Digital archives: Free or subscription-based?

Digitized newspaper delivery and archiving. Image created with BitStrips

“Google News Archive” provided free digital access to more than a century’s worth of newspapers in the Milwaukee area. At “Urban Milwaukee,” Michail Takach asks why listings for local newspapers suddenly disappeared. The answer concerns privatized digitization through a subscription-model database, and should make compelling reading for anyone interested in how the shift from print to digital publishing impacts historical archiving.

Newspapers are archived at libraries, Part 2

In her response to the first part of my post on obsolete technology for LIBT 115, a  classmate highlights the importance of “Library 2.0.”

She points out that many people use libraries to access daily news; “most probably don’t realize the staff training, selection, maintenance, access issues, and high costs related to providing digital periodicals.”

Her comments seem an ideal starting point for the second part of my post, which concerns digital content.

As I see it, here are some issues related to digital curation. First is a question of ownership. Does the library physically own its collection or does it negotiate access for its patrons the way it does with a database subscribership?

If the latter, are multiple publishers’ offerings grouped in a single point of access? Or must the library negotiate individually with each digital publisher?

Do the publishers distribute their digital content across systems that are proprietary? Or can a common reading device access multiple publications? In addition to maintaining digital items in their collections, will libraries make available the reading devices too?

As news publishers continue their shift away from print newspapers toward multi-platform digital content, libraries will need to address new ways to preserve history for future generations.

Newspapers are archived at libraries, Part 1

For our lesson and discussion this week in LIBT 115, Technology in the workplace, our instructor has asked each student to name one old or obsolete piece of audiovisual equipment, electronic technology, or computer hardware. “Maybe many of you still touch this equipment in your day to day work activities.”

The “audiovisual equipment” that I touch in my day-to-day activities, is a daily newspaper. The pulp-printed newspaper is increasingly near-obsolete as publishing companies shift to a greater emphasis on digital.

What does this mean for libraries? There are two ways that libraries provide news for their patrons. The first way is by physically storing papers or microfilm. The access to these resources allows patrons an opportunity to browse community history.

The Lake County Library offers several titles in its historic newspaper collection for Lake County, Calif. The list of its holdings includes dates and notes to the files’ condition.

Through interlibrary loan, libraries can make spools of microfilmed newspapers available to readers outside the immediate area.

The second way is through subscription databases that archive journal and newspaper articles. The cardholder at a library that subscribes to a particular database can search and access articles in its archives. The Cuesta College Library subscribes to ProQuest, NewsBank, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Students enrolled in the school have access to these databases.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Letters are part of history

The newspaper was always a part of our household while my sister and I grew up. I routinely read our local newspaper, the Weekly Calistogan, either through at-home subscription or during visits to the Calistoga library. Newspaper clippings about us girls were preserved in photo albums.

The larger, regional newspaper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, also regularly came to our home. This paper offered little of relevance to my immediate hometown community but it took on greater interest to me when I lived and worked in the Santa Rosa area.

While I was going to school at Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State University, I spent time upon the staff of each of these schools’ student newspapers. I also read the alternative press. I formerly looked forward each week to its investigative journalism but today the North Bay Bohemian mainly covers restaurants and wine.

So many papers, large and small, including our own local media: the Clear Lake Observer American and the Lake County Record-Bee.

What all of these papers have in common is that the very first page I turn to, in nearly every newspaper I read, is the opinion page. It offers an intimate, first-hand glimpse in real-time at the issues of importance that are being debated in a local community.

At the same time, these letters’ publication preserves them forever in history. They are personal impressions and experiences brought to life in the writer’s own words.

The Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (www.bte.org) created a play, “Letters to the Editor,” from actual letters that appeared in one town’s paper during a period of 200 years. I remember that when I first heard about the play, I speculated about the history that our own papers’ letters will reveal.

If another theater ensemble workshop were to examine our letters to the editor, what issues will they find of most importance? How many voices will be represented?

The most egalitarian part of writing a letter to the editor is that the letters that appear in print are almost entirely self-selected, as are the priorities and opinions they express. There may be some filters in place for space restrictions or community standards, but by and large the only barrier is one that is self-imposed by choosing not to write in the first place.

Adapted from a column that was published July 29, 2008 in the Lake County Record-Bee