Selecting Newspaper Titles for Digitization at the Digital Library of Georgia

Abstract

Newspapers have been a significant target for digitization over the last decade, and libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions must decide how best to utilize their limited funds to digitize a select number of newspaper titles for public consumption. This case study examines the Digital Library of Georgia's newspaper digitization selection process and how it incorporates national standards with its own project-specific criteria. The article includes a discussion of the roles played by user demand, content significance, funding, copyright, optical character recognition, and microfilm holdings in the decision making process, with the ultimate goal of creating highly used, well-regarded, and cost effective online newspaper archives.