Australian Newspapers, Digitised

December 16, 2008 4:22 AM

The Australian National Library is digitising newspapers.
posted by Fiasco da Gama (13 comments total)

Excellent... there's some great stuff here.
posted by strawberryviagra at 4:40 AM on December 16, 2008

!

thanks
posted by hayeled at 4:43 AM on December 16, 2008

From microfilm and fiche, by the looks of it. Paging Nicholson Baker...
posted by rory at 5:22 AM on December 16, 2008

There's a coverage chart on the "About" page. They're just getting started. Still, I found my buddy Ern. Thanks!
posted by steef at 6:17 AM on December 16, 2008

This looks like it will be good for some aimless fun - the first few I stumbled upon all had something interesting. This reminds me of the hours I could spend in the college library with a few rolls of Microfilm randomly browsing old newspapers. It was nice to do at the library, but it's been much cooler now that I can do it at home (in a more comfortable chair with the stereo).

Is there a good source that lists libraries with digitised newspapers? I'd even like to see some old foreign language papers (sometimes I'm looking for content, other times I'm just looking at the layouts and graphic elements).
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:01 AM on December 16, 2008

I just revealed my ignorance to my librarian wife the other day -- I had assumed libraries were already doing this and microfilm/fiche were dead media. She looked at me like I had three heads.
posted by Foosnark at 7:12 AM on December 16, 2008

Libraries have become self aware and are digesting newspapers for sustenance?!

*rereads headline*

Ah. Well. Carry on.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:24 AM on December 16, 2008

I hope the folks at the Library of Congress see this. They're trying to go digital by way of getting rid of the card catalog. To me that's throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Leave the card catalog alone. Digitize away but leave me a paper copy that I can hold in my sweet grubby hands.

In other news..The digitization of newspapers is needed badly because the paper used deteriorates so fast. After the patrons, the microfilm crew, and others get their hands on the paper it becomes a frail ghost of itself. Besides, I hate reading newspapers on antiquated microfilm readers.
posted by doctorschlock at 9:46 AM on December 16, 2008

digitizing newspapers. . . . so we can tell our grandchildren what they were.
posted by spock at 10:49 AM on December 16, 2008

They mention they have plans to release their system as some kind of package that other organizations could implement themselves, I hope this happens sooner rather than later because when my boss sees this I'm gonna have a lot of work to do implementing these ideas in our digitization workflow.
posted by Space Coyote at 12:17 PM on December 16, 2008

This is just absolutely great.
posted by stammer at 1:34 PM on December 16, 2008

Thanks Fiasco. I just read about my dad's 1926 bicycle accident. Broken bones, serious head injuries.... jeez, I'm glad he pulled through and lived another 50 years.

One nice thing about this system is the interactivity. I've just corrected the data input of a number of articles as the character recognition software is obviously having problems with the old type. As a newspaper freak and wanna-be librarian, this will be a fun way of doing internet volunteering.
posted by Kerasia at 1:57 PM on December 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wonderful implementation. Google and other newspaper digitizers should take notice.

I've already found references to an ancestor who was a ship captain there in the 1830s through the 1850s before taking a large load of supplies to the needy gold rush pioneers of San Francisco.

Now if only San Francisco would offer digitized newspapers from that period onward, I could get the complete story. But no.

The Bay Area: headquarters of Silicon Valley, AMD, Intel, Google, Yahoo, and ... nothing. (If you know if it exists somewhere and I've just missed it, let me know!)
posted by eye of newt at 10:55 PM on December 17, 2008