NDSA:Digital E-Prints of Newspapers

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At Risk Content: Newspaper E-Prints

Establish Value: A newspaper defines its community’s identity, and the loss of even a few months of their newspaper creates gaps in that community’s recorded history. High usage of the digitized historical newspapers demonstrates the value of this content to many user groups indicating that the preservation of current newspapers should be a high priority. Cultural memory organizations should coordinate with multiple partners to preserve newspapers and make them freely available online.

Recognize Opportunities: Since the shift to "digital-first" publishing, publishers increasingly have abandoned microfilming of newspapers or maintaining their print morgues. Now, newspapers produce a PDF printmaster to send to their printer. Most newspaper publishers neither preserve the PDF printmasters nor do they microfilm the printed issues, resulting in a loss of current newspaper content for future generations. The fact that the vast majority of current U.S. newspapers are printed from an "e-print" file offers a unique opportunity to work with publishers to capture and preserve that file. PDF printmaster newspapers can be OCRed, preserved, and made openly available relatively cheaply because they are in a digital file format.

Target Audiences: These audiences share multiple levels of local, state, national, and international interest, but based on user feedback, discussions, and publications, the newspapers have proven of relevance to:

  • Local communities: public libraries; newspaper publishers; genealogical societies; county and local governments; K-12 educators
  • State-wide communities: Academic researchers; lay historians; university students and professors; archives
  • National and International communities: Trending researchers; political scholars; economic analysts

Educating Stakeholders: Cultural memory organizations should communicate the role that newspaper preservation plays in community history to stakeholders through multiple venues:

  • Publishers: state press association conferences; trade shows; and presentations to publishing office staff and at publishers’ meetings. Engage publishers as advocates of their own newspapers’ preservation.
  • K-12 educators: Involve them in creation of grade-specific lesson plans - public school conferences, presentations to university Education students.
  • Public libraries: panel presentations with partner public libraries about working together on newspaper preservation; workshop presentations at district library association meetings; conference calls with public library directors.
  • Researchers, teachers, archivists, and librarians: Connect at historical association meetings and conferences; panel presentations at archivist society conferences; vendor booths, brochures, and flyers about newspaper preservation at relevant conferences.
  • Standards: Follow digital preservation standards and provide education to stakeholders about the standards.

Obstacles and Risk Factors: Possible risk factors and obstacles in e-prints newspaper preservation.

  • Publishers are uncomfortable giving permission to make newspapers available online.
  • Public libraries and publishers do not always understand each other’s importance
  • Many newspapers don't have the technical expertise or the management policy to preserve their content before it is lost
  • Funding for digital preservation may not be readily available nor is there awareness of the urgency for this "at risk" content
  • One preservation solution does not fit all newspapers
  • PDF printmasters are not recognized by publishers or public libraries as being preservation master copies that need to be actively preserved on a regular basis.
  • Grant-funded staffing is common in most digital newspaper programs across the U.S. right now, and funding any preservation project on grant support raises sustainability concerns.

Actionable Items

  • Distribute to NDSA Content group. How best to do that - blog post or other way to allow for online discussion (consult with Abbie when she gets back)
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