Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Newspaper articles, SLV and NLA

Yesterday I went back to SLV to explore their newspaper collections. My experience was intriguing, yet at times frustrating. Thankfully libraries are moving away from antiquated methods, and moving into the 21st century, even if quite slowly.

I decided that I wanted to find newspaper articles from the first 20 years of the library. I wanted to gain understanding about how the library was established, promoted, and perceived.

I started out using the automated text digitisation on the SLV databases. This allowed for key word searching, and other basic database options. It gave access to some articles about the library, however the true text was not preserved. Choice could appear as Koise, etc. Although the basic details of the articles were presented, it couldn't be relied upon for accurate research. I decided that I needed to seek out more proven methods. I set upon using the newspaper indexes.

The SLV has some great indexes for The Argus, one of the newspapers prominent at the time. There are two sets of indexes, which were created by two different people.

The first index was created by John A. Feely in the mid 1960s, and ranges 1844-1859. It has functionality, although slightly more limited than the other. Its layout was performed with a typewriter, and doesn't have as easy to follow presentation. The layout involved a single paragraph for each entry. It had the subcategory annotation then date followed by pagination in brackets. I am embracing of his introduction for the 1857 index, which reads: "The Index for 1857 is for anyone's use. I trust that those who use it will derive as much pleasure from following careers of the good men, the bad men and the in-between men whose names are listed there-in as I have had - and hope to continue to have before I meet them wherever they are." Very much a sexist comment. But insightful of what the index provides. His index was a gateway to the past, through which I hope to walk through again at some point in the future. So many interesting articles!

The second was by Gerldine Suter and covered 1960-1869, and published in 1999. This was bound bi-annually, but not integrated in printing. Meaning I had to look up the same subject term twice in the one volume. Something which I embarrasingly discovered a few volumes in to my search. The layout was done on computer. It had a separate line for each subcategory. The article entry was reverse date PAGEcolumn, e.g. 600302 7b = 02/03/1860 Page 7 Column 2. (The inclusion of a column listing greatly helped with searching, as some were as small as a classified ad, whilst printed on a broadsheet.)

Both had great subcategories. These helped in locating the articles that were appropriate. Many were brief annotation subcategories, so you didn't have to look up every "theft" article to find out one was about a response to the problem. Both had articles listed in order of date of first article. Meaning the order of searching was worked out (although some second articles stuffed this up).

I had my article details, now I needed to search for them. I set myself to using the microfilm. This was at times a tedious process. Sometimes the roll didn't catch on to the second reel. And one of the rolls was in reverse, so wound out in a big mess. With some careful work I unwound it and then rolled back in the correct direction (doubt the average person would bother with this though. A shortcoming of microfilm.). Scanning and printing was quite tedious, as it didn't give a true image copy of what appeared on the screen (reading the text is quite hard). I also had to constantly fiddle with focusing and brightness/contrast settings. On default it comes out completely black. And even with improvement, some of the article was lost to glare. I saved the article as a serious of JPEGs to tack together later. After one article I was over the whole process.

Fortunately I discovered a full digitised edition of the Argus on the NLA website. This allowed greater searching. I could put in the date and page number, and be lead straight to the article. One can easily zoom in, with no need to focus. The article sections can be specifically selected for easier export (although the specific sections were poorer quality than the whole article! No gain in using this feature). One can save it as a PDF or an image file. I found this deterorated quality than what was provided by the screen. So I made a series of screen shots to maintain readability. The digitisation is more user-friendly, but still has some problems to be teased out. Also it is very limited, as only one major newspaper from every state is digitised. It is certainly the way of the future for archiving newspapers.

Another interesting feature is PressDisplay. You can read a newspaper in digital format in print layout. However this only provides the last 60 days of a limited range of papers in print . But you can read newspapers from Morocco, Austria, and just about any other country in the world; all from the comfort of your lounge room or favourite cafe. Copyright would be an issue, but this is another way of archiving newspapers other than text based databases. And allows for the full article.

Advancements are being made with newpapers, and greater research avenues are being created. It is a slow process, but libraries are offering their patrons a wealth of opportunities, that no one else cares to provide.

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