making florida newspaper collections available to all

Making Florida Newspaper

Collections Available to All

1Pre Survey link: https://ufl.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0lxB2zFuiqqmt5I

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Fletcher Durant

Conservation and Preservation

University of Florida (UF)

George A. Smathers Libraries

April Hines

Journalism and Mass

Communications Librarian

University of Florida (UF)

George A. Smathers Libraries

Chelsea Dinsmore

Digital Support Services

University of Florida (UF)

George A. Smathers Libraries

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This project was funded under the

provisions of the Library Services and

Technology Act from the Institute of

Museum and Library Services. Florida’s

LSTA program is administered by the

Department of State’s Division of Library

and Information Services

Overview

▷ Pre-Survey

▷ Moving forward with Microfilm

▷ Florida Digital Newspaper Library Project

▷ How to Use the FDNL

▷ Questions and Comments

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1.Microfilm

Moving forward to save the past

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Microfilm at the

University of Florida

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17,453 master reels of

newspapers

65 counties

8116 reels of Florida

newspapers

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Digital

2005 – PresentFDNL and CNDL founded in

2005

Print

1905 – Present

Microfilm

1930s – 2008UF microfilmed newspapers

from across Florida, Latin

America, and Africa.

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Digital

2005 – Present

FDNL and CNDL

founded in 2005

Print

1905 – Present

Microfilm

1930s – 2008UF microfilmed newspapers

from across Florida, Latin

America, and Africa.

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Print-to-Digital

Digital

2005 – Present

FDNL and CNDL

founded in 2005

Print

1905 – Present

Microfilm

1930s – 2008UF microfilmed newspapers

from across Florida, Latin

America, and Africa.

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Print-to-Digital

Digital

Digitization is

Access +

Preservation

“Vinegar Syndrome” or

cellulose acetate

deterioration puts older

microfilm collections at risk

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Daniel D. Teoli

Jr.

CC BY-SA 4.0

From the Library

Stacks to the Web

Digitization of out-of-

copyright newspapers

allows for patrons to access

historic newspapers from

anywhere.

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Digitization Outputs

▷ .TIFF, .JPEG, .JP2000,

.PDF, .TXT

▷ OCR text files and PDFs

▷ Fully searchable and

viewable

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Front-to-Back

Preservation and

Access

Scanned files enter the UF

Digital Collections and the

UF storage infrastructure to

ensure long-term

preservation.

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2.

Florida Digital Newspaper Library

Project

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https://ufdc.ufl.edu/

ufdc.ufl.edu/fdnl1

▷ The Florida Digital Newspaper Library exists to

provide access to the history of Florida news. All

of the over 2.9 million pages of historic through

current Florida newspapers in the Florida Digital

Newspaper Library are openly and freely

available to read and search. The Florida Digital

Newspaper Library builds on the work done in

microfilm within the Florida Newspaper Project

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.

922 Florida newspapers

All 67 counties

2,901,731 pages

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Why?

Why?

▷ A shrinking number of working microfilm

readers around the state

▷ The journalistic history of Florida, as far

back as the 1880s, is unevenly presented

in current the FDNL.

▷ It’s not always possible to go to the library.

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Why?

▷ Why should we reformat this content?

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Why?

▷ Full text searching

▷ Searching across titles

▷ Access to the text files for data mining

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Why?

▷ But, who reads old newspapers?

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Why?

▷ But, who reads old newspapers?

○ Total # of views - 307,880,268

○ Students

○ Genealogists

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Making Florida News Accessible

▷ Convert 200,000 images from microfilm

○ 33 titles,

○ representing 15 Florida counties

▷ Partner with the MLC’s to provide these

trainings

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Selection Criteria for 2020-21

▷ Focus on counties with limited FDNL coverage

▷ Focus on longer runs to the extent possible.

▷ 15 counties and 33 titles

▷ Bay, Brevard, Citrus, De Soto, Duval,

Escambia, Hernando, Leon, Manatee, Orange,

Palm Beach, Polk, St. Johns, St. Lucie, and

Volusia

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New and Expanded Titles Include

▷ Manatee River Journal

▷ Arcadia Daily News

▷ Florida Dispatch

▷ Lakeland Morning Star

▷ Panama City Pilot

▷ Hernando News

▷ Crystal River News

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How to use FDNL

April Hines

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Next Steps for FDNL

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Questions or Comments?

Chelsea Dinsmore chelseaz@ufl.ed

Fletcher Durant fdurant@ufl.edu

April Hines aprhine@uflib.ufl.edu

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