Alastair DunningEuropeana Newspapers

September 2013

Challenges and Solutions in Creating a European Historic

Newspapers Browser

Task $“...

Creation of a full-text index of newspaper content

Development of a newspaper content browser

… ”

Work Package 4 - Aggregation and presentation of digitized newspapers

The European Library is building an interface to allow cross-searching of historic newspapers digitised by project partners

Title-level metadata exported to Europeana.

In reality ...

Timetable

Sep 2013 - Beta version with limited content and functionality made available

2014 - Ongoing inclusion of more content and functionality

Spring 2014 - Usability testing I (subject to project funding)

Winter 2014 - Usability testing II (subject to project funding)

Jan 2015 - All scheduled content and functionality completed

Post-project - Interface sustained as part of The European Library

What content will be included ?

Full Images, Full Text, Metadata

Latvia, Belgrade, Hamburg, Berlin, Estonia, Finland, Netherlands *, Austria *

Snippets of Images, Full Text, Metadata

Frederich Tessman, France *, Poland

Complete Newspaper image can be shownEesti Potimees ehk Naddaleleht , 2 November 1866

(National Library of Estonia)

What content will be included ?

Full Images, Full Text, Metadata

Latvia, Belgrade, Hamburg, Berlin, Estonia, Finland, Netherlands *, Austria *

Snippets of Images, Full Text, Metadata

Frederich Tessman, France *, Poland

Fragment of Newspaper image can be shownDziennik Slaskui, 10 June 1915(National Library of Poland)

Just Metadata

Turkey(Partners with copyright issues)All Associate Partners (for now)

The available content in influenced by what restrictions in copyright and business model from each of the contributing libraries.

What content will be included ?

Just title level metadata can be shown:“Kleine Blatt, 15 November 1932”(National Library of Austria)

(Although can we have dark index of full text ?)

Creating a newspapers interface that ...

• Provides unique value to users• Reflects relationship to original

physical newspaper collections• Is sustainable• Offers contributors added value• Defines relationship to

Europeana• Respects library wishes

Users can cross-searchEuropean Newspapers

18m pages, 10m with full text

Users can see what was published on a particular day across Europe

Users can see information on individual newspapers

Provides unique value to users

Local historiansResearchersUndergraduatesGenealogistsTeachers and / school pupils‘Interested public’….

(According to the project Description of Work it is for the ‘researcher’)

But who are the users ?

Respects library wishes

The available content in influenced by what restrictions in copyright and business model from each of the contributing libraries.

●Location of digital image ●Size of image●Format of image

Reflects relationship to original physical newspaper collections

Not all issues in a newspaper title will be available to TEL, or even digitised

Documents hosted by TEL will be different quality than those

Contextual information vital to ensure user confidence

Embedded in The European Library (TEL) portal

TEL membership fees willhelp with ongoing costs

TEL members can add content to newspaper browser over time

Stable URLs

Is sustainable

Logos and links back to source of original content

But also evidence of usage of library content via TEL / what statistics are needed ?

Offers contributors added value

Interface will respond to usability testing

Harvesting of different material will affect interface

Changing requests from libraries

Uneven quality, especially in OCR will also affect interface

Is developed iteratively

First Iteration

Basic text searchFiltering of results by●date●country●newspaper●language●library

● OCR shown● Zoomable version of full

image ● Clickable links between

full text and image (sometimes)

● Link to newspaper source library (where we have been provided with links)

First Iteration

SecondIteration

● Fragments (where requested by library)

● See information on particular title

● See what was published on a particular day

● Search over titles (not just text)● Other browseable visualisations

of publication and library source

● Search / browse via entities

Newspapers from national libraries of Finland and Austria are available for searching (Sample search terms: Linz, Graz, Salzburg, Turku, Oulu, Tampere)

Testing the Site