lecture presented at PAARL's National Summer on the theme "Planning, Developing and Managing Digitization & Research Projects for Libraries and Information Centers" (Function Hall of Tourism Center, Coron, Palawan,18-20 April 2012) by Lourdes T. David

1. Future of Newspaper
Digitization and Preservation
Philippine Association of Academic and Research
Click to edit Master subtitle style
Librarians, Inc (PAARL) National Summer Conference on
“Planning, Developing and Managing Digitization &
Research Projects for Libraries and Information Centers,
April 18-20, 2012, Coron, Palawan
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2. Why are Newspapers
Important?
 The desire to be informed is a basic
human need. There is no other medium
that does this best in written form except
newspapers which come periodically and
in most cases on a daily basis.
 Newspapers are primary sources of local
history—events, customs, traditions,
attitudes, practices, births and deaths,
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etc.

3. Sustainability of Newspapers
in Print
 Newspaper advertising has been
declining steadily over the past decade.
The drop from 2008 to 2009 was 28 %
(Ingram, 2010)
 Newspapers in print have been closing
down since 2007.
 Those that adopted hybrid approaches
have made sustainability more difficult.
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4. The future of Newspapers is
 Digital (Murdock, 2009) accessible by
PCs and mobile devices with updates (in
full or alerts) every hour or two 24/7.
This format will last many years
 Pay for online access either by
subscription or per view for
sustainability.
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5. Print Newspapers in Libraries
 Newspapers because of their size,
frequency of publication and cheap
paper present huge problems in
preservation and access
 Reformatting into microfilm and digital
formats are some solutions but users
have criticized libraries for discarding
the paper format.
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6. Why Microfilm? Digitize?
 Microfilm—is used for preservation. The
format under ideal environmental
conditions will last 500 years. It reduces
the handling of and replaces print.
 Digital—is used for access and
preservation. It is searchable and
available to anyone with a
computer/Internet connection. It
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reduces the handling of and replaces

7. Problems with Microfilm
 It requires a three generation process to
produce a service copy. (Master, Slave,
Service Copy)
 It requires special storage facilities to
keep well.
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8. Challenges of Digitizing
Newspapers
 Large size of page
 Variety and sizes of fonts
 Requires indexing for more efficient access
 Mixture of text, graphics and pictures on a
single page
 Layout
 Expense
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 Technology changes

9. International Digital Initiatives
 Offically established in 1999, ICON: International
Coalition on Newspapers develops strategies to
preserve and improve access to newspapers from
around the globe.
 It addresses issues about bibliographic access,
copyright and information dissemination.
 It addresses challenges related to the storage and
preservation of international newspaper collections.
 It provides access to bibliographic data to more
than25,000 newspaper titles.
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10. 4/14/12

11. International Initiatives
 Illinois Newspaper Project
 Since receiving funding in 2009, the INP has digitized
four titles that are now available on the Library of
Congress' Chronicling America web site:
 Chicago Eagle (1892-1920)
 The Broad Ax (1895-1922)
 The Day Book (1911-1917)
 The Cairo Bulletin (1868-1876)
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12. The Rizal Library Digitization
Project
 Newspapers on DVD from 2000 to the
present
 Can be browsed by date
 Searched by keywords
 Articles can be cropped and printed, saved
or emailed
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13. Why We Did It
 To respond to requests of subscribers
who
 Could not afford the equipment to read and
print from microfilm
 Could not afford to maintain the necessary
environmental conditions for storage of
films to prevent deterioration marked by the
vinegar syndrome.
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14. How we did it
 Prior to digitization, the Philippine Library
Materials Project (PLMP) conducted a
feasibility and market study.
 Findings indicated user preference for digital
over microfilm for five newspaper titles
 Scanned the market for microfilm scanners
 Conducted acceptability studies on the
product
 Made recommended changes
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15. How we do it
 Select and evaluate microfilm
 Obtain permission from the publisher and
execute MOA
 Scan microfilm using Eclipse Rollfilm Scanner
 Convert raw images to a database using DGX
software
 Index manually
 Produce DVD copies of the database with index.
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16. Microfilm Scanning
Equipment Eclipse Rollfilm Scanner
Pre-scan film cleaning (both sides),
adaptive speed control (20ppm-300 ppm)
OS Windows XP Professional,
Film polarities (positive and negative),
film size (16 and 35 mm),
film types (vesicular, blue and black diazo
and silver),
file formats (TIFF monochrome, TIFF
uncompressed, Multipage TIFF, JPEG,
CALS, PDF and JPEG 2000)
nextScan Fusion™ software
Output grayscale and bitonal at the same
time
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17. Newspapers on DVD
 Titles: 4 titles (2000- present )
 1 roll microfilm = 1 DVD, 1 year of
microfilm is 12- 24 rolls depending on the
title
 Title and name indexes and selected subjects
 Can crop and print selected articles
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18. Technology Concerns
 Will the media last?
 Will the media's hardware (reading device)
and its controlling software remain
available?
 How are the new policy issues to be handled
(copyright, fair use, etc.)?
 Is the process affordable?
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19. Preservation Issues
 Archiving of digital data. Anybody
involved in digitization processes is
facing the problem of long-term
archiving of digital data (Rosenthaler,
2007).
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20. Preservation pointers
(Rosenthaler, 2007)
 Longevity of digital data can be best
achieved by implementing a migration
model based on the following rules:
1) Redundancy. Data must be kept with a high
level of redundancy. At least three copies on a
minimum of two different types of storage
media (such as two copies on hard disk and
one copy on magnetic tape) should be kept at
geographically different locations.
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21. Preservation pointers
(Rosenthaler, 2007)
2) Checksums. For all data files, checksums
should be calculated and archived with the
data files. This allows for checking data
files at any time for aging-related changes
or errors
3) Proofreading. Every 12 to 24 months, the
data should be proofread and the
checksums compared. If errors are
detected, a migration should be launched
immediately.
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22. Preservation pointers
(Rosenthaler, 2007)
4) Migration: Migrations have to
be planned in advance, including
financing. A bit stream migration
is necessary about every 5 years. A
format migration is advised if a
new file format becomes standard
and the conversion can be done
without loss of data.
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23. Preservation pointers
 Lukas Rosenthaler (2006), Proposed using peer-to-
peer file networks on the Internet--the same
technology used to circulate pirated music files--as a
way of letting photographers of all stripes store their
work
Copies of encrypted digital files would be distributed
across a shared network of servers around the world,
which Rosenthaler calls Distarnet. "The idea is not to
give everyone access to the data, but to prevent data
loss," he says.
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24. Preservation Research
 Rosenthaler is currently looking at ways of using
microfilm, the old standby of archivists and librarians
everywhere, to preserve digital files.
 Rather than preserving the image itself, Rosenthaler's
proposal is to preserve the individual bits from the
image file as a series of light and dark dots indicating
the ones and zeros of the file. The method could also
be used to preserve music or even video information
for centuries in such a way that basic technology like
a microscope could be used to assemble the dots into
usable data.
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25. Plans
 Regularly conduct user surveys to obtain
feedback
 Keep abreast of technology developments
specially for long term storage standards,
and Information Retrieval software
 Digitize and make available newspapers
published below 2000
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26. Plans
 Upload into a digital repository for wider
access
 Look for and test automated indexing
systems such as OCR to lower indexing
expense and make indexing faster
 Look at feasibility of cloud computing
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27. Conclusion
 Click to edit the outline
 Users prefer the text format
digital format over  Second Outline
the microfilm Level
because of ease of − Third Outline
access, downloading, Level
and printing Fourth
Outline Level
 There are technology
− Fifth
and preservation Outline
issues to monitor Level
− Sixth

28. References
 Hesseldahl, Arik (2006) How To Preserve
Photos For 500 Years
http://www.forbes.com/2005/04/14/cx_ah_0414ph
 ICON. http://icon.crl.edu/
 Illinois Newspaper Project.
http://www.library.illinois.edu/inp/
 Ingram, Matthew (2010). What does the
future hold for newspapers?
http://gigaom.com/2010/03/28/what-does-the-fut
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29. Thank
you!
Lourdes T. David, Director, Rizal Library
Ateneo de Manila University
ltdavid@ateneo.edu
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