National Provision of Newspapers: A Brief Survey

Abstract

The output of newspapers worldwide is huge. Problems of collection and availability, and in particular preservation, confront libraries of all kinds, particularly national libraries, since newspapers are usually printed on poor quality paper. Transfer to another medium has to occur before the original is lost; and microfilm has been seen as the preferred method of accomplishing this. According to a survey carried out by IFLA in 1996, 32 countries have a separate catalogue for newspapers and a further 15 countries with national libraries cite newspapers within a general catalogue. There are many examples of cooperative activities both within and between countries, resulting among other things in the creation of union catalogues. A Working Group of the International Coalition on Newspapers (ICON) is working on a Database of International Newspapers. This will be a web-accessible database of the titles and holdings of participants in the Center for Research Libraries in the USA, together with holdings information from ICON participants. The ICON Preservation Project will identify and microfilm newspapers from outside the US that have not yet been microfilmed. Commercial companies are increasingly interested in investing in scanning older newspapers, creating digital files which can be searched.