Canadian developments for the digitization of newspapersSandra Burrows, Newspaper Specialist, Reference and Genealogy Division, Library and Archives Canada [Note: this paper is additional to the conference program - Sandra Burrows was unable to attend the conference, but has submitted this paper for publication on the website for the information of site readers] Abstract Holistic digitization is much more problematic. The questions of copyright, storage, access, editions, cost recovery are among a few that will be addressed at the end of this paper. Generally, Canadian newspaper digitization projects, in particular, those undertaken by Library and Archives Canada are thematic digitization projects. To be more specific, newspapers have been used to enhance and illustrate particular themes in the Canadian experience such as hockey, weather disasters or the opening of the west. This paper examines a few of these projects, as well as the present and future direction of digitization projects at Library and Archives Canada. It also presents a general overview of other projects across Canada and concludes with a review of issues in the digitization of newspapers. Background National programmes In Canada, heritage institutions, consortia, commercial micropublishers and newspapers themselves do preservation microfilming. Library and Archives Canada acquires newspapers on microform partly through legal deposit for post 1988 papers for which more than four microfilm copies are produced and partly through purchase. The collection now numbers over 300,000 reels. In conjunction with identification and preservation, all three countries turned to the third goal: making the content of newspapers accessible. When the national programs began in the 1980's, accessibility meant indexing selected content; in the current context, accessibility means digitization and full-text searching.(fn1) At present, negotiations are underway to position Library and Archives Canada as a key player in making Canadian newspaper content accessible. As in many countries, legal deposit does not apply to digital content on the web. Library and Archives Canada, however, a "single, modern-knowledge institution" has extended legal deposit to online publications and to a sampling of Web sites. The Library and Archives Act and its related regulations, and a major initiative on the development, management and care of LAC's digital collection, will allow us to explore agreements with newspaper publishers to make known more newspaper content.(fn2) Library and Archives Canada Web Sites with Canadian
Newspapers
Other Web Sites for Canadian Newspapers
Online All three major web products originated from Cold North Wind, Inc. which was established in 1999. Its first paper was the Melbourne Port Phillip Herald. In 2002, Cold North Wind, Inc. acquired the non-exclusive rights to scan and index the Canadian Library Association's microfilm, which covered titles from every province and territory from the late 1700's to 1930. Since then, some community newspapers' complete runs on microfilm have been added up to at least 2001. Titles are added frequently. Subscribers may access the product through their library's site licence or individually whereon they are charged for a monthly or yearly subscription. Paper of Record offers full-text and date searching and pages can be viewed, saved, printed locally, or high-quality prints ordered and sent by email to another site. Search words are located through an OCR process (which is also available for purchase by media companies) and highlighted. As with any digital product, the images on Paper of Record are only as good as the microfilmed product from which they are scanned. Not surprisingly, Paper of Record has encouraged preservation microfilming in order to ensure a high-quality product and further preservation of the original formats. Searchers are also able to contribute to the prioritization process by commenting on the newspapers or newspaper pages (as some scanning is incomplete) that they would like to see done. Paper of Record also has a featured paper, a featured historical subject with a number of scanned newspaper from a recognized expert source of news on it and a This Week in History Section. Paper of Record now includes over 500 newspaper titles from 16 countries comprising 8 million pages of newspaper images.(fn3) The Toronto Star: Pages of the Past was the first digitized newspaper in the world (fn4). At a rate of one million pages per month, the paper has been digitized from 1894 now up to 2002 (two year, 1892-1894, are not available except for the first issue, November 3, 1892 as the originals were not available at the time of filming). The newspaper pages in Pages of the Past are high-resolution scans that average 700KB each. Subscriptions through the Torstar Syndication Services are available on 1, 24, and 72-hour bases as well as on 7 days to a one-month basis. The Toronto Star is the largest English-language newspaper in Canada with 2.2 million readers. The Globe and Mail: Canada's Heritage from 1844 is the second-largest newspaper to be digitized in Canada. It runs from an earlier period in Canada's history, 1844 (20+ years prior to the confederation of Canada's four largest provinces) and goes to 2001.(fn5) It is now made available on a subscription basis through Micromedia ProQuest, which allows the product to reach the more lucrative Canadian Studies market in the United States and other countries. An added feature of this product is the ability to view the results in thumbnail format as well as full-page pdf's with the highlighted search word. Micromedia has made available another option for both products; namely, perpetual access whereby, subject to license agreements, on a non-exclusive, non-transferable basis, subscribers may download one electronic copy of the database for storage on their internal system. For access (as of 2004) a site would pay a one-time fee of four times their current site license price or $10,000 (U.S.) whichever is greater. A site can choose to discontinue subscriptions and keep the file (in the case of Globe and Mail, perpetual access covers 1844 to 1950) and if they were to continue their subscription, the annual cost would be 65% of what they would have paid if they had not opted for perpetual access. It is also available for both the unlimited access and simultaneous user options and has been made available to consortia subscribers.(fn6) Non-Commercial Web Sites Another Olive Software product available through the University of Alberta Libraries is a digitization of three Franco-Albertan newspapers, La survivance, Le franco-albertain and Le franco from 1928 to 1967. This is part of a larger Alberta Heritage Digitization Project which is an ongoing project to digitize historical information which is otherwise difficult to access including Alberta folklore; art; aerial photographs; maps; early Alberta newspapers; Alberta's retrospective bills, statutes, and gazettes; and local histories. This project has made use of collections from the University of Calgary, the Provincial Archives of Alberta, the Glenbow and Nickle Arts Museums, the Historical Society of Alberta, and the Universities of Alberta and Calgary and is funded by Canada's Digital Collections Initiative at Industry Canada, the Millennium Bureau of Canada, Alberta Historical Resources Foundation, the Alberta Knowledge Network, the Alberta Library, the University of Calgary, the Alberta Law Foundation, the Calgary Foundation, and the Calgary Community Lottery Board.(fn8) The HALINET (the HALton Information NETwork) is a partnership of public libraries, the school boards and Sheridan College - all located in the Regional Municipality of Halton in Ontario. The project includes a unified Halton County set of local newspaper indexes from a variety of sources with the added feature of being able to search more than 65,000 newspaper images in black and white and in colour (the colour images are produced directly from the print edition; the black and white from microfilm editions). HALINET employs Lizard Tech's MrSID (Multi Resolution Seamless Image Database) for better delivery of the images over the Internet for purposes of printing. The image files of the newspapers are processed through MrSID and patrons are able to zoom in on the picture or article in which they are interested, and print just that. Alternatively, they are able to shrink the image of an individual page of a newspaper and print that.(fn9) The University of Alberta Library and the Manitoba Library Consortium are collaborating on Manitoba: Life and Times, a digitization project that will include community newspapers and make them available free-of-charge in a full-text searchable online interface. (fn10) The growth of digital newspaper and newspaper indexing pages that
feature Canadian newspapers and Canadian newspaper indexes is almost
unmanageable. In addition to the snapshot approach that Library and Archives
hope to take of this area, we also maintain a list of newspaper web pages,
indexes and non-Canadian pages which feature Canadian news sites at News Sites
- Internet / Sites d'informations sur l'Internet at: Issues and Concerns
Conclusion At a recent Symposium on Web Archiving held at Library and Archives Canada February 3, 2005, Ingrid Mason stressed the need for institutions to demonstrate the integrity of what they do in building a digital archive.(fn13) In order to arrive at a common goal, it is difficult to meld the aims of institutions, which promote preservation and free access with those of the news business that is constantly experimenting to stay ahead commercially. Future Canadian digitization projects must reflect clear thinking and a common goal to preserve a part of Canada's heritage that is rapidly disappearing. Without a strategy or leaders to convince legislators and funding agencies and a mandate to facilitate access, large-scale co-operative projects will not be successful. (fn1)The above information under Background is taken from the Draft Centre for Newspapers and News in Canada: a document for discussion by [Library and Archives Canada] Management Board. January 2005 by Mary Jane Starr, Director-General, Centre for Newspapers and News in Canada. (Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada, 2005), pages 2-3.(back to text) (fn2)Performance
Report for the period ending March 31, 2004 (fn3) About Paper of Record http://paperofrecord.com/Default.asp and Cold North Wind, Inc http://www.coldnorthwind.com/ Who We Are pages as well as notes from the lecture by Bob Huggins, President and CEO of Cold North Wind at: Canadian Newspapers Online: A National Consultation: toward a national strategy to strengthen access to Canadian Newspapers Online. Speaker Notes. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 8 October 2002.(back to text) (fn4)Notes from the lecture by Bob Huggins, President and CEO of Cold North Wind at: Canadian Newspapers Online: A National Consultation: toward a national strategy to strengthen access to Canadian Newspapers Online. Speaker Notes. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 8 October 2002. (back to text) (fn5)Ibid. (back to text) (fn6)Message November 22,
2004 posted on concan-l on behalf of John Durno. (fn7)La tribune. Sherbrooke, Quebec, February 18, 2005 p. D3 D'ici peu s'ajouteront plus de trois millions de pages de journaux québécois du XIXe siècle jusqu'en 1950 ainsi que plusieurs revues culturelles des années 1900 à 1950. (back to text) (fn8)More information on this project is available at: http://www.ourfutureourpast.ca/about.htm (back to text) (fn9)Information has been taken from the HALINET description on CIDL (Canadian Inventory of Digital Initiatives at: http://www.collectionscanada.ca/initiatives/; specifically at: http://www.hhpl.on.ca/halinet/demo_home.htm [note: this demo page appears to have disappeared early 2006]. (back to text) (fn10)Web announcement Tuesday, March 1, 2005, Email sent on behalf of the School of Library & Information Studies, University of Alberta to slis-everyone@mailman.svr.ualberta.ca on the subject of a Research Seminar, Manitoba Metadata: Digitizing Manitoba's Cultural Heritage presented by Bess Sadler, to be held Monday, March 7, 2005 at the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta (back to text) (fn11)Digital dark
ages: drastic action needed to preserve computerized photos and other
files. By Sarah McGinnis, Telegraph-Journal, December 11, 2004
New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal. p. A1/A8 (fn12) NML: the News Business Gets Serious about Content. By Barry Schaeffer Newspapers and Technology Magazine, June 4, 1999. (Reprinted at: http://www.xsystems.com/nml.htm) (back to text) (fn13)Ingrid Mason. Presentation on New Zealand Digital Web Archiving at Symposium on Web Archiving, February 3, 2005, Ottawa, Canada. (back to text) |
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