Should Newspaper Preservation be a Lottery

Abstract

The NEWSPLAN project aims to microfilm and make more accessible thousands of fragile local and regional newspapers in UK libraries and is the first major preservation award made to libraries by the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The grant of five million pounds was made towards a nationally co-ordinated preservation microfilming programme. Questions why this project should have been successful compared with others and whether the chosen micrographic technology is the right one, compared with digital alternatives that may soon be available. Questions also whether the parochial contents of local and regional newspapers warrant the cost of preservation, compared with other categories of literature. Concludes that the strength of NEWSPLAN lies in the involvement of a consortium of different groups rather than an individual institution. Justifies the use of microfilm on grounds of the urgency of the preservation problem, which necessitates some immediate action before more titles are lost forever; and the inadequacies of existing OCR technology to cope with the poor printing quality found in local newspapers. Local newspapers provide a detailed record of the changing social patterns of community and national life, are important for genealogical studies and are an intrinsic record of the development of the UK press. As such, they are suitable candidates for preservation.