Digitized Finnish Newspapers in Digital Humanities Research Projects: Challenges and Solutions from the Library Perspective

Abstract

Libraries have a direct influence on digital humanities (DH) research projects that utilize digitized newspapers from their collections. However, a library’s level of participation in a project will vary and may range from resource provider to active collaborator. Libraries must manage the different expectations of each project; thus, a variety of services are needed.

The National Library of Finland continuously aims to improve its services and provide researchers with broader access to digitized collections. The library’s DH research team has extensive experience in research projects, and they actively support the work of DH researchers. In this paper, I present an overview of the experiences of the DH research team. I focus on projects that have used digitized historical newspapers and journals, and I outline a range of potential problems and suggest possible solutions.