Digital Newspaper Collections:

If You Build One, Who Will Visit?

By Frederick Zarndt

(Global Connexions)

Day 1: 8th April 2014

Session II

Content Development: Accelerating and Enriching Digital

Content Creation

Frederick Zarndt has worked with historic and contemporary newspaper, journal,

magazine, book, and records digitisation since computer speeds, software, technology,

storage, and costs first made it practical. Frederick has experience in every aspect of

digitisation projects including project requirements development, project management,

conversion operations (both in-house and outsourced), acceptance testing, software

development for production and delivery of digital data, and digital preservation.

Frederick is current secretary and former chair of the IFLA Newspapers Section. He’s

the administrative chair of the ALTO XML Editorial Board and a member of the METS

Editorial Board. Frederick has 25+ years experience in software development and is a

member of ACM and IEEE and a Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP).

He is a member of ALA and IFLA. Frederick has Master's Degrees in Computer Science

and Physics.

Frederick Zarndt Global Connexions

digital newspaper collections:

if you build one, who will visit?

Frederick ZarndtIFLA Newspapers Sectionfrederick@frederickzarndt.com@cowboyMontanahashtag #IFLAnewspaper

about digital newspapers

• programs

• collections

• users / crowdsourcing

San Francisco Call 21 April 1906

why digitize newspapers?

“News is only the first rough draft of history.”

Alan Barth writing for 1943Washington Post

Wikipedia contributors, “Alan Barth," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Barth (accessed March 2014).

to preserve

to provide access

why digitize newspapers?

• newspapers are deteriorating

• microfilm is dissolving

• no storage space or space is too expensive

• newspapers are deteriorating

• microfilm is dissolving

• no storage space or space is too expensive

• newspapers are deteriorating

• microfilm is dissolving

• no storage space or space is too expensive

• newspapers are deteriorating

• microfilm is dissolving

• no storage space or space is too expensive

the principal reason to digitize newspapers is to provide non-destructive, universal

access to newspapers for as many users as possible

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Monthly average

Visitors Requests for Newspapers

Population Reading Room Microform Print

Australia 22,876,000 5,130 345 240

France 65,350,000 3,000 2,000 1,000

Netherlands 16,847,000 NA NA NA

New Zealand 4,414,000 NA NA NA

Norway 4,985,000 600 400 NA

Singapore 5,184,000 NA 300 NA

UK 62,262,000 2,000 6,900 4,816

USA 313,292,000 NA NA NA

*numbers from 2012

physical versus digital

monthly averages 2012

requests for newspapers digitised historical newspapers

population paper + microform unique visitors

22,876,000 585 150,000

37,692,000 NA 12,800

5,405,000 NA NA

65,350,000 3,000 22,000

16,847,000 NA 50,000

4,414,000 NA 83,333

4,985,000 400 1,500

5,184,000 300 12,400

62,262,000 11,716 NA

313,292,000 NA NA

Image from http://www.visualinsight.net/nc/gallery/pages/e-Preservation.html

• newspaper digitization is expensive

• newspaper digitization is complicated

• digital preservation is expensive

• digital preservation is untested

BUT …

programs

programs

National

Cooperative

Ind

ivid

ua

l

national: a single (national) library which funds and manages a national newspapers digitization program.

• Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand

• Newspaper SG, National Library of Singapore

• Historiallinen Sanomalehtikirjasto, National Library of Finland

• and others …

programs

national: centrally funded and centrally managed program with several participants. strict standards for participants.

• National Digital Newspaper Program (Library of Congress)

• Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program

programs

cooperative: organizations collaborate to achieve a common goal but digitization programs are managed separately. flexible standards.

• Europeana newspapers

• Digital Public Library of America

programs

individual: organization digitizes on its own. may or, more usually, does not follow open standards. all commercial organizations.

• ProQuest Historical Newspapers

• Newspapers.com

• Newsbank

• many others…

programs

• the design of a digitization program requires careful thought and must be adapted to local circumstances

• determine principal or targeted user demographic and use cases

• ask those who have gone before

• join the IFLA Newspapers Section! (ask me how)

programs

Image courtesy of Donald Zolan.

collections

as of Mar 2014

library collection ~size pages dates

National Library of Australia Trove 12,668,000 1803-1995

California Digital Newspaper Collection CDNC 545,000 1846-2012

Naitonal Library of Finland Historical Newspaper Library 3,006,000 1771-1919

Bibliotheque nationale de France Gallica 2,200,000 1293-2000

Koninklijke Bibliotheek Historische Kranten 9,000,000 1618-1995

National Library of New Zealand Papers Past 3,109,000 1839-1945

National Library of Norway NBDigital Aviser 12,000,000 1763-2012

Singapore National Library Newspaper SG 2,400,000 1831-2009

British Library British Newspaper Archive 7,598,000 1710-1954

Library of Congress Chronicling America 7,293,000 1836-1922

digital historic newspaper collections

1

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1,000

10,000

100,000

1,000,000

10,000,000

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unique visits page views

2013 monthly averages

0

1,500,000

3,000,000

4,500,000

6,000,000

7,500,000

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unique visits page views

2013 monthly averages

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

NewspaperSG Infopedia iRememberSG

unique visits number of visits page views

2013 monthly averages

February 2014

123,889 53,897

2,527,926

517,823

0

500000

1000000

1500000

2000000

2500000

3000000

Papers Past National Library except Papers Past

unique visits page views

2013 monthly averages

90%

10% 0%

Historic Cambridge Newspapers (1846-1923)

Cambridge City Directories (1848 - 1910)

Cambridge Chronicle (August 2005 to present)

users

Newspaper collectionuser survey

• California Digital Newspaper Collection and Cambridge Public Library published a user survey in Mar 2013

• 604 / 32 responses

• surveys are (mostly) identical except for organization name

John Herbert and Randy Olsen. “Small town papers: Still delivering the news”. Paper given at 2012 World Library and

User demographic:genealogists and family historians

John Herbert and Randy Olsen. “Small town papers: Still delivering the news”. Paper given at 2012 World Library and

User demographic:no spring chickens

John Herbert and Randy Olsen. “Small town papers: Still delivering the news”. Paper given at 2012 World Library and

X

User demographic:reasons for use

John Herbert and Randy Olsen. “Small town papers: Still delivering the news”. Paper given at 2012 World Library and

User demographic:types of information

John Herbert and Randy Olsen. “Small town papers: Still delivering the news”. Paper given at 2012 World Library and

• 72% visit UDN for genealogical research• 20% visit for various other types of historical research• 87% find obituaries useful• Over 60% find the other genealogical article types (birth

and wedding announcements) useful• Only 7% do not find genealogical articles useful• Many are writing family histories and consequently also

look for general background information• Older content is much more highly valued than more recent

content (see more detailed explanation that follows)• 44% find smaller, rural papers more useful, while only 15%

find larger, metropolitan papers more useful

Utah Digital Newspapers:2012 user survey

John Herbert and Randy Olsen. Small town papers: still delivering the news. WLIC 2012, Helsinki Finland. http://conference.ifla.org/past-wlic/2012/119-herbert-en.pdf

“The ‘typical’ Trove user is a very well educated, highly paid, English speaking employed woman aged fifty or over, with a significant or primary interest in family or local history, who visits the Trove website very frequently. Users of Trove newspapers are older than the average Trove user; only 13% of newspaper users are under 40 years or age.”

Marie-Louise Ayres. ‘Singing for their supper’: Trove, Australian newspapers, and the crowd. WLIC 2013,Singapore. http://library.ifla.org/245/1/153-ayres-en.pdf.

Engaged users: who are they?

“Many of Trove’s user engagement features are very popular. More than 100,000 users have registered to date, and more than 2 million tags and nearly 60,000 comments had been added… [Trove] text correction, however, stands head and shoulders above any other user engagement features.”

Marie-Louise Ayres. ‘Singing for their supper’: Trove, Australian newspapers, and the crowd. WLIC 2013,Singapore. http://library.ifla.org/245/1/153-ayres-en.pdf.

Engaged users: who are they?

Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting

contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. ... [It] is different from ordinary

outsourcing since it is a task or problem that is outsourced to an undefined public rather than

a specific, named group.

Wikipedia contributors, "Crowdsourcing," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing (accessed March 17, 2013)

Why correct text?

Here’s why ...

Deaths. lln»rieff, Esq. of <c .. Qn.Sunday, the till. greatly Drandrellt, ofOrms4\irJi.- ~ ; ;✓ ' • * On ijfr r innljjjil F iij '11 f Havodivyd,Carnarvonshire, S ; **" *- ' « ' MarchOxford, F. Tfovmeud, Uerald. » • V .•On Tncsdav last, Mr. Charles.IWilinson, this 8 ; had vf thesis#,, a weekago, which tcrminate<i'iu his death. . / ' ■O'i Sunday, dJst nit. at. AsbtCnvHall,mar Lancaster, Mr.,Geo. Worn ick,many years house'steward hit late OnceThe Hamilton and Brandon. He lockedhimself h»oWn'r«wte<: soon. twelveo'clock" that dny, and fii»-d a loaded pistol"through Ins bead, 1 whichinstantaneously killed him. Coronet'sVerdict, shot himself in a temporary fit ofFriday week,

raw OCR text

Excerpt from The British Newspaper Archive, Chester Courant, Tuesday 6-Apr-1819, page 3.

newspaper image

Accuracy

• Edwin Kiljin (Koninklijke Bibliotheek the Netherlands) reports raw OCR character accuracies of 68% for early 20th century newspapers

• Rose Holley (National Library of Australia) reports raw OCR character accuracy varied from 71% to 98% on a sample Trove digitized newspapers

Rose Holley. How good can it get? Analysing and improving OCR accuracy in large scale historic newspaper digitisation programs. D-Lib Magazine. March/April 2009.

Edwin Kiljin. The current state-of-art in newspaper digitization. D-Lib Magazine. January/February 2008.

uncorrected OCR accuracy by newspaper title

titleOCR character

accuracy~OCR word

accuracy*

PRP Pacific Rural Press 1871 - 1922 92.6% 68.1%

SFC San Francisco Call 1890 - 1913 92.6% 68.1%

LAH Los Angeles Herald 1873 - 1910 88.7% 54.9%

LH Livermore Herald 1877 - 1899 88.6% 54.6%

DAC Daily Alta California 1841 - 1891 88.2% 53.4%

CFJ California Farmer and Journalof Useful Sciences 1855 - 1880

86.5% 48.4%

SN Sausalito News 1885 - 1922 70.4% 17.3%

*Word accuracy assumes average word length is 5 characters

OCR accuracy by newspaper title

titleOCR character

accuracycorrected accuracy

PRP Pacific Rural Press 1871 - 1922 92.6% 99.3%

SFC San Francisco Call 1890 - 1913 92.6% 99.6%

LAH Los Angeles Herald 1873 - 1910 88.7% 99.1%

LH Livermore Herald 1877 - 1899 88.6% 99.9%

DAC Daily Alta California 1841 - 1891 88.2% 99.9%

CFJ California Farmer and Journalof Useful Sciences 1855 - 1880

86.5% 99.8%

SN Sausalito News 1885 - 1922 70.4% 100.0%

corrected accuracy by newspaper title

titleOCR character

accuracy~OCR word

accuracy*

corrected accuracy

~corrected word accuracy*

PRP 1871 - 1922 92.6% 68.1% 99.3% 96.5%

SFC 1890 - 1913 92.6% 68.1% 99.6% 98.0%

LAH 1873 - 1910 88.7% 54.9% 99.1% 95.6%

LH 1877 - 1899 88.6% 54.6% 99.9% 99.5%

DAC 1841 - 1891 88.2% 53.4% 99.9% 99.5%

CF 1855 - 1880 86.5% 48.4% 98.3% 91.8%

SN 1885 - 1922 70.4% 17.3% 100.0% 100.0%

*Word accuracy assumes average word length is 5 characters

correction accuracyby user

user average OCR accuracy correction accuracy

A 70.4% 100.0%

B 87.1% 99.5%

C 95.4% 99.5%

D 86.5% 98.3%

E 95.3% 100.0%

F 91.0% 100.0%

G 91.0% 99.8%

H 90.5% 99.0%

I 96.6% 99.8%

J 94.8% 100.0%

K 86.8% 99.3%

How does low text accuracy affect search recall?

The Facts

• Average uncorrected OCR character accuracy of the CDNC sample data is ~89%

• Average length of an English word is 5 characters

• Average word accuracy is 89% x 89% x 89% x 89% x 89% = 55.8% - round up to 60% or 6 out of 10 words correct

Accuracy

ARNDT

ARNDTARNDT

ARNDT ARNDT

ARNDT

Search recall no text correction

instances of “ARNDT” found instances of “ARNDT” not found

Accuracy

The Facts

• Average corrected character accuracy of the CDNC sample data is ~99.4%

• Average word accuracy of CDNC corrected text is 99.4% x 99.4% x 99.4% x 99.4% x 99.4% = 97.0%

ARNDT

ARNDTARNDT

ARNDT ARNDT

ARNDT

ARNDT

ARNDT

ARNDT

AR

ND

T

instances of “ARNDT” found instances of “ARNDT” not found

Search recall with text correction

A search for “Arndt” at Chronicling America gives 10,267 results*

• If Chronicling America text accuracy is 55.8% (same as uncorrected CDNC sample), then 8,133 instances of “Arndt” were not found

• If text accuracy is 97.0%, then 317 instances of “Arndt” were not found

Accuracy

* Search performed 31 Oct 2012

Accuracy

Suppose the word/name is longer than 5 characters?

The Facts

• Assume that average uncorrected / corrected OCR character accuracy is ~89% / ~99% same as CDNC.

name name length raw text accuracy corrected text accuracy

Eklund 6 49.7% 94.2%

Kennedy 7 44.2% 93.25

Espinosa 8 39.4% 92.3%

Bonaparte 9 35% 91.4%

Chatterjee 10 31.2% 90.4%

Accuracy

namenumber of search

resultsmissing results with raw

text accuracymissing results with corrected

text accuracy

Eklund 2,951 2,987 182

Kennedy 360,723 455,392 26,111

Espinosa 1,918 2,950 160

Bonaparte 44,664 82,947 4,203

Chatterjee 19 42 2

Chronicling America searches done 19-Mar-2013 (6,025,474 pages from 1836 to 1922).

user lines corrected*

1 646,873

2 236,323

3 111,749

4 100,749

5 99,999

6 87,720

7 82,768

8 63,786

9 57,441

10 56,458

lines corrected* user

2,455,338 1

1,822,422 2

1,448,370 3

1,265,217 4

1,174,835 5

1,069,669 6

1,058,179 7

1,020,462 8

949,694 9

886,315 10

*numbers from Mar 2014

user lines corrected Mar 2014

1 646,873

2 236,323

3 111,749

4 100,749

5 99,999

6 87,720

7 82,768

8 63,786

9 57,441

10 56,458

lines corrected Oct 2012

242,965

87,515

31,318

24,144

23,184

19,240

18,898

16,875

11,784

9,762

• “I enjoy the correction ‐ it’s a great way to learn more about past history and things of interest whilst doing a ‘service to the community’ by correcting text for the benefit of others.”

• “I have recently retired from IT and thought that I could be of some assistance to the project. It benefits me and other people. It helps with family research.”

Rose Holley. Many Hands Make Light Work. National Library of Australia March 2009.

motivationTrove users’ report

“I am interested in all kinds of history. I have pursued genealogy as a hobby for many years. I correct text at CDNC because I see it

as a constructive way to contribute to a worthwhile project. Because I am interested in history, I enjoy it.”

Wesley, California

Personal communications with CDNC text correctors.

motivationCDNC users’ report

“I only correct the text on articles of local interest - nothing at state, national or international level, no advertisements, etc. The objective is to be able to help researchers to locate local people,

places, organizations and events using the on-line search at CDNC. I correct local news & gossip, personal items, real estate transactions, superior court proceedings, county and local board

of supervisors meetings, obituaries, birth notices, marriages, yachting news, etc.”

Ann, California

Personal communications with CDNC text correctors.

motivationCDNC users’ report

“I have always been interested in history, especially the development of the American West, and nothing brings it alive

better than newspapers of the time. I believe them to be an invaluable source of knowledge for us and future generations.”

David, United Kingdom

motivationCDNC users’ report

Personal communications with CDNC text correctors.

CDNC is an excellent source of information matching my personal interest in such topics as sea history, development of

shipbuilding, clippers and other ships etc. ... Unfortunately, the quality of text ... is rather poor I’m afraid. This is why I started

to do all corrections necessary for myself ... and to leave the corrected text for use of others. .... I am not doing this very

regularly as this is just my hobby and pleasure.

Jerzey, Poland

motivationCDNC users’ report

Personal communications with CDNC text correctors.

As an amateur historical researcher my time for research is very limited. Making time to travel to archives, libraries, and historical societies does not happen as often as I would like. The Cambridge

Public Library’s online newspaper collection has been an invaluable resource and it is fun. I am very grateful for all the help I have received over the years from so many research organizations.

Correcting text has several benefits. It makes it much more likely that I will find a story if I decide to search for it in the future. It is a way of

saying ‘thank you’ to the Cambridge Library for having such a great resource available and maybe I can make the next person’s research a

little easier. It is my own little historical preservation project.

Cambridge Historical Newspapers Text Corrector

motivationCambridge users’ report

Personal communications with Cambridge text correctors.

Hard-to-measure-but-shouldn’t-be-overlooked (HTMBSBO) benefits

Public domain photo “A useful instruction for young sailors from the Royal Hospital School,

Greenwich” from the National Maritime Museum.

“when someone transcribes a document, they are actually better fulfilling the mission of a cultural heritage

organization than someone who simply stops by to flip through the pages”

HTMBSBO benefit

Paraphrased from Trevor Owen’s blog

http://www.trevorowens.org/2012/03/crowdsourcing-cultural-heritage-the-

objectives-are-upside-down/ (accessed June 2013).

“in addition to increasing search accuracy or lowering the costs of document transcription, crowdsourcing is the

single greatest advancement in getting people using and interacting with library collections”

HTMBSBO benefit

Paraphrased from Trevor Owen’s blog

http://www.trevorowens.org/2012/03/crowdsourcing-cultural-heritage-the-

objectives-are-upside-down/ (accessed June 2013).

conclusions

Conclusion of the Sonata for piano #32, opus 111 by Ludwig van Beethoven

• newspaper digitization may be difficult but there are many, many examples of successful digitization programs. ask for help! and join the IFLA Newspapers Section!

• digital newspaper collections are the most used digital library collections

• benefits to crowdsourced text correction and tagging are multi-faceted: data accuracy, patron engagement, increased web traffic

• know your user community!!

• Library of Congress National Digital Newspaper Program http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/

• Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program http://www.nla.gov.au/content/newspaper-digitisation-program

• IFLA Newspapers Section Digitisation projects and best practices http://www.ifla.org/node/6777

• ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers http://icon.crl.edu/digitization.htm

Wikipedia contributors, "List of online newspaper archives," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_online_newspaper_archives (accessed March 17, 2013).

Become a member of the IFLA Newspapers Section! See

http://www.ifla.org/membership or ask me.

Frederick Zarndt, SecretaryIFLA Newspapers Section

frederick@frederickzarndt.com

Frederick ZarndtSecretary, IFLA Newspapers Section

frederick@frederickzarndt.com

Photo held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Original from

Courier-mail, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.