VTDNP: Starting a State Newspaper Digitization Program

Birdie MacLennan Project Director

University of Vermont

North American Serials Interest Group 27th Annual Conference

Nashville, Tennessee June 8, 2012

Tom McMurdo Project Librarian

University of Vermont

Birdie MacLennan Project Director

University of Vermont

Nashville, Tennessee June 8, 2012

State Projects

a partnership between the

The National Endowment for the Humanities & The Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/

A long-term, national effort to develop a freely-accessible, Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers

with descriptive information and select digitization of historical titles chosen and digitized by NEH-funded

institutions from all U.S. states and territories.

Build on efforts of the US Newspaper Program (1982-2007)

and the Vermont Newspaper Project (1996-2001)

to locate, catalog & preserve on microfilm

“at risk” newspapers from the 18th century to the present

http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/

• NEH offers two-year awards to

states to select and digitize

historically significant titles

published between 1836 and

1922.

• Library of Congress provides

technical support & guidelines.

• Newspaper content aggregated

and permanently maintained by

the Library of Congress on

Chronicling America website.

VT

• Vermont awarded funding in June 2010;

the 25th state – 1st in New England - to

join the NDNP.

• Phase I: June 2010 – August 31, 2012 (2 years)

• Statewide collaboration to select, digitize, and make available to the Library of Congress 100,000 pages of Vermont newspapers published between 1836 and 1922 from microfilm collections in Vermont.

• Content hosted on Chronicling America website at the Library of Congress; freely available (see: Vermont list )

4.8 million pages, May 2012.

Ilsley Public Library, Middlebury proposal research & development

Department of Libraries, Montpelier State Library, central newspaper repository, proposal r&d, USNP partner

Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Montpelier – Advisory, USNP partner

University of Vermont, Burlington project home base, proposal r&d, digital infrastructure, state newspaper database, USNP partner

NH

11

Project Planning Group

Core Member Institutions - Diverse state engagement

• Project Planning Group (6 members)

• State-wide Advisory Committee (12 members) - archivists, librarians, journalists, historians, researchers - applies selection criteria for digitization:

- Papers “of record” - Research value (representative of history) - Geographical coverage - Extended run

- Availability & quality of master microfilm negatives • Promotion, Outreach, Educational component

• Summer 2009 – Research, Planning - NDNP requirements - Title availability / Microfilm - Infrastructure / Support

• Fall 2009 – Developing partnerships - Cohesive Planning Group

Lead institution / Host site University of Vermont

Cost-share commitments Department of Libraries Ilsley Public Library

- Advisory Committee (if funded …)

• November 2009 – Proposal submitted • June 2010 – Funding awarded

Identify master negatives / Collaborative title selection (with Advisory Committee) Files for each original page or target on microfilm reels, including: TIFF, PDF, JPEG2000, OCR output (ALTO XML schema) and metadata files to conform to NDNP guidelines. Title essays (500 words) Technical analysis of microfilm (reduction ratio, skew, density, duplicate pages, targets, sequencing, etc.) & Metadata collation (frame-by-frame or page-by-page inspection of microfilm) Cataloging record updates in CONSER/OCLC databases and provision of links to digital content. Updates to local libraries records and VT

Newspaper Project database.

• July 2010 – Accounting infrastructure established

• August 2010 – National search launched for Project Librarian

• Sept. 2010 – Project communication tool established

using Basecamp Project Management software

Basecamp features: - Messaging - File-sharing - Calendar - To-do lists, etc. - New projects, as needed

Fall 2010 … Project Management Group

• Advisory Committee Briefing Book (based on Minnesota

model)

- Project information / scope

- Title selection criteria (NDNP guidelines)

- Vermont historical timelines/events

- Articulation of outreach/educational goals

beyond selection

• Title list analysis - 500+ titles (VTNP/USNP local database)

- breakdowns by county

- analysis of holdings (completeness of copy)

- inquiries for master negatives

• Request for Proposals (RFP) for Digitization Provider

Jan 2011 – Project Librarian, Tom McMurdo, joins VTDNP

Feb-Mar 2011 – List of master negatives obtained from VSARA -

Vermont State Archives & Record Administration

(held by: Department of Libraries)

Cross-referenced with titles and holdings from

(spreadsheet of titles identified w/in scope of grant proposal)

Reel and page count estimates

Identification of 59 titles/title families from all of

Vermont’s 14 counties); ~a million pages!

Montpelier – preservation microfilm collections

Lead time needed for frame-by-frame microfilm inspection and metadata collation

Jan-Feb 2011 – Advisory Committee corresponds on Basecamp

Face-to-face meeting postponed due to snow

Project historian / Vermont history librarian shares

preliminary title research from master list

Ranking form distributed

Production starts… Sample reel sent to vendors to convert for RFP response.

two major titles with lengthy runs selected for production queue

(available from State Archives)

Feb-Mar 2011 – Project Management Group

identifies 1 sample title on a compact reel (USNP film)

Title Ranking Form - Excel sheet/ranking form for Advisory Committee –

includes NDNP selection criteria (based on Pennsylvania template)

• Advisory Committee Selections: 12 titles from 10 (of 14) counties

• Positive working relationships

Generated state-wide energy & enthusiasm for project

Contact with Vermont and New England Press Associations

Potential for further outreach (historians, genealogists, schools)

• Digitization vendors evaluated; selection made: iArchives

3 Catalogers/Metadata Professionals engaged to launch production (.3 FTE)

Digital Support Specialist hired (half-time)

Microfilm Inspection

- Densitometer

- Light table

- Microscope

- Film loup

- White gloves

- Some paper-to-microfilm

conversion?

Lab set-up

Tom McMurdo inspects master negatives.

. Microfilming preparation.

Digital Preparation / Metadata Collation

- Dell workstation

- 24” monitor

- Microfilm reader (ScanPro 2000)

- 1 TB Hard Drives (Western Digital)

- Shipping cases (Pelican –durable)

- Project Back-up storage (6 TB)

12 title families in

10 of Vermont’s 14 counties

Title Selections 19th century

bannners

First title / Sample reel …

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

The day book (Chicago, Ill.), Apr. 2, 1912

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/

sn84023255/issues/

Catalog record updates!

(OCLC - CONSER, VTDNP

database, local state catalogs)

http://vtnp.uvm.edu/

“The only historical remains in the

United States are the newspapers: If

a number be wanting, the chain of

time is broken and the present is

severed from the past.”

-- Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America

Press innovation

Thanks

for

watching!