Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program

[Currie]

National Library of Australia
http://www.nla.gov.au/ndp/index.html

Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program
About the program

The National Library of Australia, in collaboration with each Australian state and territory library, has commenced a program to digitise out of copyright newspapers.

The aim is to build a service that will provide free online access from the first Australian newspaper published in 1803 through to 1954 newspapers. The digitisation program will vastly improve access for all Australians to one of the most valuable research resources on Australian history and culture. The cost of the initial 4 year phase, funded by the National Library is expected to be more than $8 million. In the initial phase one major newspaper from each Australian state and territory will be digitised, amounting to 3.5 million pages of content.

State and territory libraries and other owners of quality master microfilm will provide microfilm versions of relevant newspapers for the digitisation process. The microfilm will be scanned and digital images created. These will then be converted into full text searchable files through the use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. The program supports the goals of the Australian National Plan for Australian Newspapers (ANPLAN), which is a co-operative initiative of the national, state and territory libraries to preserve and make accessible all newspapers ever published in Australia.

The National Library of Australia is developing software and infrastructure to support this mass digitisation program. The online search and delivery solution is being developed in-house and is based on already available software known as Lucene. This approach will allow the Library to integrate the newspapers service with its other search and delivery services.

The Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program commenced on 1st March 2007. Initially a pilot is being undertaken to digitise 50,000 pages by September 2007. The next step will see an additional 500,000 pages digitised by mid- 2008 comprising the following titles:

* The Sydney Gazette (1803–1842)
* The Maitland Mercury (1843–1893)
* The Argus (1846–1899)
* The Courier Mail (1846–1899)
* The Hobart Town Gazette, Courier (1816–1859)
* The Adelaide Advertiser (1858–1889)
* The West Australian (1833–1879)
* The Northern Territory Times (1873–1899)

A date for the public launch of the service has not yet been set. This website is still being developed and will be updated to include more detailed information as the program progresses.

How's that for good news. It would explain why the Sydney Morning Herald site starts from 1955.
Alan

[Anne H]

Hi Alan,

Good news for all those with Australian connections. Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
Anne H