International Newspapers Conference:Asia and the Pacific

Abstracts

Hartmut Walravens
Else Delaunay
Edmund King
Majlis Bremer-Laamanen
Clark Stiles and David Adams
Henry Snyder
Geraldine Suter and Judith Pearce
Marie-Therese Varlamoff

Georgia Higley
Ross Harvey
Heather Brown and Andy Fenton
Colin Webb
Margie Barram

 

Hartmut Walravens

Abstract: International Newspaper Work / Newspaper Activities in Germany

The first part of the paper will give a survey of the IFLA Newspaper Section's activities and projects. The second part highlights the newspaper situation in Germany, collections and projects.


Else Delaunay

Abstract: Developments in French Newspaper Publishing

At present the French Newspaper Publishing finds itself in a situation of stagnation and even regression. For the last years most daily newspapers have regressed with regard to circulation, sales and advertising incomings. This decline is due to several reasons : competition of other information media (free newspapers, television, Internet). Means and remedies to fight against the decline and take up the challenge are developed by the author : better editorial quality, better information control and analyzing of the information, new ways to captivate young readers, industrial investors and the risk for press freedom, etc. French press is still hesitating as to which way to go but most newspaper undertakings are reflecting on the problem knowing they have to act very quickly now in order to reverse the present evolution


Ed King

Abstract: British Newspapers 1800-1900. A project to unlock nineteenth century history.

The British Newspapers 1800-1900 Project was started in 2004. It will finish in 2006. It aims to digitise up to 2 million pages of UK newspapers, and make these accessible via the web. The paper will discuss

  • * the aims of the project
  • * selection of newspaper titles
  • * use of microfilm for scanning
  • * procurement of a company to
  • * create scanned images from microfilm
  • * create OCR
  • * enable searching of OCR text
  • * place digital files upon a web server
  • * provide software to enable retrieval of the texts for users
  • * lessons learnt so far

Marie-Therese Varlamoff

Abstract: Preservation of Newspapers in the International Context

IFLA Core Activity on Preservation and Conservation (PAC) has one major goal : to ensure that library materials, including newspapers, will be preserved in accessible form for as long as possible. Newspapers being the primary record of events that shape our communities they represent an important part of our global memory that cannot be ignored. As a follow-up of the Symposium co-organized by IFLA and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, August 2000, PAC launched a survey on the state of preservation of African newspapers. Results being scarce and incomplete, it was decided, with the help of the IFLA Section on Newspapers, to launch a second, more narrowly-targeted survey, to determine which titles to select and where were the gaps in the collections. According to answers a strategy for future actions will be implemented in collaboration with foreign libraries having similar holdings and reformatting resources. Another example of international co-operation deals with the digitization of the 19th century Latin American press, focusing on the work done by ABINIA (Latin American national Libraries Association) and the National Library of Venezuela in rescuing the press of the Great Columbia, 1820-1830. The choice between microfilming and digitization as a reformatting process depends on the goals to be reached (preservation and/or access), on the country concerned, on the resources available, now and in the future. Co-operation between PAC and the IFLA Section on Newspapers is a prerequisite for the success of any international project.

Geraldine Suter and Judith Pearce

Abstract: Argus Indexing Online : historical newspaper indexing in a digital age.

No complete index for an Australian National daily newspaper exists. The Argus Index Online project will address this issue by providing a complete online index to the Argus newspaper, published in Melbourne from 1846 to 1957. To do this, it will build on completed and published indexes for the years 1846-1869 and 1909-1949 as well as indexing the intervening run. The first version of the new service, due to be launched in the second quarter of 2005, will contain newly created indexes for the decade 1870-1879. This paper describes the project and its progress so far, highlighting the difference between an online newspaper index and a full-text version of the newspaper itself, and demonstrating the benefits of both approaches.

Ross Harvey

Abstract: Selection of newspapers for digitization and preservation: a user perspective

This paper addresses issues resulting from how decisions are made about which newspapers libraries select to digitize, microfilm and/or preserve. It provides a perspective from the point of view of the user and focuses primarily on Australian and New Zealand practice. Users of newspapers in library collections, or to which access is provided by libraries, are increasingly being provided with choice, for example about whether to use the paper copy, microfilm, or digitized and web-delivered version. Each of these choices carries its own implications for usability: using the paper copies is likely to be restricted to a physical location, microfilms are notoriously not user friendly but are portable, and web-delivered digitized versions can be potentially accessed from anywhere and in some cases allow text to be searched, but there may be bandwidth and other technological issues. The increasing digitization of newspapers raises many issues that libraries need to address. These include:

  • Whether digitizing can be considered as a preservation mechanism, or only as a way to improve access
  • The suitability of traditional selection criteria when applied to selecting newspapers to be digitized
  • The extent to which user needs are accommodated during selection processes
  • The extent to which user needs are accommodated if digitized versions are provided.

This paper addresses these issues from the user perspective, focusing on Australian and New Zealand experience. It begins by describing recent research into a New Zealand newspaper, the Inangahua Times (Reefton) which was used in both microfilm and digitized version online. It next notes some of the issues surrounding the use and usability of newspapers in hard copy, microfilm and digital forms. It examines the issues noted above, providing examples from library practice and from user experience.


Margie Barram

Abstract: The challenge - digitisation for both access and preservation: a Queensland case study

For 80 years the Nambour Chronicle & North Coast Advertiser recorded and photographed local news, social, sporting and business activities and presented local opinions and notices for the area now known as the Sunshine Coast. It is a typical "local rag", providing a primary source of collected fact and opinion about the history, development and people of the Sunshine Coast. The microfilm of back issues of the paper is a much used resource in the Sunshine Coast libraries. In 2004, the library services of three local governments of the region approached the State Library of Queensland about a collaborative effort to digitise the Nambour Chronicle. This resulted in a joint project to investigate the many challenging issues of digitising newspapers, using the Nambour Chronicle as a case study. This presentation will briefly cover these issues:- status of local newspapers in preservation and digitisation initiatives; the motivation of public library services and the State Library in this area in Queensland; holdings and the physical condition of hard copy and microfilm available for digitisation and preservation, copyright; digitisation capture standards and storage options; issues related to clients' finding specific newspaper editions and relevant information within editions; the selection of image derivatives and descriptive metadata records, and the trade-offs between the file sizes of particular image derivatives and mode of delivery (e.g. Internet, CD ROM) and the current resources and policies of the local Council's web server and library management system. It concludes with a short discussion of possible roles for the State Library in the area of digitisation, preservation and public libraries.


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