The Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program is a long term ongoing program. From March 2007 - November 2009 the ANDP was in 'project phase' whilst it was being established. During this time 2 systems were developed (the public search and delivery system, and the newspaper content management system); workflows were established, tested and implemented; storage was purchased and implemented; digitisation contractors were selected and pilots undertaken; guidelines and specifications were established and worked to. During this time Rose Holley was the Project Manager and led the IT team and the Digitisation Team. David Ong is the current Manager of the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program.
Documentation (below) from the project phase has been made publicly available in order to help contractors, contributors and libraries involved in the project understand the processes. They are also intended to help other National Libraries who are undertaking newspaper digitisation projects. The majority of documentation is current as at the end of the Project Phase of the service (November 2009), though in some instances, newer versions of specifications are available.
Apex CoVantage have produced an online video of their zoning process for digitising newspapers: IZAAC zoning and algorithmic conversion system (external link)
Use of METS and ALTO in the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program [PDF, 121 KB] updated November 2009
We express thanks and appreciation to the following contractors for their involvement in the establishment of the program from March 2007- November 2008.
Project Computing - for IT architecture and programming
EMC - for building of high speed fibre optic 63 TB storage array
NextScan - for upgrading NextStar scanning software to meet our needs
W & F Pascoe Ltd - for loan of master microfilms and scanning 1.8 million newspaper pages
Apex Co-Vantage - for OCR of 360,000 newspaper pages
Oxide Interactive - for user interface development of Australian Newspapers Beta System
Last updated Tuesday 02-Nov-2010