,000 pages of back issues for free access
4. Call for articles about international digital library perspectives

1. The World Newspaper Archive has just released the South Asian Newspapers module, which will include over 400,000 pages from titles in English, Bengali, and Gujarati.

   News article source

2. LYRASIS and Creekside Digital have expanded their partnership to include expanded microfilm scanning services to members for a subsidized fee.

   News article source

3. The KM group has received a grant allowing them to digitize 26,000 pages of the papers published in its Kent base between 1859 and 1919 and make available to public for free on its website.

   News article source
   KM group

4. OCLC Systems & Services: International Digital Library Perspectives is looking for articles dealing with all aspects of libraries and librarianship. For more information on topics and areas of interest to the journal, please visit the journal's website. Articles can be of any length, and figures and screen shots are encouraged. OSS:IDLP is a peer-reviewed journal.

   If you are interested in contributing, please send the editor an email with a short description of your topic. Any questions can be directed to the editor.

   Contact information:
   Dr. Brad Eden
   Editor, OCLC Systems & Services: International Digital Library Perspectives
   Associate University Librarian for Technical Services and Scholarly Communication
   University of California, Santa Barbara
   eden @ library.ucsb.edu
   

7/19/10

In this issue:

1. Aftenposten releases digital files of back-issues to public
2. Jornal do Brasil now available via Google News Archives
3. 275,000+ pages added to the Chronicling America project
4. Long-term Harvard newspaper microfilming project is complete
5. Pulitzer Prize-winner part of newly available digitized Illinois title

1. Dutch newspaper Aftenposten recently digitized more than 150 years’ worth of back issues, and has partnered with Visiolink to make the issues accessible. A subscription to the newspaper is required for access.

   News article source
   Aftenposten site

2. Google has made Jornal do Brasil, currently the third oldest Brazilian newspaper still being published, available via their archives. Scattered issues from 1891 and 1910, with the majority of issues from 1930 on.

   Jornal do Brasil

3. From the Library of Congress announcement:

   "More than 275,000 historic newspaper pages [have been added] to the Chronicling America Web site, including newspapers from 4 new states - Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Oregon - and expanding the site's time coverage into the Civil War era. The site now includes more than 2.3 million pages from 295 titles published between 1860 and 1922 in 19 states and the District of Columbia."

   Chronicling America site

4. After nearly 10 years, Harvard finishes their large-scale newspaper microfilming project, ending with nearly 3,000 and over 3,800 reels.

   News article source

5. Back issues of The Herald, from Proviso Township, IL, were recently digitized and made publically available. Of note is an article from 1994 by Pulitzer Prize awardee David Dietz.

   News article source
   Digital project site

6/15/10

This year’s National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) awards have been announced by the NEH. Three states have new awardees: New Mexico, Tennessee, and Vermont. The list of all awardees and award amounts are below. Congratulations to this year’s recipients!

(Further details about the awards and NDNP can be found in NEH's official announcement.)

• Arizona - Arizona Department of Libraries and Public Records: $314,790
• Hawaii - University of Hawaii, Manoa: $270,000
• Missouri - State Historical Society of Missouri: $215,672
• *New Mexico - University of New Mexico: $351,641
• Ohio - Ohio Historical Society: $334,000
• Pennsylvania - Pennsylvania State University, Main Campus: $393,489
• *Tennessee - University of Tennessee, Knoxville: $325,165
• *Vermont - University of Vermont: $391,552
• Washington - Office of the Secretary of State for Washington State Library: $284,000

6/9/10

In this issue:

1. Upcoming meetings
2. Legal issues surrounding newspaper digitization
3. James Murdoch and the British Library
4. Cleveland Jewish News archives go live
5. Southeastern Oklahoma State University

1. The Newspaper Interest Group of ALCTS meets at the American Library Association annual conference on Saturday, June 26 1.30 - 3.30 PM.

   The IFLA Newspapers Section standing committee business meetings at the IFLA Gothenburg Conference will take place Tuesday, August 10 (2:30-5:20pm) and Friday, August 13 (1:15-2:45pm).

2. An article by Armin Talke of the Berlin State Library discusses legal issues surrounding newspaper digitization. This will be presented in full at the 2010 IFLA Newspapers Section open session in Gothenburg (August 12, 2010 4:00-6:00pm).

   Article abstract:

   Digitizing newspapers is an important component of strategies to make documents of historical interest publicly available in the internet. There are – however – some specific legal aspects to consider: Different persons or institutions are copyright-owners concerning the contents, body and composition of the newspaper. How do we manage this? Besides, newspaper articles frequently affect third persons, who are mentioned. Those people (e.g. former criminals) may not be delighted to find old articles – including their names and photos – about long forgotten doings. Is there something to do for newspaper digitizing libraries with respect to the personal rights of those persons ? Do we have to anonymize, or are other measures sufficient?

   Article source

3. Speaking of legal issues surrounding digitization, this article takes a close look at James Murdoch’s copyright criticisms about the British Library’s new digitization partnership with Brightsolid, as well as providing further details about project details and the BL’s response to Murdoch’s claims.


4. All 45 years of the Cleveland Jewish News archives will be available online beginning this month.

   News article source
   CJN site

5. The library at Southeastern Oklahoma State University recently received a grant to digitize five years of the college newspaper, The Southeastern.

   News article source
   The Southeastern site

6/1/10

In this issue:

1. New site for the Koninklijke Bibliotheek
2. Australia’s OCR process
3. The Daily Princetonian digitized
4. ProQuest Digital Microfilm examined

1. Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB), the National Library of the Netherlands, recently launched a new version of their digital newspaper site, which includes significant Dutch newspapers from 1618-1995. With one million pages currently available, the project expects to eventually include over eight million pages. The project also includes significant historical titles from the Dutch East Indies (Nederlands-Indië), Suriname, and Antilles.

   Koninklijke Bibliotheek main site
   See here for further information about cooperation with the National Archives Suriname.

2. A new article provides a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the OCR process at the Australian digital newspaper project.


3. The archives of the Daily Princetonian will soon be digitized, beginning with the first issues from 1876.

   Daily Princetonian site
   News article source

4. ProQuest Digital Microfilm offers institutions an alternative to full-text databases of current newspapers (currently 25 US titles and growing). One institution has posted an informal review of the product. Feel free to share your own comments of questions about this (or other) products via the list or to ICON staff.

5/24/10

In this issue:

1. Further discussion about the British Library and brightsolid digitization partnership
2. Japanese Relocation Center Newspapers
3. Newmarket Digital Newspaper Project
4. Digital Newspaper Preservation Readiness Survey

1. Peggy Glahn alerted us to this article, which provides more information about the British Library/brightsolid partnership and digitization project.


2. A collection of resources related to Japanese American internment, included digitized newspapers, is now available.


3. The Newmarket Public Library (Ontario) has digitized five titles (including the Newmarket Era and the North York Sentinel). Browse through the individual titles, or search via the full-text search interface.


4. Via the DIGLIB listserv, The MetaArchive Cooperative is conducting a survey to "better understand the preservation needs of your digital newspaper collections."

   Access the survey here.

5/17/10

In this issue:

1. Washington State NDNP wiki
2. Cherokeean Herald goes digital
3. Ottawa Free Trader to be included in Illinois Newspaper Project

1. As part of the National Digital Newspaper Program, Washington state has created a wiki to aid in tracking project progress and provide information about title selection and workflow.


2. The Singletary Memorial Library in Rusk, TX, has been awarded a grant by the Tocker Foundation to digitize microfilm of the last 60 years of the Cherokeean Herald.

   News source

3. The Illinois Newspaper Project at the University of Illinois has announced that it will include the Ottawa Free Trader as part of its work on the National Digital Newspaper Program.

   News source

01/25/10 - CRL presents: A Webinar on News: Paper, Film and Digital, February 3, 2010, at 1:00 p.m. CST.

At a pre-conference collection development workshop held by CRL at the Charleston Conference in November 2009, James Simon led a discussion highlighting special issues concerning news. The response from that session encouraged the creation of a webinar in February 2010 titled News: Paper, Film and Digital. This event will examine:

• How today's researchers use paper, broadcast, and electronic news: text-mining for finance and national security, bias analysis for history and policymaking, etc.;
• Newspaper digital back file collections: cost, content, and performance from Chronicling America to LexisNexis;
• What the Google News Archive Search means for libraries;
• Strategies for bridging the void: moving from microform to digital without losing the past.

12/16/09 - The Latin American Newspapers (LAN) WNA module has reached 970,000 pages digitized and accessible. New additions this month include key Panamanian titles Estrella de Panama and the Star & Herald.

African Newspapers (AFN) is in full production. A preliminary release of AFN (25,000 pages, four titles) to the membership is anticipated in the next few weeks.

More information about the World Newspaper Archive is available at CRL's WNA web site.

10/16/09 - The Center for Research Libraries' Fall 2009 FOCUS on Global Resources newsletter, "Preserving Electronic News," is now available online. The Fall 2009 issue features:

• Digital news preservation: A recent Library of Congress workshop explored strategies for preserving digital news.
• Recent funding for digital resources for International Studies: CRL Global Resources Network partners are recipients of 13 new digitization grants from the Department of Education.

04/2/09 - Former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, currently with ProPublica, hosted a discussion about the "Future of News," sponsored by the Open Society Institute. Full audio of the conversation is available on the Institute's web site.

10/14/08 - Center for Research Libraries and Readex/NewsBank announce World Newspaper Archive
CRL and NewsBank have begun the systematic digitization, Web delivery, and archiving of foreign newspapers.  Initially the World Newspaper Archive will focus on news from Latin America and the Caribbean, but will eventually encompass the news output of other major regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Eastern and Central Europe. For more information, visit: http://www.crl.edu/content.asp?l1=3&l2=70.

08/13/08 - James Simon, Project Director of ICON, presented a paper to the World Library and Information Congress: 74th IFLA General Conference and Council, held in Quebec, Canada, 10-14 August, 2008. The paper was part of the Open Session on Newspapers, which addressed the topic of the North American ethnic press. The paper, co-authored by Simon and Patricia Finney (Head of Stack Management at CRL) was titled "Publication, access and preservation of Scandinavian immigrant press in North America." The paper explored the early publication (19th-early 20th century) of ethnic Scandinavian newspapers from the Midwestern region of the United States and the western Canadian provinces. Simon and Finney drew on examples of press held by the Center for Research Libraries to demonstrate the type and context of news publications, their collection and retention status by research institutions, and prospects for future collaboration in digitization.

06/04/08 - Carolyn Ciesla joins ICON as Project Coordinator
Carolyn Ciesla has joined ICON as Project Coordinator as of June 4, 2008. Carolyn's previous position was with the English Department at Georgetown University, and she comes to CRL with extensive grant and project management experience. Carolyn is currently in the MLIS program at San José State University, where she is focusing on archival studies.

03/27/08 - ICON has issued a formal Call for Participation in the program. ICON was formed in 1999 as an international cooperative body under the administration of Center for Research Libraries (CRL) to support a broad agenda of preservation and bibliographic access to the world’s newspapers. Since its founding, ICON has attracted nearly $1.5 million dollars in preservation grants, with more than $750,000 dollars in in-kind support from CRL, the Library of Congress, British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and a host of other North American repositories. ICON now seeks additional participants to support its expanded mission. The British Library and the Library of Congress have recently committed to support ICON through annual membership contributions, and we urge other institutions to consider the same. The funds will allow ICON to grow to meet new challenges facing our collective institutions in the preservation of our valuable heritage material..

For more information contact Bernard Reilly or James Simon at CRL.

11/27/07 - IFLA Newspaper Conference Program - The 2008 IFLA Newspaper Section announces its schedule at the National Library of Singapore April 1-3, with ICON presenting "Cooperative efforts in preservation of and access to the world's newspapers." (pdf)

08/21/07- ICON and the Center for Research Libraries announce the availability of the digitized version of The Black Press in South Africa and Lesotho: a descriptive bibliographic guide of African, Coloured and Indian newspapers, newsletters and magazines 1836-1976 by Les Switzer and Donna Switzer (G.K. Hall & Co. Boston, MA. 1979.) Switzer is the foremost authority for bibliographic information regarding historical Black South African media.  The Cooperative Africana Microfilm Project (CAMP) of the Center for Research Libraries has recommended the Switzers’ reference work for wider accessibility via the Web.

06/04/07- The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the Center for Research Libraries a grant in the amount of $350,000 in continuing support for the activities of ICON. During this 18 month phase of the project, ICON will concentrate on Latin American newspapers held in U.S. libraries. The project will have a four-pronged approach which involves reformatting to microform nine important and underrepresented newspaper titles, cataloging Latin American newspapers at partner libraries, expanding the ICON database of International Newspapers, and further improvement the content, value and utility of the ICON Web site. Full announcement (pdf)

05/31/07- With the cooperation of the Conference on Latin American History, ICON has officially announced the availability of Steven M. Charno's Latin American Newspapers in U.S. Libraries : A Union List (1968.) The guide, enhanced with PDF tools such as bookmarks by country, is slated for further enhancements in the next phase of ICON.

04/05/07 - The 2007 IFLA Newspaper Section Business Meeting and Conference was hosted at the Biblioteca National de Chile in Santiago, with well over one hundred attendees from around the globe. The proceedings will be made available though K.G. Saur by year's end. Linda Ronan and James Simon presented "Preservation and Digitization of Latin American Newspapers in the United States" which summarizes the efforts in the U.S. to preserve Latin American and Caribbean newspapers.

03/22/07- As part of its ongoing effort to increase accessibility of key international newspaper reference sources, ICON has received permission to digitize and make available on its website Steven M. Charno's Latin American Newspapers in United States Libraries.

03/20/07 - CRL issues Request for Proposals for the Cooperative Digitization and Dissemination of World Newspapers - Phase One: Latin American Newspapers from the Era of Independence, State Formation, and Early Modernization, 1805-1923.

02/12/07 -The ICON database of international newspapers has been updated
The database now contains records for more than 25,000 titles. Records can display preservation status and title holdings (e.g.: who has what.) Searching /sorting improvements include the option to search by institutional holdings (please note that the ICON database may not include the entirety of an institution's holdings of international newspapers), or by OCLC number if looking for a specific title. In addition, our institutional partners can administer their data by adding records and editing existing data.

ICON encourages potential partners to add their own data to help maximize the database's utility to scholars worldwide. For information on how to particiapte, contact Linda Ronan.

10/31/06 - CRL investigates news archives through digital certification process
As part of its efforts to develop and deliver specifications for the auditing and certification processes of digital archives, CRL has investigated several for-profit aggregators of news content, including Factiva, LexisNexis, and NewsBank. See the corresponding reports at: http://www.crl.edu/content.asp?l1=13&l2=58&l3=160.

08/24/06 - ICON report to IFLA Section on Newspapers, IFLA General Conference (pdf)

06/10/06 - ICON has new Web site
The International Coalition on Newspapers is pleased to unveil its new Web site, with improved appearance and added functionality. In keeping with ICON's mission, the new site provides access to news and information relating to current preservation projects, reports and presentations, technical standards and best practies for selecting, preserving, and cataloging newspapers, and links to resources for the discovery of information about newspaper preservation and bibliographic access.The Web site also provides enhanced information regarding the ICON Database of International Newspapers, a freely accessible resource intended to provide reliable informationon newspapers published outside of the United States. The database contains more than 22,000 bibliographic and/or holdings records for international newspapers.

05/16/06 - ICON report to IFLA Section on Newspapers, Salt Lake City (pdf)

03/15/06 - The University of Connecticut has joined ICON's distributed cataloging effort
ICON staff will work with the staff at UConn's Dodd Research Center to catalog portions of their holdings of Latin American newspapers from the 19th and early 20th century.

12/05/05 - Linda Ronan joins ICON as Project Coordinator
Linda Ronan has joined ICON as Project Coordinator as of December 5, 2005. Linda's previous position was Head of Reference for the Lewiston Public Library (Maine) where she managed the reference department and also handled interlibrary loan, information technology, community outreach, and vendor negotiation. Prior experience includes both academic and corporate library management positions. Linda received her Master of Science in Library and Information Science from Simmons College and a Master of Divinity from Andover Newton Theological School.

10/20/05 - ICON Rights Document (pdf) issued
ICON and CRL have issued a draft discussion paper on proposed baseline terms and conditions to incorporate in agreements governing dealings between libraries and news publishers, micropublishers and digital republishers. See also accompanying cover letter (pdf).

09/01/05 - University of Illinois joins ICON Distributed Cataloging Project
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign has signed a memorandum of agreement with ICON to pilot a system of distributed cataloging of foreign newspapers. Students at UIUC will collect bibliographic and holdings information of uncataloged titles within UIUC's collection and submit data to the ICON cataloging coordinator for the creation of complete bibliographic records. Information will be fed into UIUC's catalog, OCLC Worldcat, and the ICON database.

08/09/05 - ICON update to IFLA Newspaper Section (pdf)

07/29/05 - Interim performance report, July 2005 (pdf)

04/15/05 - A CRL Perspective: The Challenges of Preserving the World's News (pdf)

09/13/04 - National Endowment for the Humanities Awards Center for Research Libraries $350,000 for the International Coalition on Newspapers.