1. digital collections:
if you build them,
will they visit?

2. this presentation focuses on digital historical
newspaper collections. why? because they
are typically the most-used collections in
libraries with digital text collections.
Library
Digital collection
% of all website
traffic
National Library of Australia
Trove
77%
National Library of New Zealand
Papers Past
50%
National Library of the Netherlands
Historische Kranten
26%
Bibliotheque nationcale de France
Gallica
57%

3. we expect that the results shown
in this presentation apply to other
text-based collections too
(but we don’t prove it).

5. digital historic newspaper collections
library
collection
~size pages
dates
National Library of Australia
Trove
9,880,000
1803-1994
California Digital Newspaper
Collection
CDNC
540,000
1846-2012
Naitonal Library of Finland
Historical Newspaper Library
2,000,000
1771-1919
Bibliotheque nationale de France
Gallica
2,200,000
1814-1944
Koninklijke Bibliotheek
Historische Kranten
5,000,000
1618-1995
National Library of New Zealand
Papers Past
2,960,000
1839-1945
National Library of Norway
NBDigital Aviser
12,000,000
1763-2012
Singapore National Library
Newspaper SG
2,400,000
1831-2009
British Library
British Newspaper Archive
6,912,000
1710-1965
Library of Congress
Chronicling America
6,025,000
1836-1922
As of Apr 2012 As of Jun 2013

6. traffic rankings and search results
show that content in library
digital newspaper collections
dwells in Internet obscurity
Frederick Zarndt, Apr 2012 IFLA International Newspapers Conference, Bibliotheque
nationale de France, Paris. http://bit.ly/bnfnewspapers

7. how do we know this?

8. Gallipoli Campaign
April 1915 to January 1916
aka
Battle of Gallipoli
Dardanelles Campaign
Battle of Çanakkale

9. search phrase
(battle OR campaign)
AND
(Gallipoli OR Dardenelles OR Çanakkale)
date range 1-Jan-1915 to 31-Dec-1916
(modified as needed for local search engines)

10. using this search phrase we first
search the collection with the
library’s own search engine...

11. search results
collection
collection URL
Trove
http://trove.nla.gov.au
CDNC
http://cdnc.ucr.edu
~size pages number of results
9,880,000
540,000
Historical Newspaper Library http://www.nationallibrary.fi/
16,321 articles
3 articles
2,000,000
333 results
Gallica
http://gallica.bnf.fr
2,200,000
222 results
Historische Kranten
http://kranten.kb.nl
5,000,000
34,399 articles
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
2,960,000
7,084 articles
http://www.nb.no/aviser/
12,000,000
539 articles
http://newspapers.nl.sg
2,400,000
294 articles
http://britishnewspaperarchive.com
6,912,000
1857 articles
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
6,025,000
104,503 hits
Papers Past
NBDigital Aviser
Newspaper SG
British Newspaper Archive
Chronicling America
Results from Apr 2012 Results from Jun 2013

12. now we search with the same
phrase using Google...

13. search phrase
http://www.google.com/
(battle OR campaign)
AND
(Gallipoli OR Dardenelles OR Çanakkale)
http://www.google.co.uk/
http://www.google.com.au/
http://www.google.co.nz/
http://www.google.com.sg/
Google advanced search no longer allows specific date ranges

14. #18

15. #41

16. #96

17. IN 1st 100 GOOGLE SEARCH
RESULTS, NOT A SINGLE RESULT
FROM LIBRARY HISTORICAL
DIGITAL NEWSPAPER
COLLECTIONS!

18. maybe the search should be
focused on news?

19. search phrase
http://news.google.com/
(battle OR campaign)
AND
(Gallipoli OR Dardenelles OR Çanakkale)
http://news.google.co.uk/
http://news.google.com.au/
http://news.google.co.nz/
http://news.google.com.sg/
date range 1-Jan-1915 to 31-Dec-1916
http://news.google.no/
http://news.google.nl/
http://news.google.fr/
Google News advanced search does still allow specific date ranges

20. Google News Search
1st results page

22. IN 1st 100 GOOGLE NEWS
SEARCH RESULTS, NOT A
SINGLE RESULT FROM LIBRARY
HISTORICAL DIGITAL
NEWSPAPER COLLECTIONS!

23. the reason for poor search
results is not because
collections are inaccessible to
web crawlers or indexing
services

24. indexes ONLY digital historical newspaper
collections that are free and publicly available.
so far all indexed collections are from
libraries.

26. search results
10,620 results

27. ? ?¿
?
?¿ ?
why?

28. if I look at the results of ... digitization
projects, I find the shittiest websites on the
planet. it’s like a gallery spent all its money
buying art and then just stuck the paintings
in supermarket bags and leaned them against
the wall.
Nat Torkington, Nov 2011 address to the National and State Librarians of Australasia, Auckland.
http://nathan.torkington.com/blog/2011/11/23/libraries-where-it-all-went-wrong/

29. how can libraries market their
text collections effectively?

30. use / collaborate / publicize in the
(local) media, especially newspapers
involve the collection users
from the start

31. a simple SEO strategy to improve
collection search visibility
+
robots.txt says to web crawlers
“don’t index this”
sitemaps say to web crawlers
“do index this”
More about robots.txt at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots.txt
More about sitemaps at http://www.sitemaps.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitemaps

32. what difference do robots.txt and
sitemap files make?

33. we look at before and after analytics
• Cambridge Public Library, a small public library in
Massachusetts (http://cambridge.dlconsulting.com)
• Vassar College, a liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie
New York (http://newspaperarchives.vassar.edu)
• California Digital Newspapers Collection, a National
Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) awardee
(http://cdnc.ucr.edu)

34. Cambridge Public Library Historic Newspapers
_____
______

35. Cambridge Public Library Historic Newspapers

36. Cambridge Public Library Historic Newspapers
organic search traffic before and after website SEO
upgrade

37. Vassar Newspaper Archives

38. Vassar Newspaper Archives visit duration

39. California Digital Newspaper Collection
_____ _____
_____
indexed
crawled
blocked

40. California Digital Newspaper Collection

41. California Digital Newspaper Collection
Visit duration
Jul 12, 2013 to Oct 12, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 to Jul 11, 2013

42. California Digital Newspaper Collection
Jul 12, 2013 to Oct 12, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 to Jul 11, 2013

43. the conclusion
libraries spend a lot on digital content and
far too little on publicity, presentation,
and search engine optimization (SEO)

44. ?
Frederick Zarndt
IFLA Newspapers Section
frederick@frederickzarndt.com
Alyssa Pacy
Cambridge Public Library
apacy@cambridgema.gov
Meredith Palmer
DL Consulting
meredith@dlconsulting.com
Brian Geiger
California Digital Newspaper
Collection
bgeiger@ucr.edu
Joanna DiPasquale
Vassar College Libraries
jdipasquale@vassar.edu
Robert Stauffer
Hoʻolaupaʻi Hawaiian Nūpepa
Collection
bob@stauffer.com