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News for Our Time THE COMMUNITY IS HELPING THE LIBRARY TO DIGITISE AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPERS, AS HILARY BERTHON EXPLAINS There is no doubt that the newspaper industry is in transition. With more readers than ever before accessing increasingly dynamic news content through mobile devices, the very word ‘newspaper’ is becoming difficult to define. Perhaps this is no surprise to the science-fiction buffs who, back in the 1960s, read Arthur C. Clarke’s classic novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which described ‘the last word in man’s quest for perfect communications’: a machine which could gather the headlines of any desired newspaper, and whose text was ‘updated automatically on the hour’. Alongside changes in how we interact with today’s news is a quiet revolution in how we access the stories of yesterday. In 2007, the Library commenced its ambitious Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program (ANDP). Now, more than 11 million pages of digitised newspapers can be accessed online through Trove, the Library’s free resource discovery service. This represents over 113 million articles from around 600 newspapers from all states and territories, from the earliest published newspaper in 1803 to mid-twentieth century publications. With fully searchable text, this corpus of digitised newspapers is providing a catalyst for new avenues of enquiry. The trends and patterns revealed by charting the frequency with which particular terms and words occur across the newspapers over time, for instance, can provide what Trove Manager and digital historian Tim Sherratt has described as ‘a fascinating playground’ for research. Even the casual home-based researcher or school student can experience the vibrant immediacy of these stories of our past. This program links to the heart of the Australian Newspaper Plan, a cooperative venture between the National Library and the state and territory libraries, which aims to enable communities to explore their rich heritage into the future by collecting, preserving and providing access to Australian newspapers. One of the newspapers that has been digitised for Trove is The North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser, first published 24::
at Ipswich in October 1855, and now regarded as Queensland’s first provincial newspaper. The product of a less hurried era than today, The North Australian recommended itself to readers by ‘The quantity of matter which we now publish—a copious history of every week's occurrence’, the ‘fitting type … capable of giving many words in a small compass, and … a bold, clear, and intelligible face’. As this piece in the 1856 New Year’s Day edition indicates, it took its responsibility seriously: It is written, that “ for every idle word thou shalt give an account,” and just is the decree, seeing that in the case of the Press every sentence is fraught with consequence, and on its issues depend the concord or discord of society. We are conscious of this truth, and our aim will be always to maintain, as far as it lies in our power, the integrity of this journal. In the same edition, a vivid picture is painted of the impact of rain on the landscape: Since our last the long expected rain, so much desired, has fallen, and refreshed the soil, which is now covered with a splendid mantle of green throughout the country. The water holes are filled to overflowing, and on Friday the Bremer was bank high; but as due precautions were used by the residents, no damage as far as we have learned has accrued to property. Yesterday the fresh had considerably subsided, and there is now every prospect of fine weather. The crops of corn are looking well, and promise a plentiful yield. The first step in digitising the newspapers which appear in Trove involves scanning them to create digital images. Although the original paper copy may be used, usually it is a microfilm of the newspaper that is scanned. This strip of film, containing images of each of the newspaper pages, has an expected lifetime of hundreds of years and has, traditionally, been the medium of choice for libraries wishing to preserve their newspapers. Following a quality-assurance check, the scans are processed using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to produce text which can be searched by users. Some of the text—such as headings and article abstracts— is manually typed in, so that readers can have a high degree of confidence in its accuracy. The pages are also divided into ‘zones’, each zone corresponding to a new article. Each article is categorised to assist users to find what they are looking for when searching. Immensely popular with the public has been the opportunity to add their knowledge to the newspaper content by correcting text (improving the accuracy of the OCR-generated text), and adding tags and comments. The Library also encourages the community to get involved by suggesting newspaper titles which they would like to have digitised, or even by sponsoring the digitisation of a newspaper. Such sponsorship has greatly contributed to the growing number of regional newspapers on Trove. Historical societies, libraries, museums and family-history groups have enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to contribute to their own stories as told through their newspapers. The digitisation of the Gippsland Guardian, supported by a local group—the Wellington Shire Heritage Network—is a case in point. This group of 21 historical societies, familyhistory groups and kindred organisations recognised the importance of making the Gippsland Guardian freely available to all users through Trove. According to Network spokesperson Linda Barraclough, ‘This is Gippsland's first opposite Maggie Diaz (b. 1925) Newspaper Seller, Melbourne c. 1965 b&w photograph; 30.4 x 29.9 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn6000897 above News Stand in a Railway Station Offering Newspapers Announcing the Attempt on the Life of King Edward VIII, Melbourne 1936 b&w photograph; 11.2 x 16 cm Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn5125990 below Craig Mackenzie (b. 1969) Readers Using Trove 2012 digital photograph THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA MAGAZINE :: DECEMBER 2013 :: 25
Page 1 and 2: DECEMBER 2013 THE NATIONAL LIBRARY
Page 3 and 4: VOLUME 5 NUMBER 4 DECEMBER 2013 The
Page 5 and 6: living under southern skies. The ex
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Page 9 and 10: from Pen to Paper ROGER MCDONALD is
Page 11 and 12: JOANNA GILMOUR PONDERS THE LEGACY L
Page 13 and 14: and sent home to demonstrate the ne
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Page 17 and 18: Not only a place of work, undergrou
Page 19 and 20: COLLECTIONS FEATURE Flames BY LINDA
Page 21 and 22: trip to Japan to study gardens in K
Page 23 and 24: Canberra as a Symbol of Nationhood
Page 25: (Western Australia), Minister for H
Page 29 and 30: The Cumberland Argus and Fruit Grow
Page 31 and 32: As he grew up, people took young Ar
Page 33 and 34: Friends of the National Library of
Page 35 and 36: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA MAPPI

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