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The Wisconsin Public Library Consortium, in partnership with Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS), Wisconsin Newspaper Association (WNA), and Recollection Wisconsin, is undertaking a pilot project to provide access to digitized historical newspapers.
The goals of the pilot are:
- To educate the Wisconsin public library community on newspaper digitization best practices and challenges, including copyright.
- To develop procedures for securing and loading content into a centralized platform.
- To provide proof of concept for a centralized model for digitized newspaper content in Wisconsin.
The pilot will load 90,000 pages of digitized historical newspapers alongside current newspapers in the same interface and platform used for BadgerLink: http://badgerlink.dpi.wi.gov/resource/wisconsin-newspaper-association-digital-research-site
WiLS and Recollection Wisconsin will work with the Wisconsin Historical Society to create digital copies of microfilmed newspapers, including appropriate file naming in order for metadata to be created upon ingestion into the WNA platform. WiLS will work with WHS to manage the transfer of files to WNA. WNA will load content into the existing platform run by Tecnavia, a third-party e-publishing provider. Tecnavia will process the content, which includes formatting the pages and extracting text for searching. Once the content is available in the WNA platform, the pilot libraries will review and test the collections before sharing with patrons.
As this work is being done, WiLS and Recollection Wisconsin will document procedures and best practices, including work related to acquiring rights for newspaper content.
Read more about this project, why and how to participate, and what to do if your content is already digitized.
Read more about the pilot libraries and titles, the pilot selection criteria, benefits to the pilot libraries, and how the project is being funded.
The pilot will conclude by early 2016 and a review of the pilot will be conducted and presented to the WPLC board at their February meeting.
Questions? Contact Emily Pfotenhauer, Recollection Wisconsin Program Manager at WiLS, at emily@wils.org or 608-616-9756.