Project Overview 

The California Preservation Program, an LSTA-funded program under the direction of the Peninsula Library System, San Mateo, CA to provide preservation services to libraries statewide, was charged with reviewing options and costs for creating online access to California's historical newspapers by digitizing preservation microfilm. The charge led to the creation of the California Newspaper Digitization Project, which is anticipated to consist of several phases, assuming success at each phase:

Phase 1: Feasibility Study (January - June 04)
Phase 2: Selection of Service Providers and Funding (July 04 - June 05)
Phase 3: Production (July 05- June 06)

Phase 1: Feasibility Study

Goals:

1. Determine the amount of information able to be captured digitally from existing microfilm of historical California newspapers, using a film of Alta California (the earliest California newspaper with statewide scope) as the test case.
2. Document the strengths and limitations of available newspaper search and retrieval software to return meaningful results to researchers' queries.
3. Compare benefits and costs among providers of digitization/digital content management services, and compare these to options for partnering with vendors of commercial online newspaper databases available by subscription.
4. Estimate production requirements and costs to create a database of historical California newspapers of sufficient scope and size (estimated at one million pages) to become a significant information resource for the study of California history.
5. Create a publicly accessible website to report the findings of the Study, to showcase the benefits of online access to historical newspapers, and to enable providers of services as well as vendors of subscription databases to demonstrate the value of their products and services.

Plan of work:

1. Create a test roll of microfilm to capture the scope of problems with newspaper microfilm made from the 1950s through the 1970s.
2. Invite digitization service providers and digital content management software firms to participate in a demonstration of products and services to provide online access to historical newspapers. Each service provider/database vendor receives an identical copy of the test roll of microfilm with which to create a test database.
3. Create an evaluation group consisting of newspaper historians, newspaper and reference librarians, genealogists, and library users to represent a broad range of needs for and uses of California historical newspapers
4. Have the evaluation group review all the test databases to determine features and levels of functionality required for online access to historical newspapers, and compare strengths and limitations of the test databases.
5. Summarize findings from the evaluation group; create a list of recommendations for the production product; provide estimates of costs to create the desired production product. Create a publicly accessible Project website to report the findings of the Study, to showcase the benefits of online access to historical newspapers, and to enable service providers to demonstrate their test databases.

Project participants

Production group:
Andrea Vanek, California Newspaper Project
Tom McMurdo, California Newspaper Project
Max Osinovsky, UCB Preservation Department Replacement Division
Charles Stewart, UCB Preservation Department Microfilming Service
Barclay Ogden, California Preservation Program (Project coordinator)

Service providers / partners
Apex Epublishing Data Conversion Services
BMI Imaging
Bytemanagers / iArchives
Cold North Wind
Digital Divide Data
Northern Micrographics
OCLC / Olive and ContentDM / iArchives
TechBooks / Newsbank/ iArchives
Zissor

Evaluation group
Lucy Barber, California State Archives
Pete Basofin, Sacramento Bee Library
Joan Berman, Humboldt State University
Ira Bray, California State Library
Paula Brown, Chula Vista Public Library
Gary Kurutz, California State Library
Berta Makow, California State Library
Julie Page, California Preservation Program
Lorraine Perrotta, Huntington Library
Laurie Thompson, Marin County Free Library
Andrea Vanek, California Newspaper Project
Barbara Will, California State Library