COLLECTIONS DEVELOPMENT AND PRESERVATION OF NEWSPAPERS AT THE

							COLLECTIONS DEVELOPMENT AND
PRESERVATION OF NEWSPAPERS AT THE
BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE :
STRATEGIC OPTIONS AND FEASIBILITY


Pascal SANZ
Head, Law, Economics and Politics Department,
Bibliothèque nationale de France




                                    LIBER Conference
                                           July 2008
    the Newspapers Collection at the
    Bibliothèque Nationale de France

   Historical newspapers : more than 100 000 titles ;
   Current newspapers : 873 titles ;
   Titles and holdings catalogued in the BN-Opale Plus
   Access :
       in the Research Library : newspapers in paper format or on
        microfilm in all reading rooms (representing 10% of access)
       in the Reference Library : a special reading room including a
        selection of 180 current weekly and daily French and foreign
        newspapers + access to a selection of French current
        newspapers on microfilm
       Remote access : digitized national newspapers (historical
        newspapers prior to 1938)


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    the Newspapers Collection at the
    Bibliothèque Nationale de France (2)

   Newspapers are kept by all Collection Departments
   The major part of the Newspapers Collection is kept by
    the Law, Economics and Politics Department :
       a newspapers office with a staff of 38 members
       more than 40 linear km of holdings stored in one of the library’s
        towers and in the basement stacks (in whole BnF more than 50
        km)
       Original paper format holdings of reproduced newspapers stored
        in the Bussy-Saint-Georges Technical Centre (30 km East of
        Paris), in high density shelf spaces


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Preservation and Access Policy of
Newspapers at the BNF : 4 main lines

   Collecting
   Safeguarding
   Sharing
   Developing




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Collecting
   Major source of collection
   development : Legal Deposit
     legaldeposit of printed newspapers: more than 7 500
      issues arrive every month
   A selection policy of expensive acquisitions
     subscriptions of newspapers in paper format
     purchase of newspapers on microfilm
     electronic newspapers listed in databases
   Few exchanges and donations


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Safeguarding

   Processing or reprocessing of the items
   Deacidification
   Restoration
   Reproduction :
-   Microfilming
-   Digitizing



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 Safeguarding (2). Traditional physical
 processing : vast requirements, small
 quantities of processed items

 Processing or reprocessing : wrapping,
  boxing (acid free cardboard or alveolar
  polypropylene) ; reinforced envelopes…
 Deacidification : priority of historical
  regional dailies
 Restoration : priority of items in sheets


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Safeguarding (3). Microfilming
   Preservation policy through microfilming since 1958, speeded up
    from 1980 on (Bibliothèque nationale’s safeguarding plan)
   2 priority lines :
        Regional daily newspapers: contract with a provider and direct
         acquisition from newspaper publishers themselves

        Newspapers from the former French territories and colonies : setting up
         of corpus (at present 67 corpus are running) ; contract with a provider
         and microfilming on site
   Selective immediate replies taken over to readers’ requirements
    (named “readers’ urgency”)
   Annual rhythm : 5OO titles per year
   At present, on the whole more than 8 000 titles have been
    microfilmed, that means 116 000 reels



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Safeguarding (4). Digitization

   The extension of requirements and the
    developing of digital technologies have induced
    the BnF to modify its safeguarding policy of
    newspapers :
     whilstmicrofilming is continuing temporarily
     a vast digitization project of national daily newspapers
      has been set up
     of which new extensions are in progress or
      announced

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Digitization (2). The Digitization
Project of National Daily Newspapers
   Conception and decision making : 2004
     Strategic decisions :
      Important titles required by researchers as well as by the general public
      Already preserved on silverhalid microfilm in order to improve access
        possibilities
      Priority of running newspapers, looking for agreements with their
        publishers
   Carrying out of the project : 2005-2010
   Budget: 3,5 M €
   31 titles from the first published issue up to 1944 :
        originally 21 titles + 6 supplements, later 4 additions
        in the end, 3.5 million pages




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    the Digitization Project of National
    Daily Newspapers (2)
         List of selected titles :
                                                  Le Gaulois (+ weekly supplement)
                                                  Le Rappel
   La Croix
                                                  La Lanterne (+ weekly supplement)
   Le Temps
                                                  Gil Blas (+ weekly supplement)
   Le Figaro (+ literary supplements)
                                                  La Justice
   L’Humanité
                                                  L’Intransigeant
   Le Petit parisien (+ weekly
    supplement)                                   L’Aurore
   Le Matin                                      Le Constitutionnel
   Le Siècle                                     L’Echo de Paris
   La Presse                                     Le Journal des débats
   Le Petit journal (+ weekly                    + 4 additions:
    supplement)                               -    Ouest-Éclair
   L’Action française                        -    Les Echos
   L’Univers                                 -    Le Monde diplomatique
                                              -    Le Canard enchaîné
                                  Liber, July 2008, P. Sanz                       11
    the Digitization Project of National
    Daily Newspapers (3)
Technical options :
   digitization from original newspapers
   3 lines of digitization : 2 on site, 1 off-site
   Text mode and image mode after OCR
    processing
   2 kinds of access :
      through the BN-Opale Plus catalogue
      directly within the digital library (Gallica, then
       Gallica 2)
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Direct access within Gallica


                                        Access by
                                        Research tab



                                        Direct access on
                                        home page




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Direct access within Gallica


                                        History of the
                                        titles




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     Direct access within Gallica



Access by
titles
                                             Selection of
                                             digitized
                                             documents on
                                             Newspapers
                                             history




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Direct access within Gallica


                                        Know more
                                        on XIXth
                                        century
                                        Newspapers ?




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Browsing « Le Temps »




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Browsing « Le Temps »




            10 juillet 1861



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Browsing « Le Temps »
      Zoom and access to text mode



                                                  Access by year



                                                      Access by day




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« Le Temps » in text mode




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Digitization of newspapers: already
some developments

   Trench papers of 1st World War (project in
    cooperation with other libraries in France and
    Germany)
   Underground papers from the French
    Resistance, 2nd World War
   Immigration newspapers
   Weekly newspapers (politics, literature, theatre,
    fashion…)

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    Digitization of newspapers: already
    some developments (2)

   A selection of newspapers from French speaking
    countries: towards the “Réseau francophone des
    bibliothèques nationales numériques” (RFBNN) :
    to start with Haïti, Mali and Tunisia
   A presentation of the common portal of digitized
    newspaper files to take place at the IFLA
    General Conference in Quebec in August 2008
   A few days ago, good news: an additional
    budget of 2 M € from the Centre national du livre
    (taxes upon reproduction devices)
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    Problematics: microfilming versus
    digitization

   Microfilming is continuing temporarily
   It concerns particularly a part of the corpus to
    safeguard
   Hybrid safeguarding (that means silverhalid film
    + digitization) is not on the agenda: decision
    making after accomplishing of an analysis
    corpus by corpus, even title by title
   At the end of the transition period (2 to 3 years
    or 4 to 5 years ?) the digitization will take over
    completely

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    Another new track : the Legal Deposit of
    electronic files
   Legal deposit of the Web :
       wide harvesting : all “.fr” and even more
       special collecting : 5000 URL of which 200 concern French newspapers
       special thematic collecting. Ex : elections, sustainable development
   Experimentation of voluntary electronic deposit of newspapers
       Ouest-France
       Le Populaire du Centre
       Le Journal officiel
   Technical difficulties
   Need of agreement among newspaper publishers on a
    common data format (if possible in cooperation with the BNF )

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    A new priority in any case: long-term
    archiving of digital data

   At the BNF: the setting up of the SPAR system
    in progress
   For the BNF itself and for other institutions (a
    “tiers archiveur” function)




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Sharing

   Shared preservation of newspapers (in paper
    format) in France :
      Regional distributed preservation projects and
       shared disposal of periodicals
      Shared preservation of regional daily
       newspapers
   Shared digitization



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Sharing (2). Shared preservation
(items in paper format)
   Aims :
       Space saving
       Heritage preservation need
       Economic conditions
       Improving of services
   Regional projects : in 15 regions, cooperation among
    various types of libraries
   Local newspapers : part of selected corpus almost
    everywhere
   A national project : distibuted preservation of the regional
    daily newspapers between the BNF and the libraries in
    charge of printers’ Legal Deposit

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Sharing (3). Shared digitization

   With other libraries and territorial authorities in
    France
     Digitization of more than 600 local newspapers in the
      regions : already accomplished or in progress
     The BNF is holding a permanent list of these projects
   With other national libraries in French speaking
    countries : the RFBNN project (mentionned
    above)
     1stcommon direction : digitizing and online setting of
      newspapers in French


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Developing

Technical and editorial improving in progress
  (Gallica 2) :

   A new visualizer of newspapers
   Setting up of personal work space (basket,
    annotation of pages)
   Improving of the historical and editorial
    introduction to the newspaper titles



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Developing (2)

   Improving newspapers bibliographic records
   Linking the titles to tools or items dealing with
    these newspapers
   Continuing publication and digitization of the
    “Bibliographie de la presse française politique et
    d’information générale” (BIPFPIG)
   Publish, end 2008, the “Guide des sources de
    l’histoire de la presse”

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Thank you for your attention

    pascal.sanz@bnf.fr




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