DM1901

Dm CASE STUDY: NEW YORK TIMES
Moving with the Times
For over 100 years the New York Times archived millions of items of editorial content
in physical cabinets in the basement of its Times Square offices, and now they are
accessible again having been digitised via Google Cloud
its contents have tremendous historical
value - some that are not stored anywhere
else in the world. In 2015, a broken pipe
flooded the archival library, putting the
entire collection at risk. Luckily, only minor
damage was done, but the event raised
the question: How can some of the
company's most precious physical assets be
safely stored?
The New York Times has announced
that it is leveraging the power of
Google Cloud technology to digitise an
extensive collection of photographs dating
back to as early as the late 19th century. The
process will uncover some never-beforeseen-documents,
equip Times journalists
with an easily accessible historical reference
source, and preserve The Times's history, one
of its most unique assets.
The New York Times was founded in 1851,
and has won 125 Pulitzer Prizes, more than
any other newspaper. The NYT is ranked
17th in the world by circulation and 2nd in
the U.S. In addition to its New York City
headquarters, the paper has newsrooms in
London and Hong Kong.
Prior to the Google Cloud digitisation
millions of photographs, along with tens of
millions of historical news clippings,
microfilm records and other archival
materials, existed only in a physical archive
three levels below ground near The Times
headquarters in New York City called "The
New York Times Archival Library," also
known as the "morgue." Though The Times
officially began clipping and saving articles
in the 1870s, they were not formally
codified into a library until 1907.
The morgue contains photos from as far
back as the late 19th century, and many of
DIGITISING THE MORGUE
"The morgue is a treasure trove of perishable
documents that are a priceless chronicle of
not just The Times's history, but of nearly
more than a century of global events that
have shaped our modern world," said Nick
Rockwell, chief technology officer, The New
York Times.
It's not only the photos' imagery that
contains valuable information. In many cases
the back of the photos include the time
when and the place where the photo was
taken. Adds Rockwell: "Staff members across
the photo department and on the business
side have been exploring possible avenues
for digitising the morgue's photos for years.
But as recently as last year, the idea of a
digitised archive still seemed out of reach."
"We've always known that we were sitting
on a trove of historical photos and now,
cloud technology allows us to not only
preserve this archival source, but easily
search and pull photos to provide even
more historical context," said Monica
Drake, assistant managing editor, The New
York Times. "Ultimately, this digitalisation
will equip Times journalists with useful
tools to make it easier to tell even more
visual stories."
"Google Cloud technologies like Cloud
Storage, Cloud Pub/Sub, and Cloud Vision
API are helping to preserve this priceless
history and give journalists a new way to
search, access, and analyse millions of
historic photos and give them new life," said
Brian Stevens, chief technology officer,
Google Cloud. "Cloud technology is allowing
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January/February 2019
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