The document discusses the initiative to digitize Welsh newspapers, emphasizing free access and the preservation of cultural heritage. It outlines the project's scope, including over 6.8 million articles and the integration of resources for community and academic use. Future steps include enhancing metadata, community engagement, and using the resources in educational contexts.

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Ymchwil
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Welsh Newspaper Online
Prof Lorna Hughes
University of Wales Chair in Digital
Collections
National Library of Wales
‘Enabling Access to Digitised Historic Newspapers’
British Library, June 9th 2014

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Digital Collections and the National Library of Wales
• Digitisation supports:
• Access toWelsh and Celtic
materials by global audience
• Preservation
• Collections enhancement and
reunification
• Transformation of scholarship
• Community engagement
• A cohesive, national collection
• Underlying principle: free
access to digital content
• www.llgc.org.uk

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The National Digital Public Library of Wales
• A cohesive, national collection that is freely available to all
• Based on internal expertise/capacity in the entire digital lifecycle: selection,
conservation, capture, management and preservation
• Copyright and other intellectual property rights cleared as a managed part
of digitisation process:
– Where material is on deposit and/or the current rights holders are
known, permission is requested: where declined, materials are not used;
when current rights holder is unknown, reasonable efforts are made to
identify and/or contact the rights holder.
• Digitised resources licensed for re-use and re-purposing under an open
license (BY-NC-SA):Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
Sharealike license
• Free access is key to realising the potential community, social, research and
economic benefits of digitised resources

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Papurau Newydd Cymru Arlein | Welsh Newspapers online
http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk #PAPUR

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NLW Newspaper archive

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Conservation: part of digitisation workflow at
NLW

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Welsh Newspapers online
• 6.8 million articles, 630,000 pages, 92 publications and growing.
• Already funded – over 1 million pages online by Autumn 2014 (funded
by WAG, ERDF, JISC).
• Coverage: 1804 (The Cambrian, first weekly in Wales) – 1919.
• Wales, Borders and Welsh diaspora (USA).
• English and Welsh language content (approx. 30%Welsh).
• Out of Beta Autumn 2014.
• Free (+ open license).
• Europeana Newspapers (Associate Partner, sharing metadata).
• User engagement and analysis – built into planning and ongoing
development.
http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk #PAPUR

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Quntinshill rail disaster, Cambrian Daily Leader,
May 26th, 1915
http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk #PAPUR

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Quintinshill rail disaster, Y Dydd, May 28th,
1915
http://welshnewspapers.llgc.org.uk #PAPUR

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Next steps for Welsh Newspapers Online
• Big project vision to build inclusive virtual national collection for
Wales – integrated with other repositories ofWelsh content.
• Share content - Europeana?Wikipedia?
• Add value - enrich metadata, user tagging, text correction, LOD,
expose graphic content, geo-location.
• Discovery –new platforms for new devices.
• Embedding: new projects using the resource in research – data
mining, historical network analysis; teaching – support use in
curriculum.

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Using Welsh Newspapers Online in teaching:
Wales atWar
http://walesatwar.org

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Cymru 1900 / Wales 1900
Developing a a gazetteer ofWelsh place names from OS 6 inch maps
using Zooniverse platform – launchedOctober 2013
Crowdsourcing
Sourcing tasks traditionally
performed by specific individuals
to a group of people or
community (crowd) through an
open call: e.g., to help capture,
systematize or analyse large
amounts of data (“citizen
science”)
cymru1900wales.org
@cymru1900wales

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Using Welsh Newspapers Online data with
digital tools and methods for research
• Approaches to data
mining one million pages
of Welsh Newspapers
Online
• Enabling the large-scale
analysis of spatial and
temporal data
• Also investigating
Historical Network
Analysis of data

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The power of archives in the digital age
• “Most people look at history like a performance on a stage.
They don’t look behind the curtains to see what is really
happening. Museums and libraries are windows onto the
truth.”
• Sun Xun, 29/11 2013, NewYorkTimes