From historical newspaper to e-newspaper. Challenge for libraries

Abstract

More and more often we face the reality that news are moving from the static paper media to the web environment. For libraries it is quite a challenge to cope with the situation. In order to deal with the variability of data, different kind of media is used. Very often the key is in the operativity to build the relations between archival systems and digital objects, and to keep track of the decisions made for data acquisition, long term preservation and access. Usually it is not easy to use automated processes on a vast scale for that – what is needed is quite a considerable amount of human activity. The decisions we have to take are very different in origin.

In the National Library of Estonia there are 3 kind of different workflows used for newspapers. Preservation digitisation is used for old paper newspapers, fragile in origin. Here digitisation minimises the risks on media and formats, makes it possible to limit the access to the original.

Voluntary deposit of newspaper preprint files is used as a means of preserving the outlook and the content of the printed newspaper in electronic format. This one allows remarkable saving for libraries, avoiding the need for further digitisation, and makes it possible to build new library services on the article-level content.

Web archiving is a challenge that we cannot overlook any longer. What is the sufficient frequency and depth when archiving the newspaper publications from the web? The paper tries to give a short overview of the current situation in Estonia in terms of processing the newspapers in different media.